Pennsylvania is rich with Civil War history.

But it's not the Battle of Hanover that comes to most people's minds when Pennsylvania and the Civil War are mentioned.

So in September 2005, state first lady Marjorie Rendell sponsored a project called "The Pennsylvania Civil War Trail: A Prelude to Gettysburg."

The trail is similar to Civil War heritage trails in Virginia and Maryland, where each state has sponsored historic signs and special events in former battleground communities.

The Maryland trail ends at the Mason-Dixon Line, and state officials – including Rendell, the state Department of Tourism and the state Department of Community and Economic Development – have started a Pennsylvania trail where the Maryland trail ends.

The trail presents the soldiers' journey through Pennsylvania, stories about the women and children who suffered through the war, and African-American contributions to the war.

"As we focus on Gettysburg, the battle that saved our nation, it is important that we equally respect those parallel events that often go unmentioned," Rendell wrote in a letter to community and state leaders who attended a special working session about the trail last September.

The Pennsylvania trail will feature Hanover, York, Gettysburg, Chambersburg, Carlisle, Harrisburg and Wrightsville, and the events that led up to the Battle of Gettysburg.

Though Gettysburg is noted in most history books as the turning point of the Civil War, little attention is given to the Battle of Hanover.

On June 30, 1863, Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick's Union troops clashed with Confederate troops lead by Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart.

The Battle of Hanover kept Stuart for a day, delaying his arrival in Gettysburg until the end of the second day of that battle.

Melissa Speal, marketing/public relations director for the Hanover Area Chamber of Commerce, said Hanover was approached by the state for inclusion in the trail project last year.

"They wanted us to tell the story of the Civil War, what lead up to it and what happened after it," Speal said.

Hanover is hosting a Living History Weekend from Aug. 18 to 20 at Good Field. Hanover is the stop on the trail project.

The event will be kicked off with an invitation-only welcome ceremony Friday.

Other events will include battle re-enactments, cannon and cavalry displays, tours, demonstrations, lectures, a Civil War-style dance and a church service.

"The focus is to tell the story of the battle itself and what happened in the streets that day," Speal said. "We are trying to give a community perspective to it. It's not just about the battle itself, but a look deeper into what happened in Hanover."

Speal said the community is brought into the discovery weekend through camp tours, the Civil War ball and medical demonstrations.

Speal said the chamber, in conjunction with Hanover Hospital, has been working on the Living History weekend since last September, when the initiative came out.

Hanover Hospital hosted the Battle of Hanover re-enactment last year. So the Chamber decided to join forces with the hospital to make this year "bigger and better," Speal said.

Once Hanover's portion of the trail is complete, Speal said, all seven communities will get together with state representatives to discuss how the initiative worked, whether to continue it next year and how to improve on it.

On the cavalry's trail in Hanover Pennsylvania

Whoever saw a dead cavalryman?" goes the familiar taunt of the Union infantry of the Army of the Potomac.

But the cavalry played a key – and sometimes sanguine role – in the Gettysburg campaign. A tour of the area's lesser known battlefields – from Hanover to Fairfield – can offer new insight into what really happened in the largest, bloodiest battle of the Civil War.

The role of the Confederate cavalry at Gettysburg remains steeped in controversy. For reasons still debated, Gen. Robert E. Lee's dashing cavalry commander, J.E.B. Stuart, rode behind the Union army in the days leading up to the battle, putting him out of communication with Lee.

As a result, Lee lacked what he called "the eyes of his army," – cavalry to reconnoiter the enemy's positions – and had to fight at Gettysburg ignorant of the Union forces he faced.

So the story of the battle begins before July 1, the first day of fighting at Gettysburg. This tour begins the day before, June 30, 1863, at Hanover, where the cavalrymen first clashed on northern soil.

Chance encounter at Hanover

Though Gettysburg is noted in most history books as the turning point of the Civil War, little attention is given to Hanover, where 300 cavalrymen were killed, wounded or captured in four hours of sometimes fierce fighting.

It was here Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart commanded a 4,000-man cavalry force that attacked a similar number of Union cavalrymen and light artillery commanded by Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick.

The first battle north of the Mason-Dixon line began when Kilpatrick's cavalry division marched from Littlestown through Hanover the morning of June 30, 1863.

Stuart learned the Union forces had camped at Littlestown, while his forces had spent the evening of June 29 seven miles away in Union Mills, Md. He wanted to avoid contact with Kilpatrick.

Kilpatrick reached Hanover around 8 a.m. By 10 a.m., the head of the column had reached Abbottstown and was turning right on what is now Route 30 toward York. The 18th Pennsylvania Regiment, bringing up the rear, was in Pennville, near Westminster Avenue and Frederick Street.

Kilpatrick had no idea the Rebels were close by.

Pickets for both sides ran into each other south and west of town, giving away each other's positions.

The fighting started around 10 a.m. when the 13th Virginia and 2nd North Carolina charged down Westminster Avenue and attacked the 18th Pennsylvania.

The battle moved up Frederick Street to Center Square and out Broadway to the current location of the railroad tracks. For a short while, Confederate forces held Hanover.

But the Union troops, led by the 5th New York, launched a counterattack, driving the Confederates back out Frederick Street.

Larry Wallace, a licensed battlefield guide and Battle of Hanover expert, said the fighting had to have been sharp and confusing.

"Cavalry fighting in town is different than in an open field," he said. "In town, you can't keep the forces together, and it starts branching off to a lot of the side streets and fields. Fighting goes any imaginable place."

Both sides took up positions on the high ground outside town: The Union along what is now 4th Street, Stock Street and Highland Avenue; the Confederates along what is now Homewood at Plum Creek, South Hills Golf Course off Cooper Road and Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Cannons boomed from both directions, with shells hitting several homes in town. There were no initial reports of civilian casualties, though a woman years after the battle claimed she had been shot in the foot.

During the cannonading, Kilpatrick ordered Custer and two of his brigades from Michigan to attack the Confederates from the west side of town.

Dismounted, Custer's men twice attacked the Rebel positions south of Frederick Street using seven-shot repeating rifles were first used during the Civil War.

Around 2 p.m. Stuart gave up the fight and directed his troops down Baltimore Street to what is now Fuhrman Mill Road before turning toward Jefferson.

By the end of the fight, about 300 men were killed, wounded or captured. Townspeople cared for some in their homes. Eventually, four hospitals were set up in town for the wounded.

The engagement in Hanover kept Stuart busy for a day, delaying his arrival in Gettysburg until the second day of that battle.

Some credit Hanover, others say Stuart's 140 captured Union supply wagons were what really slowed his progress.

"The matter of fact is, the Battle of Hanover delayed Stuart for several hours," said Bill Hewitt, a retired lieutenant colonel, veteran and volunteer at the Gettysburg National Military Park. "That's one little domino. The wagon train is another.

"You can't say that one little domino did it."

Tour Stop 1: Begin your tour at Hanover's Center Square. Last year, the borough installed 18 wayside markers outlining the highlights of the battle. A brochure and map of the waysides is available at the Hanover Area Chamber of Commerce, 146 Carlisle St., a block from the square. (Phone (717) 637-6130)

Custer at Hunterstown

Like most battles, exactly what happened at Hunterstown is surrounded with controversy.

This much is certain: Twenty-three year old George Amstrong Custer led a seemingly suicidal charge of a few dozen men down the Hunterstown Road against an enemy who was behind cover and outnumbered him.

Hemmed in by the fences on either side of the road, the troopers could only charge four abreast, a perfect target for the Rebels lined up at the Gilbert farm on the ridge to the south.

Dressed, as one of his men said, like a "circus rider gone mad," and flashing his saber made of Toledo steel, the Boy General had his horse shot from under him and narrowly escaped death or capture when one of his men hoisted him onto his own horse. The Union troopers scurried back to the Felty farm less than a mile away.

Some historians see at Hunterstown the reckless bravery that would eventually get Custer killed at the Little Big Horn.

But National Park Service ranger-historian Troy Harman sees the battle a little differently. It was here that Custer earned his general's spurs, Harman believes.

It was the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg and the Union forces were worried about an attack on the right flank at Culp's Hill. The cavalry had been ordered to scout the area north of the hill in search of Confederate troops.

Rebel cavalry commanded by Gen. Wade Hampton had been spotted at Hunterstown, moving south, and it was Custer's job to find out what lay behind them.

Harman says Custer planned a careful trap.

He hid men in the barn and in the fields across the road. Behind the barn, out of sight of the Rebels, Union artillery unlimbered and got ready for the bloody work ahead.

Custer understood the impetuosity of cavalrymen; Harman says he knew if he attacked, the Rebel horsemen wouldn't be able to resist the challenge and would chase him back down the Hunterstown Road into an ambush.

He was right.

Confederate private Wiley C. Howard remembered what happened next:

"Our command had a thrilling experience and while charging a body of cavalry down a lane leading by a barn, ran into an ambuscade of men posted in the barn who dealt death and destruction upon us. Within five minutes some four or five officers were killed or wounded and about fifteen men were slain or wounded."

Casualties were fairly light – 22 Union cavalrymen, five officers and an unknown number of enlisted men on the Confederate side killed, wounded or missing.

But Harman says the battle was important because it kept the attention of both sides focused on the northern end of the battlefield when the crucial struggle was to the south, at Little Round Top and the Peach Orchard.

The cavalry action further delayed and weakened Confederate attacks on Culp's Hill. It also delayed the redeployment of Union cavalry to the south, leaving the Union left flank unprotected on July 2.

Harman likes to call Hunterstown, four miles north of Gettysburg, the "north cavalry field," following the pattern of the east and south cavalry fields. He sees the seemingly separate cavalry actions from Hanover to Fairfield as unified elements, part of the big picture of the Battle of Gettysburg.

"In all of these actions, Union cavalry buffered key Union positions in four directions of the compass," he wrote in a recent article. "Each site is equally essential to accurately portraying Gettysburg as the most famous battle for human freedom in American History."

Tour Stop 2: To reach the Hunterstown battlefield from Hanover, take Route 116 west to Granite Station Road (Pine Street) across Route 30 to Hunterstown. Make a left on Shrivers Corner Road and a quick left on Hunterstown Road. The Union positions were at the top of the ridge and the original Felty farmhouse still stands just to the south. (Granite Station Road is currently closed north of Route 30 for repairs. Drivers can take a left on Route 30, then a right on Hunterstown Road to reach the battlefield.)

'Come on, you Wolverines!'

The climactic cavalry battle of the Gettysburg campaign took place the afternoon of July 3, while just a few miles away the Confederates were trying to smash the center of the Union line at Gettysburg in what has become known as Pickett's Charge.

The battle at East Cavalry Field is also the source of one of the enduring myths at Gettysburg – that Gen. Robert E. Lee intended the cavalry attack in the Union rear to be part of a grand, coordinated assault to surround and destroy the Union army.

In the morning, when Stuart received his orders to support the attacks on the Union right and probe their rear, the Confederate plan was still to attack the Union on both flanks. By the time Lee's second plan of the day – Pickett's Charge on the center of the Union line – was conceived, Stuart was already on the march and had no idea of the last-minute change in strategy.

Still, if Stuart had succeeded in capturing the crossroads at the Hanover and Low Dutch roads, the Union position might have been in peril.

The tour of East Cavalry Field begins north of the crossroads at the Confederate artillery positions at the edge of Rummel's Woods.

South of this position, Stuart could see Union artillery being unlimbered near the vital crossroads and realized he'd been spotted. Under the cover of his artillery, Stuart ordered dismounted troopers to the Rummel farm to protect his force until he knew better what lay in front of him.

But the artillery had to be withdrawn after extraordinarily accurate fire from a Union artillery battery commanded by Custer's favorite gunner, Lt. Alexander Pennington, knocked out two Rebel cannons in just two shots.

At the end of the tour, be sure to stop at the monument to Pennington's battery to better appreciate the accomplishment of this largely unsung Civil War hero.

Fighting on foot, the cavalrymen of both sides dueled in the fields of the Rummel Farm with neither side gaining any advantage. Growing impatient, Stuart ordered a mounted charge.

But on the opposite side of the field was Custer, a cavalry leader every bit as aggressive, whose countercharges at the farm stymied Confederate efforts.

Time was running out for Stuart to redeem himself in Lee's eyes and he ordered a massive charge with all his forces, hoping to overrun the crossroads.

The accurate Union artillery tore huge holes in the advancing mass of gray horsemen.

Custer excitedly rode to the head of the 1st Michigan Cavalry, uttered his famous battle cry, "Come on, you Wolverines!" and led his men forward at the gallop to meet the Rebs.

In dramatic fashion usually seen only in Hollywood spectacles, the cavalrymen clashed in a swirling mass of steel, horseflesh and black powder.

Suddenly, a battalion of troopers from the 3rd Pennsylvania Cavalry appeared on the Confederate flank. The Union horsemen smashed into the Confederate rear, surrounding the Confederates on three sides.

Stuart had no choice but the withdraw his forces, leaving the crossroads to the battered Union troopers.

Tour Stop 3: To reach the East Cavalry Field from Hunterstown, continue south on the Hunterstown Road, then make a left on Route 30. Make a right at Cavalry Road, just east of Battlefield Harley. Follow the park road to the battlefield.

Behind Rebel lines

After Pickett's Charge on the center of the Union line July 3, Kilpatrick launched a charge against the southern end of the Confederate line. That charge was doomed to failure, but another, lesser known cavalry battle took place well behind Union lines.

East of the Emmitsburg Road, Gen. Wesley Merritt's brigade advanced on the western side of the pike. Though the open ground on the western side of the pike favored mounted troop operations, Merritt's troops brigade advanced on foot, making little headway against the Confederate positions.

But Merritt also sent his largest regiment, the 6th U.S. Cavalry on a mounted raid further behind Confederate lines after learning from a local resident that the Rebel wagon train was near Fairfield. About two miles north of Fairfield, on the Ortanna Road, the federals ran into the pickets of the 7th Virginia Cavalry, who they quickly dispersed. Forming a line of battle on a small ridge, the Union troopers repulsed an attack by the 7th.

The Confederates tried again, this time reinforced by the 6th and 11th Virginia. A battery of Rebel artillery unlimbered and began shelling the unfortunate Union troopers.

Then Maj. C.E. Flourney of the 6th Virginia addressed his regiment:

"The men that you will meet are worthy of your steel; it is the Sixth Regulars, the best regiment the Yanks have."

Just as the major finished his speech, the adjutant was killed in front of the regiment. But the Confederates now seriously outnumbered and outgunned the regulars, who began to give way.

Suffering heavy losses, the Union retreat quickly became a rout. The horsemen were chased through Fairfield, some as far as the Maryland border.

According to one regimental historian, "Although the Johnnies gained a victory through defeat, as their losses were almost four to every one of ours, and many the instances where our men fought with desperation until death, rather than surrender."

Actually, the 6th U.S. Cavalry losses were 6 killed and 28 wounded compared with 8 killed and 21 wounded in the 7th Virginia. The 6th Virginia lost about 25 men.

But the regulars also lost 208 unaccounted for in the chaotic retreat, more than half the total cavalry listed as missing during the entire three-day battle.

Some have claimed that had the Federals held Fairfield, they could have cut off Lee's retreat after Gettysburg. But the single regiment could have easily been brushed aside, and there weren't other Union troops to reinforce them in sufficient strength.

Still, the threat underlined the weakness of the Confederate right, where Lee had to keep troops that could have aided Pickett.

And despite their mixed showing on the Orrtanna Road, the veterans of the 6th received a hero's welcome from the citizens of Fairfield in 1888, when they returned to their old battle line.

"The event took place in the charming little village of Fairfield ... The hearty reception these old veterans received there, proved to each of them, how well the citizens of Fairfield appreciated their work of 25 years ago," the survivors' association proceedings record. "Ask a member of the Sixth U.S. Cavalry a question about Fairfield, and you will see his eyes gleam; he knows he gave his regiment and Fairfield a place in history, or which neither he nor the citizens of Fairfield, need be ashamed – that is the secret of his love for this beautiful valley."

A drum corps escorted the veterans to the center of town, where they were regaled with speeches and greetings.

A veteran of the 6th Virginia, E.H. Vaughn, praised his foes in blue.

"We defeated you, that is true, but harder fighting we never did, nor heavier losses suffered than on this field."

Tour Stop 4: To reach the Fairfield battle site from East Cavalry Field, take the Low Dutch Road to Route 116 and make a right. Continue west on 116 through Gettysburg (Middle Street in the borough). Make a right at Carrolls Tract Road at the outskirts of the borough. The battle markers are a little more than two miles up the road on the left.

Pa. Civil War Trails - Hanover Pennsylvania Information

Map of Hanover,Pa.

George Custer at Hanover Pennsylvania. History weekend to have event souvenir book The Evening Sun By ASHLEY ADAMS Evening Sun Reporter Nothing could complete a Civil War memorabilia collection like an autograph from President Lincoln. Or Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's signature – at least a re-enactment of it. Members of the public will be able to collect such re-enactor autographs, along with others, in the Civil War Memory Book being offered during the Living History Weekend from Aug. 18 to 20 at Good Field in Hanover. Bruce Yealy, an organizer of the event, said this is the first year for the Memory Book. It costs $1 and will be sold throughout the weekend. "This is something new and different in the re-enactment world," he said. The Memory Book contains about eight pictures of re-enactors portraying major roles, spaces for autographs, a schedule of events for the weekend, a brief synopsis of the Battle of Hanover, a list of doctors present at the battle, a history of medical expertise during the Civil War and advertisements from area businesses sponsoring the event. Hanover is hosting the event as the last leg of the "Prelude to Gettysburg: Civil War Trails" initiative through the Pennsylvania Department of Tourism. Hanover is one of seven communities participating. The event will be kicked off with an invitation-only welcome ceremony Aug. 18. Other events will include battle re-enactments, cannon and cavalry displays, tours, demonstrations, lectures, a Civil War-style dance and a church service. On June 30, 1863, Confederate Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart commanded a 4,000-man cavalry force that attacked about 6,000 Union cavalrymen and light artillery commanded by Brig. Gen. H. Judson Kilpatrick. The Battle of Hanover kept Stuart for a day, delaying his arrival in Gettysburg until the end of the second day of that battle.