Fishing Creek Confederacy
Benton, Columbia County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Alarmed about draft resistance, the federal government deployed 800 troops to the Fishing Creek Valley in August 1864 to suppress the opposition. Peace Democrats suspected of Confederate sympathies were questioned at the Christian church near this site; 44 were arrested and imprisoned at Ft. Mifflin without access to civil courts. While most supported the Union, they disagreed with Pres. Lincoln's wartime policies. In 1866, the US Supreme Court declared military arrest & trial of civilians unconstitutional.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In August 1864, rumors of draft resistance and Confederate sympathy in the Fishing Creek Valley brought 800 federal troops into this quiet corner of Columbia County. Peace Democrats — Northerners who backed the Union but opposed Lincoln's wartime policies — were interrogated near a church at this site, and 44 were arrested and jailed at Fort Mifflin without access to civil courts. Their ordeal fed a national debate that, in 1866, led the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that military trials of civilians were unconstitutional.
Why it matters
The "Fishing Creek Confederacy" episode dramatized the Civil War's collision between national security and civil liberties, a tension the Supreme Court addressed in a landmark defense of constitutional rights.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
By the summer of 1864, the Civil War had ground on for three long years, and the strain was showing across the North as sharply as on the battlefields. Casualty lists were staggering, the draft was deeply unpopular, and communities far from the front lines were fracturing over how the war should be fought and how far the government could go to win it.
The Fishing Creek Valley, in the quiet hills of Columbia County, Pennsylvania, was one such community. Rural, tight-knit, and politically divided, it was home to many Democrats who supported the Union but bitterly opposed President Lincoln's wartime measures — especially conscription and the suspension of certain civil liberties.
Rumor and suspicion did the rest. Reports of draft resistance and hidden Confederate sympathy in these hollows reached the federal government, and in a war grown desperate, suspicion alone could bring soldiers to a farming valley's doorstep.
People & events
In August 1864, the federal government responded to the alarm by deploying some 800 troops into the Fishing Creek Valley to suppress what it feared was organized opposition. For a rural corner of Pennsylvania, the arrival of that many soldiers was an overwhelming show of force.
Suspected Peace Democrats were brought to a Christian church near this site to be questioned. In the end, 44 men were arrested and imprisoned at Fort Mifflin, held without access to the civil courts. Most of them, by all accounts, were loyal to the Union — their offense was political disagreement, not treason. They opposed Lincoln's policies, not the nation itself.
The episode became known, with a touch of dark irony, as the "Fishing Creek Confederacy" — a name suggesting a rebel plot where the reality was a frightened government, uncertain rumors, and citizens swept up without trial. The men's ordeal did not stay a local grievance; it fed directly into one of the war era's great constitutional reckonings.
Its place in the American story
What happened at Fishing Creek dramatized a question that has haunted the United States in every wartime since: how far may a government go against its own citizens in the name of national security? Here, that abstract tension became flesh — neighbors arrested, held in a fort, denied the ordinary protections of law.
In 1866, in the landmark case Ex parte Milligan, the U.S. Supreme Court confronted the broader practice head-on and ruled that the military arrest and trial of civilians was unconstitutional where the civil courts remained open and functioning. It was a powerful affirmation that the Constitution does not simply fall silent in wartime.
That principle reached far beyond one Pennsylvania valley. The Fishing Creek episode and the decision it helped inform stand as an enduring reminder that civil liberties are tested most severely in moments of fear — and that a nation's commitment to constitutional rights is measured by how it treats the dissenter, not only the loyalist.
If you visit
This is a landscape that rewards a slow, thoughtful visit. The valley remains rural and peaceful, and part of its power is the contrast between that quiet and the drama the marker describes. Standing here, you can picture a column of hundreds of soldiers moving into these unhurried hills.
Look toward the site of the church where the questioning took place, and let the setting do its work. The story is not about a great battle but about ordinary people, a moment of fear, and a principle of law — and the ordinariness of the surroundings makes it land all the harder.
The marker fits naturally into a road trip through the small towns and back roads of Columbia County. Come with a little imagination and a respect for the complexity of the story: these were, by most accounts, Union people caught in the machinery of a desperate war, and their experience helped shape a lasting American principle.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related events
- · Fishing Creek Confederacy (1864)
- · Ex parte Milligan (1866)
Themes & tags
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