Battlefield Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State's Most Sacred Ground

by Brady J. Crytzer

Overview

A History of Pennsylvania through Places of Conflict, from George Washington’s Fort Necessity to the Flight 93 Memorial
Pennsylvania is a battlefield. Fort Necessity. Brandywine. Gettysburg. The Homestead Strike. Flight 93. In many ways battlefields are like scars on the landscape. They remind us that history is real, and their effects stay with us forever. In Battlefield Pennsylvania: A Guide to the Keystone State’s Most Sacred Ground, award-winning historian Brady J. Crytzer takes the reader on a fascinating tour of over three hundred years of Pennsylvania history through twenty-nine of the state’s most significant battlegrounds, based on his popular Pennsylvania Cable Network television program. The author shows that debates and neighborly disputes have been present throughout the history of William Penn’s “Peaceable Kingdom,” but that battles are not the natural resolution of these conflicts; they are a failure of the system. Understanding how these systems break down and descend into violence and chaos is one of the most important purposes of this book. When the forces of Britain and France met on the battleground of North America, they each waged war in the name of a vision—a defense of the future, not merely the present. The same can be said for the Indian warriors and settlers of the backcountry, and the striking workers of the industrial age. When the young men of the American Civil War era donned the Butternut and Blue, they were not just fighting over a hill or a railroad junction, but for an American future. Illustrated with maps and period and contemporary images, Battlefield Pennsylvania presents each event through background information, a description of the battle itself, the legacy of the battle, and what a visitor can see today. Rather than viewing preserved battlefields as a hollow tribute to days gone by, the author demonstrates that these sites are a great inheritance provided by past generations, and just as they entrusted them to us, we will entrust them to future generations as well. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781594163050
Publisher:	Westholme Publishing
Publication date:	10/15/2018
Edition description:	1
Pages:	288
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

BRADY J. CRYTZER teaches history at Robert Morris University. He is the recipient of the Donald S. Kelly and the Donna J.McKee awards for outstanding scholarship in history. A specialist in eighteenth-century North America, he is the author of Fort Pitt: A Frontier History, Guyasuta and the Fall of Indian America (Westholme 2013), Hessians: Rebels, Mercenaries, and the War for British North America (Westholme 2015), and War in the Peaceable Kingdom: The Kittanning Raid of 1756 (Westholme 2016). 

Table of Contents

List of Maps x

Introduction: Scars xi

Part 1 The Seven Years' War Era (1753-1765)

1 George Washington's Mission to Fort Le Boeuf (October 31, 1753-January 16, 1754) 5

2 Firefight at Jumonville Glen (May 28, 1754) 13

3 The Battle of Fort Necessity (July 3, 1754) 20

4 The Battle of the Monongahela (July 9, 1755) 28

5 The Kittanning Raid (September 8, 1756) 37

6 The Battle of Fort Duquesne (September 14, 1758) 45

7 The Battle of Fort Ligonier (October 12, 1758) 53

Part 2 The American Revolutionary Era (1775-1783)

8 The Battle of Bushy Run (August 5-6, 1763) 65

9 The Massacre of the Conestogas (December 27, 1763)74

10 The Black Boys Rebellion (March-June 1765) 81

11 The Battle of Brandywine (September 11, 1777) 89

12 The Battle of Paoli (September 20, 1777) 98

13 The Battle of Germantown (October 4, 1777) 105

14 The Siege of Fort Mifflin (September 26-November 16, 1777) 114

15 The Battle of Wyoming (July 3, 1778) 123

16 The Burning of Hannastown (July 13, 1782) 131

Part 3 The Republic's First Tests (1794-1844)

17 The Whiskey Rebellion (July 1794) 143

18 The US Brig Niagara and the Battle of Lake Erie (September 10, 1813) 151

19 The Philadelphia Nativist Riots (May-July 1844) 158

Part 4 The Civil War Era (1861-1865)

20 The Allegheny Arsenal Explosion (September 17, 1862) 169

21 The Raid on Hanover Junction (June 27, 1863) 177

22 The Skirmish at Wrightsville and the Burning of Columbia Bridge (June 28, 1863) 186

23 The Skirmishes at Oyster Point and Sporting Hill (June 28-June 30, 1863) 194

24 The Battle of Hanover (June 30, 1863) 201

25 The Siege of Carlisle (July 1-2, 1863) 208

26 The Battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863) 215

27 The Battle of Monterey Pass (July 4-5, 1863) 226

28 The Burning of Chambersburg (July 30, 1864) 234

Part 5 The Modern Era

29 The Homestead Steel Strike (July 6, 1892) 245

30 The Crash of Flight 93 (September 11, 2001) 253

Recommended Reading 261

Acknowledgments 267

Index 269

Editorial Reviews

The author’s format for this study is enormously valuable. Each chapter includes a concise description of the battle, relevant background on the engagement, the legacy of this skirmish, and what remains today for visitors. In addition to its value as a guidebook, Battlefield Pennsylvania could be an excellent resource for history teachers.”—Barbara A. Gannon, Pennsylvania Heritage

From the Publisher