Gettysburg Campaign
Ayr Township, Fulton County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
During the invasion of Pennsylvania by the Confederate Army, raiding parties crossed into Fulton County to steal horses, live-stock, and supplies. On June 29, 1863, Union troops of the 1st New York Cavalry attacked the enemy soldiers, killing two, injuring several, and taking 32 prisoners, including the captain. These were the first Confederate soldiers killed in battle on Pennsylvania soil, and they were buried here by local residents.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
As Robert E. Lee's army pushed into Pennsylvania in June 1863, Confederate raiding parties fanned out into Fulton County to seize horses, livestock, and supplies. On June 29, troopers of the 1st New York Cavalry struck one such party, killing two enemy soldiers, wounding several, and capturing 32 men including their captain. The two Confederate dead were buried here by local residents.
Why it matters
These were the first Confederate soldiers killed in battle on Pennsylvania soil during the Gettysburg Campaign, a small but poignant marker of the war reaching the North just days before its climactic battle.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In late June 1863, the Civil War came north as it never had before. Robert E. Lee's army was marching into Pennsylvania, carrying the war onto Union soil in a bold gamble to break Northern will and live off Northern farms. The whole southern tier of the state braced for the shock.
Fulton County, where this ground lies, sat in the path of that invasion. It was rural, ridged country near the Maryland border — not a strategic prize in itself, but exactly the kind of place a hungry army fanned out to strip of horses, cattle, and supplies. For local families, the approach of Lee's army meant the very real prospect of raiders at the barn door.
What happened here unfolded just days before the armies collided at Gettysburg, roughly forty miles to the east. The great battle that would define the campaign — and arguably the war — was almost upon them. This small clash was the war's leading edge, the first touch of a storm about to break.
People & events
As Lee's invasion rolled forward, Confederate raiding parties crossed into Fulton County hunting horses, livestock, and provisions — the everyday plunder that kept an army on the move. On June 29, 1863, one such party met Union cavalry.
Troopers of the 1st New York Cavalry struck the raiders. In the sharp fight that followed they killed two enemy soldiers, wounded several more, and captured thirty-two men — including the party's captain. It was a small, decisive action, the kind that rarely makes the history books but was very real to the men who lived and died in it.
The two Confederate dead were buried here by local residents. That detail carries its own quiet weight: neighbors, whose homes and farms these soldiers had come to raid, laid the fallen enemy to rest in their own ground. In the middle of an invasion, ordinary people performed a basic act of decency toward the men who had come to take from them.
Its place in the American story
These two men hold a stark distinction: they were the first Confederate soldiers killed in battle on Pennsylvania soil during the Gettysburg Campaign. Before the famous fields of Gettysburg ran red, the war's cost on Northern ground was first paid here, in an obscure corner of Fulton County.
That makes this modest site a kind of prologue to one of the most consequential battles in American history. The campaign that would reach its climax days later, and help turn the course of the war, announced itself with this skirmish over horses and supplies.
The burial closes the story with something larger than tactics. In a war that pitted countrymen against countrymen, the act of local residents burying enemy dead speaks to a shared humanity that survived even invasion — a small grace note in a national tragedy.
If you visit
This is a place to slow down and think small in the best sense. There is no sweeping battlefield here — just the ground where the Gettysburg Campaign first turned deadly in Pennsylvania, and where two men who came as raiders were buried by the very community they'd threatened.
Let the timing sink in as you stand here. Only days later, and a short drive east, tens of thousands would clash at Gettysburg. This quiet spot was the war's first northern touch in that campaign — the tremor before the earthquake.
For a road trip, this marker makes a thoughtful first or last stop on a Gettysburg pilgrimage. Visiting the great battlefield after standing here changes how you see it: you arrive already reminded that the campaign's cost began not with famous names, but with a handful of soldiers and the neighbors who dug their graves.
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
- · Gettysburg Campaign
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Gettysburg Campaign
Ayr Township, PA · est. 1947
This corner of the Cumberland Valley changed hands repeatedly during the 1863 invasion, occupied three times by Confederate columns pushing north. General Albert G. Jenkins' cavalry came first on June 19, followed by General George H. Steuart's troops in late June and, after a brief skirmish with Union forces, General John D. Imboden's command on June 29. Each passage marked the shifting tide of Lee's campaign.
Fulton County
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Established from Bedford County in 1850, Fulton County honors Robert Fulton, the Pennsylvania-born pioneer of the steamboat. Its seat, McConnellsburg, was incorporated in 1814 in the ridges of south-central Pennsylvania. During the Civil War the county saw the first casualties of the Confederacy's Gettysburg Campaign, and in 1864 it hosted the last Confederate campsite on Pennsylvania soil.
Last Confederate Bivouac
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In the summer of 1864, Confederate cavalry under General Bradley T. Johnson camped on this ground on July 31, just after McCausland's raiders had burned Chambersburg in retaliation for Union destruction in the Shenandoah Valley. They proved to be the last Confederate troops ever to camp on Pennsylvania soil. Union cavalry under General William W. Averell gave chase and routed the raiders a week later at the Battle of Moorefield in West Virginia.
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