Benson J. Lossing, Pictorial Field Book of the Civil War. Volume 3.

1 As General Lee's errand was partly a political one, and there was a desire to conciliate all who were disposed for peace and friendship with the Confederates, he issued a stringent order on the 21st, directed to General Ewell, forbidding plunder and violence of every kind, directing payment to be made for all supplies received, and certificates to be given to those friends who should refuse compensation. At the same time he directed the orderly seizure, by proper authority, of all necessary supplies when owners refused to give or sell them. Also to seize all the property of any person who should conceal, or attempt to conceal, any property required by his army.

2 In violation of the letter of Lee's order, commanders like Early proceeded to “live upon the enemy,” and indulge their desires for plunder and destruction. When Early's corps approached York, the meek mayor, sympathizing, it was reported, with the Peace Faction, took the trouble to go several miles in the direction of the approaching invaders, to meet Early and surrender the borough to him, which, because of this mark of submission, was promised special immunity from harm. When the Confederate general occupied the town, his promise was broken, and he required the citizens to deliver, by four o'clock that afternoon, a large supply of food and clothing, and $100,000 in United States Treasury notes. Of the amount required, $28,000 were actually paid, and a larger portion of 200 barrels of flour, 40,000 pounds of fresh beef, 30,000 bushels of corn, and 1,000 pairs of shoes, and some other articles, “required for the use of Early's division,” as the requisition said, were furnished.

Early also proceeded to the extensive iron works of Thaddeus Stevens, member of Congress, in that region, and, because of his eminent services in the National legislature, in providing means for crushing the rebellion, caused his property, to the amount of $50,000, to be destroyed. This was done by fire by the hands of some of Jenkins's cavalry. When the writer was at Marietta, in Georgia, in May, 1866, he met there a captain in that cavalry, by the name of Stevens, who boasted of being one of those who committed the sturdy old patriot's property to the flames. Early directed certificates to be given the citizens of York for property “contributed,” well knowing that they were as worthless as the “Confederate scrip” which Lee ordered to be paid for supplies. No man knew better than did Lee, at that time, that a slip of soiled paper would have been as valuable to the citizens of Pennsylvania as the “money” he offered, “when any was offered ;” and, in view of this fact, his assumed honesty in his order to Ewell of the 21st, cannot conceal the deliberate intention to plunder the people in an orderly manner.

The exhibition of ferocity on the part of the stay-at-home writers for the Confederate newspapers was sometimes sickening, but more often amusing. One of these, in the Richmond Whig of July 2, having heard that Lee was in Harrisburg, expressed a hope that he would set fire to all the anthracite coal-mines in Pennsylvania. He did not doubt Lee would do it, if the opportunity offered, and thereby all the coal would be “reduced to ashes!” “All that is needed,” said the writer, “is to seize the anthracite fields, destroy the roads and the machinery of the pits, set fire to the mines and leave them. Northern industry will thus be paralyzed at a single blow.”

3 So early as the 15th of June, the Governor, through the newspapers and by placards headed with the words, in large letters, Pennsylvania in danger!--citizens called to arms! informed the inhabitants of the peril that threatened them, and said, “Unless our people respond promptly, a large part of the State will be laid waste by the rebel invaders.” He assured them that those who volunteered would be credited on the draft, then ordered; but it was difficult to arouse them to action.