In April 1862, Salmon P. Chase boarded a special train to tour the coal mines of Wiconisco Township with the recently disgraced Simon Cameron. Washington took notice. Within a year, the mines they visited together would be at the center of a corruption scandal involving Cameron and Henry Thomas. Read the full story.
“There was no better or braver soldier than... John Dougherty.” At the Battle of South Mountain in September 1862, a Pottsville railroad worker turned US Army officer fell leading his men into battle. I recently visited the grave of this Irish-born Civil War hero in Pottsville, PA. Read the full story.
Ten days after Antietam, a young soldier from Wiconisco Township, PA sat down to put it into words for his father back home. Private Joseph Workman of the 96th Pennsylvania had just walked the battlefield days earlier. "I saw an awful sight," he wrote. "We had to move away from there on account of the stink." His letter, recently digitized by the Library of Congress, provides insights into what he witnessed at the Battle of South Mountain as well. Read the full story.
This 1862 illustration captures the coal mines at Bear Gap during the Civil War, showing how industry, railroads, and labor shaped northern Dauphin County at a pivotal moment. For me, it brings a familiar landscape back to life as it once was. Read the full story.
In 1862, controversial politician and former War Secretary Simon Cameron turned his attention to a major coal project in northern Dauphin County. Using his political clout, he briefly joined the Summit Branch Railroad Company’s board, helping broker a lucrative sale that shaped this anthracite-rich region’s future. Read the full story.
On the blood-soaked fields of Antietam, a captain from Scranton, PA wrote home of the horrors of a Civil War battlefield and the fall of the regiment’s colonel. Bullets tore through bodies, faces masked in smoke and dust, boys became veterans in minutes. This firsthand letter from the 132nd Pennsylvania brings the battle almost unbearably close, in raw detail. Read the full story.
At just 18, Private James Kaercher left Pennsylvania’s Coal Region to fight for the Union at the Battle of South Mountain. A Confederate bullet cut short his service, leading to a five-month struggle before his passing. Read his story.
I recently stopped at The Mariners’ Museum in Newport News, VA to see the USS Monitor—and found Coal Region threads. The ironclad burned Northeastern Pennsylvania anthracite, carried 80 tons to sea, and divers even recovered century-old coal from her wreck. Read the full story.
In June 1862, weigh boss Frank Langdon was fatally beaten in Audenried, possibly over Civil War loyalties and wage disputes. Future “Molly Maguire” John Kehoe was later convicted, a controversial verdict that still defines this grim, yet little remembered chapter of Coal Region history. Read the full story.
In December 1862, Colonel Jacob Frick led the 129th Pennsylvania Infantry, composed of men from Schuylkill County, into the brutal Battle of Fredericksburg. Facing relentless fire at Marye’s Heights, Frick’s leadership held the line in one of the Civil War’s bloodiest defeats. His bravery earned him the Medal of Honor. Read the full story.