Gettysburg Campaign
Antrim Township, Franklin County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Over this route Confederate General R.S. Ewell's 2d Army Corps led Lee's invading forces on June 22, 1863. Next day Gen. Jubal Early, under Ewell's command, entered the state to the east, near Waynesboro.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the tense weeks before the guns opened at Gettysburg, Confederate columns poured north through the Cumberland Valley on their way to the largest battle ever fought on American soil. General Richard S. Ewell's Second Corps used this route in June 1863 to spearhead Lee's second invasion of the North, with Jubal Early's division peeling off toward Waynesboro. Within days these same forces would converge on a small crossroads town to the east, where three days of fighting decided the campaign.
Why it matters
The roads of southern Pennsylvania carried the high-water mark of the Confederacy, making quiet farm country a stage for the Union's turning-point victory.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early summer of 1863 the war came to Pennsylvania. For two years the great battles had been fought to the south, in Virginia and along the border rivers, but that June a Confederate army marched north through the wide, fertile Cumberland Valley. To the farmers of this corner of Franklin County, the war stopped being distant news and became columns of dusty soldiers moving up the very roads they used every day.
The valley was a natural highway. Sheltered by mountains and lined with prosperous farms, it offered an invading army both an easy route and a chance to feed itself off rich northern countryside instead of war-worn Virginia. That was part of the plan. Moving the fighting onto Union soil promised full haversacks, and it promised something larger: a chance to shake northern confidence and perhaps hasten an end to the war.
So this quiet farming township found itself on the path of history. The armies that would soon collide were still miles apart, but the direction of the whole campaign was already being set on roads like this one.
People & events
The men who came through belonged to the corps once led by the fallen Stonewall Jackson, now under Richard S. Ewell, and they formed the spearhead of Robert E. Lee's second invasion of the North. In late June 1863 Ewell's soldiers pressed up this route, leading the way for the army behind them. To watch them pass was to watch the leading edge of the entire campaign.
Under Ewell's command was Jubal Early, a hard, combative general whose division peeled off to the east near Waynesboro. Early's men would range deep into southern Pennsylvania in the days that followed, part of a broad Confederate sweep meant to gather supplies and threaten towns across the region.
These marches were not without a darker side. Lee had ordered his men to requisition supplies in an orderly way rather than simply loot, yet an invading army living off the land still meant seized livestock, emptied storehouses, and frightened civilians. For the people here, the campaign was measured not in strategy but in what disappeared from their barns and fields.
Its place in the American story
These unremarkable valley roads carried the Confederacy to its farthest reach. Within days the columns that used them would converge on a crossroads town to the east, and there, over three days, the tide of the war would turn against the South. Historians often call that moment the high-water mark of the Confederacy, and the water rose along routes like this one.
That is what makes this landscape matter. The decisive battle is famous, but battles do not happen in isolation. They are the end of long roads, and this was one of them. The invasion that ended in the Union's pivotal victory had to pass, first, through ground exactly like this.
There is a deeper American lesson here too. The war that decided whether the nation would remain whole, and whether slavery would end, reached into ordinary places and ordinary lives. Farm country became the stage for the republic's survival, and the people who lived here never chose that role but could not escape it.
If you visit
Stand here and the first thing to notice is how peaceful it is. That peace is the point. This is gentle, rolling farm country, and the challenge for a visitor is to imagine it filled with marching thousands, wagons, and the dust of an army on the move.
Look at the lay of the land and the run of the roads. The valley funnels travel north and south between the mountains, and once you see that, you understand why an army would choose this path. The geography that made good farming also made a natural invasion route.
As part of a wider journey through the Gettysburg countryside, a spot like this adds something the battlefield itself cannot. It reminds you that the campaign was a story of movement across a whole region before it was a story of one field. Give yourself a moment to picture the long gray columns coming up the road, bound for a place none of them yet knew would become the most famous name of the war.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Monterey Pass Battlefield Museum13.0 mi away
- Washington County Rural Heritage Museum15.0 mi away
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Related people
- · Robert E. Lee
- · Richard S. Ewell
- · Jubal Early
Related events
- · Gettysburg Campaign
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Captain Ulric Dahlgren
Greencastle, PA · est. 1954
On July 2, 1863, as the armies clashed just miles away at Gettysburg, young Union cavalry officer Ulric Dahlgren led a bold raid into the square at Greencastle and struck a larger body of Confederate horsemen. His troopers captured couriers carrying dispatches intended for General Lee, seizing papers that offered a glimpse into enemy movements at a decisive moment of the campaign.
Gettysburg Campaign
Antrim Township, PA · est. 1964
On June 22, 1863, the 1st New York Cavalry clashed here with the Confederate advance guard under General Albert G. Jenkins, one of the first armed encounters as Lee's army entered Pennsylvania. In the fighting Corporal William H. Rihl of Philadelphia fell—the first Union soldier killed in action on Pennsylvania soil. He was buried near where he died, and this ground became his memorial.
Gettysburg Campaign
Waynesboro, PA · est. 1964
On June 23, 1863, Confederate troops under General Jubal Early occupied Waynesboro as Lee's army swept into Pennsylvania. The next day they marched by Mont Alto toward Greenwood, and on June 25 received General Ewell's order to press on to York. These movements were part of the wide Confederate sweep across south-central Pennsylvania in the days before the armies converged at Gettysburg.
Burning of Chambersburg
Montgomery Township, PA · est. 1947
Along this road on July 29, 1864, Gen. John McCausland's Confederate cavalry rode north through Franklin County. Passing by way of Mercersburg, they reached Chambersburg the next morning and burned it, then pressed on to McConnellsburg by that night. The raid traced a swift, punishing arc across south-central Pennsylvania in the war's final year.