Hanover

On June 30, 1863, fighting broke out in Hanover, a town in southwestern York County, Pennsylvania, as one episode within the larger Gettysburg campaign of the Civil War. Confederate horsemen under Maj. Gen. J.E.B. Stuart, then pushing northward in an effort to swing around the Union Army of the Potomac, struck a Federal cavalry regiment and pushed it back through Hanover's streets. The arrival of Brig. Gen. Elon Farnsworth's brigade turned the tide, as his counterattack scattered the Confederate advance guard and came close to capturing Stuart. Stuart did not retreat for long, however, and launched a counterattack of his own. With Brig. Gen. George A. Custer's Michigan Brigade bolstering his lines, Farnsworth managed to hold firm, and the fighting settled into a standoff. Unable to break through, Stuart had to detour farther north and east to bypass the Union horsemen, a diversion that added further delay to his effort to reunite with Lee's army, which was by then gathering at Cashtown Gap west of Gettysburg.

Background

In June 1863, as Lee pushed his Army of Northern Virginia up through the Shenandoah Valley on a course for Pennsylvania, cavalry under J.E.B. Stuart swung eastward, crossing in front of the Union Army of the Potomac. This cavalry conducted several raids through eastern Maryland, seizing prisoners and supplies while wrecking Federal telegraph lines and communications. Yet none of this activity allowed Stuart to properly screen Lee's march or gather useful intelligence on Federal troop movements. While Stuart pressed northward hoping to rejoin Lee, the Union horsemen under Maj. Gen. Alfred Pleasonton were also riding toward Pennsylvania on a route west of him, with Pleasonton spreading his divisions wide to watch for any sign of Confederate forces.

On the Union right flank rode the division commanded by Brig. Gen. Judson Kilpatrick. Early on the morning of June 30, the bulk of his troopers rode through Hanover, stopping briefly to eat and accept the enthusiastic welcome of local residents. Three days earlier, that same town had suffered a raid by Confederate horsemen under Lt. Col. Elijah V. White, part of Maj. Gen. Jubal Early's division then holding York County. White's men, a mix of Virginians and Marylanders, had tracked the rail line from Gettysburg into Hanover, stripping the town of horses, food, clothing, shoes, and other goods, sometimes offering worthless Confederate currency or government notes in exchange. Before moving on to plunder the train depot at nearby Hanover Junction, White's force had also torn down the local telegraph lines, severing the town's contact with the outside world. Given this recent ordeal, Hanover's citizens were delighted when Kilpatrick's soldiers unexpectedly appeared, greeting them warmly with offerings of food and drink.

After this pause, most of Kilpatrick's command mounted up again and continued north through the town, making for Abbottstown by way of the Pigeon Hills, though a modest rear guard remained behind to watch the roads leading south and west of Hanover. Meanwhile, Stuart had departed his camp at Shriver's Corner in Maryland and was moving north across the Mason-Dixon line into Pennsylvania. Word that Union cavalry had been seen near Littlestown, his original objective, prompted him to redirect his column toward Hanover in neighboring York County instead. His advance, however, was hampered by an unwieldy train of more than 125 heavily loaded supply wagons taken earlier near Rockville, Maryland, and further set back by a clash with Delaware cavalry at Westminster, Maryland, on June 29.

Aftermath

Pulling back gradually while shielding the wagons he had seized, Stuart moved northeast through Jefferson, aiming for York, a place recent newspapers indicated held Early's division. Along the way, word reached him at New Salem that Early's men had already departed York, marching northwest by way of Dover. Adjusting his route, Stuart pressed on through the darkness along twisting, hilly back roads, still searching for either Early or Lt. Gen. Richard S. Ewell, whom he believed remained somewhere near the Susquehanna.

His column, stretched across seventeen miles, began entering Dover at two in the morning on July 1, with its final elements not arriving until eight. There Stuart discovered that Early had already moved on, heading west toward Shippensburg as the army drew together. He released more than 200 captured Union soldiers on parole and allowed his exhausted men a rare six-hour pause, unaware that at that very moment Maj. Gen. Henry Heth's infantry had run into Brig. Gen. John Buford's cavalry at Gettysburg. By afternoon Stuart was moving again, continuing into the evening and rounding up over 1,000 fresh horses taken from farms across York County.

After leaving Hampton's Brigade and the captured wagons behind at Dillsburg, Stuart pushed toward Carlisle in hopes of finally locating Ewell. What he found instead were nearly 3,000 militiamen from Pennsylvania and New York holding the town. His forces fired a handful of shells into Carlisle that evening and set fire to its barracks before pulling out after midnight and turning south again toward Gettysburg. Between the clash at Hanover, the grueling trek through York County burdened by captured wagons, and this brief clash at Carlisle, Stuart's progress back to the main army and to Lee was badly delayed. The cavalry that served as Lee's "eyes and ears" had, in this instance, let him down.

Casualties at Hanover itself were not especially severe, yet the delay this caused in reuniting Stuart with Lee carried a far heavier price. Figures on the losses differ depending on the source; one account puts Union casualties at 19 killed, 73 wounded, and 123 missing, totaling 215. The 18th Pennsylvania bore the brunt of this, losing three killed, 24 wounded, and 57 missing. Confederate casualties under Stuart are usually placed at 9 killed, 50 wounded, and 58 missing, amounting to 117 in all.