As the Battle of Gettysburg raged, residents and refugees in Pennsylvania’s state capital at Harrisburg could hear the distant rumble of gunfire, signaling that a massive engagement was taking place.

The following account appeared in the Harrisburg Evening Telegraph on July 3, 1863. The story betrays the anxiety felt in the state capital:

The Feeling in Harrisburg –

3 PM – Great excitement continues to prevail here and we are all anxious to know the result of the battle fought yesterday and last night between Meade and Lee…

At daylight this morning it was again renewed. The battle must be near Gettysburg. There are no important movements in this Department.

From severe cannonading heard yesterday in the direction of General Meade’s army, there is no doubt that a terrible battle was fought. Great anxiety is felt here to know the result. The firing was heard till late at night.

What Harrisburg residents heard dozens of miles to the south was the largest artillery bombardment ever launched in the Western Hemisphere. Hundreds of Confederate guns attacked US Army positions on Cemetery Ridge before General Robert E. Lee launched his failed attempt to break Union lines that became known as Pickett’s Charge.

The Battle of Gettysburg was a massive victory for the United States Army and came as General Ulysses Grant achieved major successes in the Western Theatre of the conflict at Vicksburg, Mississippi.

Harrisburg, while briefly threatened by Confederate invaders in June 1863, received hundreds of wounded soldiers in the days that followed and became a base of operations for relief efforts headed to the war-ravaged town of Gettysburg.

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