Gettysburg Campaign - Raid on Jefferson
Jefferson, York County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
In June and July of 1863, about 7500 Confederate and Union soldiers passed through Jefferson, taking horses, livestock, supplies, and food from local residents. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's rebel troops occupied the town on June 30. Plundered by both North and South, like many nearby towns, the citizens of Jefferson keenly felt the effects of the Civil War off the battlefield but on the armies' line of march. Within days troops converged on Gettysburg.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
In the tense weeks before the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863, the war came to the doorsteps of ordinary York County families. As thousands of Confederate and Union troops marched through Jefferson, both armies seized horses, livestock, and food, and Gen. J.E.B. Stuart's cavalry occupied the town at the end of June. Days later those same roads funneled the armies toward the fields of Gettysburg, where the war's turning point would unfold.
Why it matters
The raid on Jefferson is a reminder that the Civil War's cost fell not only on battlefields but on civilians along the armies' line of march, whose farms and towns were stripped bare by the passing of war.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Hanover Fire Museum7.3 mi away
- Neas House7.8 mi away · 103 West Chestnut Street, Hanover, PA
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Related people
- · J.E.B. Stuart
Related events
- · Gettysburg Campaign
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hanover Junction
North Codorus Township, PA · est. 1953
In November 1863, this rural railroad junction in York County was where Abraham Lincoln's train changed lines on his way to dedicate the national cemetery at Gettysburg. Months earlier the same junction had funneled wounded men from the battlefield onward to distant hospitals, and it served as a key relay on the military telegraph network that carried war news north and east. What looks like an ordinary spot where two rail lines met was, for a season, a nerve center of the war in Pennsylvania.
Gettysburg Campaign
Penn Township, PA · est. 1947
In late June 1863, Robert E. Lee's Confederate army swept deep into Pennsylvania, and General Jubal Early's division ranged across York County ahead of the main force. On June 27, men detached by General John B. Gordon passed through Hanover by this route to destroy a railroad bridge at Hanover Junction, cutting Union communications. Their work done, the raiders rejoined Gordon as the armies drew toward a collision at Gettysburg.
Mason-Dixon Crown Marker
Manheim Township, PA
The Mason-Dixon Line began as the peaceful settlement of a long and bitter boundary quarrel between the Penn family of Pennsylvania and the Calverts of Maryland. Between 1763 and 1767 the English surveyors Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon ran the line westward with remarkable precision, setting stone markers as they went; at every fifth mile they planted an ornate "crownstone" carved with the coats of arms of the two proprietary families. A crown marker like this one, re-dedicated in 1984, honors that painstaking survey and the famous boundary it fixed across the York County countryside.
Battle of Hanover
Hanover, PA · est. 1954
On the morning of June 30, 1863, days before the armies collided at Gettysburg, Confederate horsemen under J.E.B. Stuart clashed with Union cavalry in the streets of Hanover. Stuart's troopers briefly seized the town before the Union counterattack drove them off, and by evening the Confederates withdrew. The running fight helped delay Stuart's raiders and kept them from rejoining Lee's army before the great battle to come.