Shown here are markers and sites that were not shown in the Burning of Chambersburg posts along with some additional pictures at the courthouse. McConnellsburg was the site of the first Confederate casualties during the Gettysburg Campaign in Pennsylvania and the last Confederate encampment in the state.

When the Confederates invaded Pennsylvania in June 1863, troops moved up the Cumberland Valley to the east. On June 19 and 24, enemy raiding parties crossed the mountain into Fulton County to carry off horses, cattle, and anything else deemed useful. Around 8:30 AM on June 29, Captain Abram Jones led his Company A, 1st New York Cavalry, into McConnellsburg and sent a picket detail east to watch for Confederates. Later that morning, a company of unarmed militia cavalry from Huntingdon County rode into town. Their captain, H. M. Morrow, had just started talking to Jones when the New York picket detail arrived with news that Rebels were coming down the mountain. Jones instructed Morrow to ride his unarmed company, into the courthouse square, and then retreat to the western edge of McConnellsburg. As his men walked their horses westward, the leading Confederate horsemen, Company G, 18th Virginia Cavalry, led by Captain W. D. Ervin, appeared at the crest of a small hill. Part of General John D. Imboden’s command, Ervin’s regiment was a mixed force of cavalry and mounted infantry that usually served in western Virginia, raiding Yankee outposts and the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. Imboden, in response to General Robert E. Lee’s orders, had brought his brigade north across the Potomac to guard the rear of Lee’s northward advancing army. Scouting across the mountain, Company I this day was moving into McConnellsburg on a reconnaissance. Seeing Jones’ men, Captain Ervin charged. A skirmish ensued just east of the Fulton House. The New Yorkers soon overwhelmed the Southerners, killing two, wounding several, and capturing thirty-two, including the captain. Only a few of Jones’ troopers were wounded. Captain Jones marched his prisoners to Bloody Run (modern Everett). After the skirmish, local citizens carried the bodies of the two dead Confederates into McConnellsburg. A funeral procession took the bodies of William B. Moore and Thomas Shelton out the Mercersburg Pike and interred them where they fell in action. In 1929, the Daughters of the Confederacy placed a granite monument over their graves (shown below). Moore and Sheldon were the first Confederates killed in battle in Pennsylvania.

Monument to the Civil War, Mexican-American War and World War I.

The Courthouse

The following pictures are from plaques on the courthouse that list the names of all soldiers that served in the Civil War from Fulton County.