In 1863, brick and wooden homes lined Frederick Street from Center Square to the Winebrenner Tannery and the Karl Forney Farm, whose residence stood directly here amid farmland largely owned by Karl Forney and his son. As the initial attack by the 13th Virginia and 2nd North Carolina Cavalry Regiments gained momentum, Confederate cavalry charged along Frederick Road and through the Forney fields. Fleeing Union rear guard troops reached members of the 18th Pennsylvania Cavalry Regiment on Frederick Road, and pursuing Confederate cavalry then plunged into the midst of the Union Pennsylvania column. The clash triggered a chain reaction that pushed Union cavalry back through town and north to the railroad tracks on Abbottstown Road, until Union counterattacks drove the Confederates back to high ground southwest of Hanover. By the time the counterattack on the 5th New York Cavalry Regiment reached this area, the center of Hanover was again under Union control, but gunfire from Confederate reinforcements soon halted the New Yorkers' advance along Frederick Street. In this confused fighting, cavalrymen from New York and Pennsylvania battled face-to-face with those from North Carolina and Virginia in streets, alleys, and surrounding fields, where unit cohesion broke down into hand-to-hand melees. The arrival of Union Gen. Elon J. Farnsworth with elements of the 1st West Virginia and 1st Vermont Cavalry Regiments tipped the balance to the Union, and another Union charge drove the Confederates back along the road and through the fields. During this surge, Private Thomas Burke of the 5th New York Cavalry captured the colors of the 13th Virginia Cavalry Regiment, two companies of the 1st Vermont Cavalry captured about twenty prisoners from the worn-out 13th Virginia and 2nd North Carolina Cavalry Regiments, and both an unidentified private of the 1st Vermont and Private Abram Folger of the 5th New York claimed to have captured Lt. Col. Payne of the 2nd North Carolina, whose horse had fallen into an old tan vat. Karl Forney, following his father Marks Forney in farming, owned much of this land; Marks Forney had freed all of his family's slaves years earlier, and some settled near Mudtown, including Old Uncle Sam, a free man who became the last former York County slave to die in 1840.

Photo: Courtesy Guthrie Memorial Library

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Pennville, Pennsylvania · USA