Lancaster Civil War Round Table

03/26/2026

03/24/2026

It's been gone for over a quarter of a century now. Who remembers the National Tower and its impact on the battlefield?

I can still remember how it dominated the view of Gettysburg as I approached the town from Carlisle. I was only ever up in the tower on two occasions, both during its early years (it opened in 1974), and I still recall how terrifying the elevator ride to the top seemed.

The tower was demolished on July 3, 2000, amid much fanfare for many and regret for others. It was the busiest day I have ever seen on the battlefield.

03/16/2026

03/12/2026

THE FARMER WHO REFUSED TO SELL
Gettysburg Pennsylvania, 1863-1870
John and Mary Codori had a farm on Cemetery Ridge at Gettysburg and their farm sat directly in the path of Pickett's Charge on July 3rd 1863 and fourteen thousand Confederate soldiers crossed their land in forty-five minutes and the Union artillery that stopped them was firing from their barn and their house and the battle left their farm destroyed and their fields covered in the dead of both armies and their fences gone and their crops gone and their livestock gone and everything they had built was gone. John Codori walked his fields after the battle and counted the dead of both armies on his land and then he and Mary began the specific practical work of farming people who have been through catastrophe which is to start again from what is left.
After the battle the United States government approached John Codori about purchasing his farm as part of the Gettysburg battlefield memorial. The government wanted the land. John Codori said no. The government came back with a better offer. He said no again. The government explained that the land was historically significant and that preserving it was a matter of national importance. He said he understood that and that it was also his farm and his family's land and that he and Mary were going to keep farming it. The government offered more money. He said no. They offered significantly more money. He said no. He was not being irrational. He was being the specific kind of stubborn that comes from being a farmer who has watched his land be used as a battlefield and has decided that the answer to his land being used as a battlefield is to keep farming it because a farm that is farmed is more alive than a memorial and he preferred alive.
He farmed it until he died. Mary farmed it after him. Their descendants farmed it for another generation. The land is still there in the middle of the Gettysburg battlefield preserved land and it is still a farm. It is called the Codori Farm. It is the only private farm in the middle of the Gettysburg National Military Park. The government got almost everything it wanted at Gettysburg. It did not get the Codori Farm because John Codori said no and kept saying no until the government stopped asking and went around his farm with the memorial boundary lines and left his farm where it was, in the middle of the most visited battlefield in America, still being farmed, still alive. He refused to sell the ground that fourteen thousand soldiers had crossed in forty-five minutes. The ground was his. He had been there before the soldiers and he and Mary were there after them and they were going to stay there and farm it because that was what the ground was for. He knew what the ground was for. It was for farming.

03/08/2026

The Susquehanna National Heritage Area (SNHA) is proud to announce a transformative sponsorship from the Louise Steinman von Hess Foundation supporting the illumination of all 26 bridge piers of the Columbia–Wrightsville Bridge on June 28, 2026, as the grand finale of Riverfest 2026. This dramatic lighting will commemorate the Civil War burning of the world’s longest covered bridge and mark our region’s place in America’s national narrative.

Thanks to the Foundation’s generous support, this will be the first time all 26 bridge piers have been lit simultaneously since the 150th anniversary of the Civil War in 2013. In prior years, SNHA and its heritage partners were only able to illuminate three piers at a time for Riverfest. Lighting the full span heightens the scale and emotional power of the historic event and creates a breathtaking river-wide spectacle visible across both river communities.

Learn more about Riverfest at https://riverfestpa.com/

03/08/2026

The Civil War crashed into Wilmer McLean’s life before he ever chose a side. In July 1861, the first major land battle, the First Battle of Bull Run, erupted directly on his Virginia farm. Confederate General Beauregard used McLean’s house as a headquarters, and Union artillery fire tore through his property, even sending a cannonball into his kitchen. McLean later said the war “began in my front yard,” and he meant it literally.

Hoping to protect his family from the chaos, McLean moved more than a hundred miles south to the quiet village of Appomattox Court House. For four years, he lived in relative peace, believing he had finally outrun the conflict that had once consumed his home. But fate had other plans. As the Confederacy collapsed in 1865, Union and Confederate leaders needed a neutral, respectable place to negotiate surrender and they chose McLean’s new house.

On April 9, 1865, Generals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee met in McLean’s parlor to sign the terms that effectively ended the Civil War. Officers eager for souvenirs bought or took his furniture, leaving the room nearly bare. McLean later summed up his strange place in history with a single line: the war began in his front yard and ended in his front parlor.

02/28/2026

02/27/2026

Visit Lafayette Square - the site of the scandalous 1859 murder of Philip Barton Key by none other than Congressman Dan Sickles - with Battle of Gettysburg P...

02/24/2026

02/23/2026

I'm dropping this amazing photograph to say that it may be the single coolest snapshot in time I have seen from the Gettysburg battlefield.

The majestic Pennsylvania Monument nears completion on Hancock Avenue in 1910. Just, Wow!

02/19/2026