This Tuesday, the last day of June, was the day Franklin Horner and his fellow Union soldiers mustered for pay. They took up the line of march at 7:00 a.m. and marched until 7:00 p.m. covering some 20 miles. As they passed through several towns they uncased the colors—their flags—and had their bands play martial music.

Thomas Ware began their march about 9:00 a.m. It was a short day ending at 1:00 p.m. stopping to camp in the town of Fayetteville. His comrades gathered a large amount of cherries, which were in season in Pennsylvania and, as he put it, “We made fences fly…” for firewood, of course. He has some time to write a letter home.

Horner casually mentions that they marched twenty miles this day, but it was probably one of the hardest marches he’s had to make. They are on the move for twelve hours, which means a lot of it was stop and go before they could go into camp and take a long rest.

Since it is the end of the month, there are some administrative duties each company has to take care of. They determine how many men are present and accounted for so that they can requisition money from the government to pay them for their service. In the Union army, pay was $13 per month.

The end-of-the-month muster also gives us a general—but not specific—idea of the troop strengths at the time. When historians analyzed the muster records, they felt confident in determining the number of soldiers present on July 1, the opening of the Battle of Gettysburg. But there are variables: men get sick overnight, or drop out of the ranks marching the next day. In addition, the muster rolls give only an approximate number of combat troops. There were thousands more non-combatants, from teamsters to farriers to personal servants to “camp followers” who accompanied the armies and remained behind the lines during combat. The total number of human beings being drawn to this part of Pennsylvania as if caught in a whirlpool may never be known; but it certainly was more that the 97,000 Union and 75.000 Confederate combat troop figures we used in the National Park Service.

Once again, the Federals are marching an inside arc to the Confederates’ sweep northward and eastward. The rebels had been reported in York and so Horner’s unit is sent toward the east, always trying to be the buffer between the enemy and their capital. Music playing and flags flying while marching through northern towns were more for the civilians’ benefit than the soldiers. Horner, who had lived through the bloodiest single day in all of American History at the Battle of Antietam, knows he is headed toward yet another, and potentially bloodier battle with one of the finest and most deadly armies on the face of the planet; one that had already whipped his army more than once before. The cheering civilian residents of the towns may not have exactly inculcated Horner and his fellow veterans with confidence.

Perhaps because of the extra free time he has thanks to a short march, Ware’s thoughts turn homeward and he records in a sort of code that he has been using, that he wrote a letter to “J. B. F.” Throughout his diary, Thomas Ware uses his alphabet code to record letters he sends to someone at home. Could it be that he has a sweetheart in Washington, Georgia?

This night, Ware and Horner are only thirty-seven miles apart, a day’s march for each of these American enemies to a collision-point.

Franklin Horner had orders to march at daylight, but because of the Union troops concentrating in the Frederick, MD, area, his unit did not get started until 1:00 p.m. They marched about 10 miles and went into camp at 11:00 p.m.

Thomas Ware’s regiment, along with the 17^th Georgia and other from the division were sent to destroy four miles of railroad north of Chambersburg, a place called Scotland Station. They tore up all the rails and burned the ties and a substantial bridge along the way, then returned to their camps. He writes of the “Q Masters” (Quartermasters) continuing to gather up all the horses and beef cattle they can find. Some of his comrades see the finer horses in the area tied up in the woods in an attempt to hide them from the round up.

One thing I forgot to mention yesterday: When Horner and the men of the 12^th Pennsylvania Reserves are attached to the Fifth Corps, they also find that they have a new commanding general for the entire army. Major General George G. Meade, formerly commander of the Fifth Corps, was ordered to replace Major General Joseph Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac.

For Meade it is a dubious distinction. To go from commanding a corps to an entire army in the midst of an active campaign and the invasion of the north by the enemy threatening to capture his home state’s capital is a lot to put on any commander’s plate. Overnight he goes from commanding one corps to commanding eight times that many men, all needing to be fed, supplied with enough ammunition and supplies in case a battle looms, and ordered where to march without impeding one another to intercept the greatest threat to the nation’s security in its history. Interestingly, either Horner hasn’t heard or he’s more concerned with his own sore feet, or where he’s going to get his next meal, but he doesn’t even mention the change in high command in his diary entries.

Though Horner only marches 10 miles this day, it takes 10 hours to do so. It was stop and go, apparently because of the concentration of Federal troops attempting to stay between the invading Confederates and Washington. The good news is that the Union army is taking the “inside route” while the Confederates swing wide to the north and east and must march farther.

(Taking a short break to speak and sign at the Adams County Winery’s 150^th Anniversary Commemoration day. I’ll be right back!)

(Did you miss me? What a great day. Gorgeous weather in the beautiful mountains near Cashtown. Spoke to a BUNCH of interesting people. Saw some old friends from the Licensed Battlefield Guides. Thanks, Rob, for a well-done event. Okay. Back to the blog….)

Railroads are historically protective of their right-of-ways, some of which were established in the early 19^th Century, so it’s easy to find some of the places Ware mentions along the railroad north out of Chambersburg, since they haven’t changed much in 150 years.

The railroad bridge at Scotland, PA, is made of stone and concrete now, but does rise some fifty feet above the river, as Ware records about the old wooden bridge.

In an interesting sidelight, Scotland, PA, is the ancestral home of my wife Carol. It wasn’t until her mother Phyllis told me that the Chambersburg Country Club property included the building that had been her ancestor’s home that we made the connection between Thomas Ware, a soldier I chose somewhat randomly to write about and our relationship by marriage. The subject of my book on this day marched past the farm of my future wife’s ancestors 150 years before.