A Lincoln Conscript

On the second day of July in the year 1863 the Civil War in America was at its height. Late in the preceding month Lee had turned his face northward and with an army of a hundred thousand Confederate soldiers at his back had marched up into Pennsylvania. There was little to hinder his advance. Refraining by reason of strict orders from wanton destruction of property his soldiers nevertheless lived on the rich country through which they passed. York and Carlisle were in their grasp. Harrisburg was but a day’s march away and now on this second day of July flushed with fresh victories they had turned and were giving desperate battle through the streets and on the hills of Gettysburg to the Union armies that had followed them.The old commonwealth was stirred as she had not been stirred before since the fall of Sumter. Every town and village in the state responded quickly to the governor’s call for emergency troops to defend the capital city. Mount Hermon already depleted by generous early enlistments and by the draft of 1862 gathered together the bulk of the able-bodied men left in the village and its surroundings and sent them forth in defense of the commonwealth. Not that Mount Hermon was in especial danger from Lee’s invasion far from it.