In Hanover, Union cavalry leaders and soldiers including Major Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick, Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth, Gen. George A. Custer, Major John Hammond, Sergeant Selden Wales, and Private Thomas Burke became associated with courage and vigilance during fighting in and around the town. When he heard cannon fire while heading north on Abbottstown Pike, Kilpatrick raced back to rally his troops and barricade streets around the square. Farnsworth, newly promoted, raced south down Abbottstown Pike, reorganized soldiers, and routed the Confederate vanguard; his men nearly captured Gen. J.E.B. Stuart as they chased him to the Plum Creek tributary, where Stuart escaped by leaping the stream on his mare, Virginia. Reinforcing Farnsworth, Custer was daring and effective during his first full day as a promoted general and ultimately secured the nearby Littlestown-Frederick Road, now Frederick Street. After regrouping in the Commons, Major Hammond rallied four hundred men of the 5th New York Cavalry to recapture the downtown, where many fought in saber-to-saber combat. During the Union's first surge, Sergeant Selden Wales of Company A, 5th New York, led his company in a charge on Frederick Street and, when the counteroffensive stalled, tried to rally his men forward before being shot through the heart. South of town in this vicinity, Private Burke captured two prisoners and a Confederate battle flag and became the first Medal of Honor recipient for valor in a Civil War battle on free soil. In eighteen sixty-eight, future president Ulysses S. Grant praised Kilpatrick's conduct at Hanover and lauded the abilities of Custer and E.J. Farnsworth, while noting Farnsworth's death on the third day of the Battle of Gettysburg and Kilpatrick's later fame under Sheridan and in Sherman's march from Atlanta to the sea in eighteen sixty-four.

Photo: Cosmos Mariner

Photo: Anonymous

Photo: Anonymous

Photo: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Photo: Anonymous

Photo: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division

Photo: Courtesy New York Historical Society & Library of Congress American Memory

Photo: Cosmos Mariner

Pennville, Pennsylvania · USA