Living History Prep: Researching Pennsylvania in May 1864

My wife and I beside French Creek at Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site, June 2013 (Tintype by Jim Pfeiffer)

Once or twice a year, my wife and I have the opportunity to participate in a living history event in which reenactors partner with a historical site to interpret a specific historical event.  My wife savors the opportunity to assemble a high-quality wardrobe, and I generally enjoy doing some of the background research about a particular person, place, and time.  Neither of us are big fans of "first-person" portrayals where we pretend to be a person in the 1860s, but we're happy to do it if it enables us to do something special with costumes, material culture, biography, and history.

This year, we are planning to return to Hopewell Furnace National Historic Site on May 16-18, 2014, in Elverson, Pennsylvania (~20 miles east of New Holland).  The theme of the event is "Enduring the Storm: Hopewell 1864," which excites me as an opportunity to research how Northern communities fared in 1864 -- a time of the war that I've read much less about in newspapers.  So, I recently had the Daily Evening Express microfilm sent out to Pittsburgh to do some research.  I scanned the editions of the newspaper covering May 16-18, 1864, to share with other reenactors and to spark ideas about what to interpret at the event.  Here are links to the PDFs:

• Monday, May 16, 1864
• Tuesday, May 17, 1864
• Wednesday, May 18, 1864

Going over these newspapers, a few themes emerge that might be worthwhile pursuing as topics to research further and possibly incorporate into the event:

1.  Emancipation as a moral imperative.  Instead of talking about emancipation as a military necessity, the possibility of an antislavery amendment brought moral arguments against slavery into pages of the Daily Evening Express, a Republican newspaper.  The Express ran an essay entitled "The Demon of Slavery" by Henry Ward Beecher on its front page, and editorialized that the war's objective was now "the merciless mandated, 'Slavery must die!'"  Among Lancaster's mainstream Republican community, emancipation was pretty much an afterthought in the rush to war, and then really came up in the context of confusing policy situations in which military found itself in 1862.  By 1864, we see that ending slavery went hand-in-hand with winning the war.
2. Details from the Battles of Wilderness and Spotsylvania.  Initial reports had indicated a victory with heavy losses in these first meetings between Grant and Lee, with more clashes expected.  More local news -- casualty lists from the Lancaster companies and accounts of the Pennsylvania Reserves in battle -- began to trickle in a couple days after the national news.  The five Pennsylvania Reserves companies or two 45th Pennsylvania companies suffered moderate casualties.  
3. Soldiers fairs.  News about local soldiers fairs and support for an upcoming fair in Philadelphia filled newspapers for much of the first half of 1864.  In addition to raising the morale of and materially aiding local soldiers, they seem to have served to re-energize the Northern populace and provided a welcome distraction as the war dragged on.  
4. Inflation and prices.  Trade organizations for hotel keepers and shoemakers made attempts to publish suggested prices as the war raised prices of materials.
5. Veterans home on furlough.  Most had already come home and were back in the field, but a few had their furlough in May.  Company G, 9th Pennsylvania Cavalry, was home during this time.  Sadly, one of its veterans was killed when jumping off a train at Elizabethtown. 
6. Administration of veterans' bounties. Veterans who reenlisted were promised bounties from municipalities (that received credit for their reenlistment against their draft quota).  Families were slow to receive that money, much to the indignation of soldiers who wrote letters of protest.  
7. Preparing for the election of 1864. Newspaper editors talked about the Virginia campaigns and military strategy in the context of campaign strategy.  The Union Party (Lincoln's party) would have its convention in the first week of June.  With its editorial, "The President and the War," the Express made clear its unwavering support for Lincoln saying, "The country may rely, with unfaltering trust, upon the supreme devotion of the President to the defence of the Government and the suppression of the rebellion.  He has never, in a single instance, given the slightest ground for the imputation of being governed by personal ambition, or by any other motive than devotion to the public good."

We'll see how these themes develop over the upcoming weeks and if any would be amenable to interpretation at Hopewell.  One of the next steps will be to portray a historical persona.  Last year, I portrayed Lancasterian William A. Heitshu, who married Mary Geiger, daughter of an iron master with operations in the region.  Geigertown, a crossroads two miles west of Hopewell Furnace, was named after their ancestors, and my wife and I pretended to be visiting the village on our respective business and personal matters.  The completion of the Reading and Columbia Railroad gave an excuse to talk about pig iron markets and the pig iron supply chain with some of the other reenactors.  Like I said, pretending to be historical persons is silly on some level, but it often gives an excuse for a fun train of research questions.  We'll see how our impressions develop this year, and I'll try to give an occasional update as I research the issues facing residents of Lancaster, Berks, and Chester Counties in May 1864.    

Gen. Rousseau Visits Lancaster

Late on the night of February 1, 1863, Major General Lovell H. Rousseau arrived in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, for a brief but planned stop on a journey from Tennessee to New York. The general had received national attention as a loyal Democrat and border state warrior who helped secure Kentucky for the Union, but his Lancaster hosts knew the “gallant Rousseau” better for the men whom he commanded. Under Rousseau, the “Lancaster County Regiment”—more formally known as the 79th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry—had fought its first battle four months earlier near Perryville, Kentucky, on October 8, 1862. In that battle, the regiment lost over one-third of its number as casualties in a successful stand against repeated Confederate assaults.

After Rousseau's arrival was announced, an “immense concourse of citizens” gathered the next night to hear Rousseau at the Caldwell House in Lancaster.  The 79th Pennsylvania's former regimental band, the Fencibles band, played a number of airs, including "Auld Lang Syne" and "Hail to the Chief."  J. M. W. Geist, editor of the Express, remarked,  

There was an appropriety in the occasion which was felt  no less by the General than by every member of the Band.  He had heard them play these same airs when both together shared the privations and dangers of the battle field, and they had seen the gallant soldier as cheers from the whole line indicated how warm a place the Kentucky patriot and soldier held in the hearts of the men of his Division.  It was a meeting of old friends and a waking up of old reminiscences.  And we need hardly add that the Band did full justice to its reputation on this interesting occasion.

The general responded by praising the Lancaster County Regiment, saying "a better drilled, more thoroughly disciplined, and braver body of men could not be found in the army."  Furthermore, Lancaster should be proud of Col. Hambright, "for the rebels had never yet seen the backs of the 79th. P. V."  Afterwards, Rousseau greeted many Lancasterians in the parlor of the Caldwell House, sought treatment for the throat ailment for which he was traveling to find a cure, and left the following morning on a train to Washington (not New York, as originally intended) in the company of journalist Josiah Rinehart Sypher and Lieut. Samuel L. Hartman--a 79th Pa officer on his staff.   

Rousseau’s visit represented a public testimonial to the Lancaster County Regiment’s sacrifice at Perryville and the community’s commitment to remember it. It showed how a regiment’s participation in a battle, even one that received relatively little national attention, still impacted the community five hundred miles that sent it off to war.  Presumably, this was an opportunity for at least a few men and women from families directly impacted by the Perryville casualty list to publicly remember their loss.

Another event taking place a few blocks away showed how a unit’s experience in battle could play upon notions of loyalty in that unit’s hometown. Instead of attending General Rousseau’s reception which coincided with the eve of city elections, many of Lancaster’s Democrats crowded Fulton Hall for a partisan political rally. Stuart A. Wylie, editor of one Republican paper, the Lancaster Daily Inquirer, could not resist comparing the two assemblages. After reviewing the courage of and sacrifices made by Rousseau, Wylie noted, “At one place we had a Kentuckian advising the people to be faithful, and a few minute’s walk distant, we had men counseling factious opposition and denunciation of the Government.” A letter to another Republican paper vilified Lancaster’s Mayor George Sanderson—a prominent Democrat and editor of the Lancaster Intelligencer—wondering if the mayor intentionally avoided the general because Rousseau, also a Democrat, was “too vigorous in his prosecution of the war…to be palatable to the very questionable political sensibilities of the Mayor.” The letter concluded, “‘Tis a burning shame that our city which has sent forth so many noble, patriotic sons…could not have a man as its chief magistrate who would extend the hand of fellowship and welcome to a General, who had so brilliantly led those sons—some to victory, and some to death! but all to glory!”

In addition to showing the notion of battlefield sacrifice as a central theme in commemorative appeals, General Rousseau’s visit illustrates a complex and evolving relationship between home front activities and support for soldiers from that community. From a purely political perspective, though, the parties generally desired to tether Lancaster County’s natural support for its own regiment to their own party platforms. Both Democrats and Republicans, who aligned with War Democrats to form the Union Party, attempted to appear as the regiment’s true home front advocate and the soldier’s friend. As the battle’s memory formed in the weeks and months succeeding October 1862, a variety of factors helped Republicans to depict the Democrats as outsiders looking in, as exemplified by accusations surrounding General Rousseau’s February 1863 visit.

Capt. Emanuel D. Roath's Civil War

Last week, I posted about a couple lots and items sold at auction which I was sad to have missed.  Much to my surprise and pleasure, I was contacted by the new owner, John Mulcahy, of the photograph and diary of Capt. Emanuel D. Roath, Company E, 107th Pennsylvania.  John is a direct descendant of Roath, and purchased the items to preserve family history.  This post is based on some of the information he graciously shared with me, as well as other resources on Roath.   

CDV of Capt E. D. Roath
(Courtesy of John Mulcahy)

Few men in the annals of Lancaster's Civil War history better represent what it meant to lead a Civil War company than Emanuel Dyer Roath.  Holding the rank of captain did not just mean leading a group of men in battle, but it also meant having sufficient standing in the community to recruit, sending letters (and relics) to the hometown newspaper, urging soldiers and civilians to support the war politically, and even experiencing a little bit of officer politics.  

Born in Lancaster in 1820, Roath graduated from the Shippensburg Academy and began work as a teacher.  He came to Marietta in 1852 and worked in a lumber yard before being elected justice of the peace in 1854.  Following in his father's footsteps as a militia leader, Roath had led the "Maytown Infantry" militia before the war, and began drilling a partially full militia company shortly after the war's outbreak.  By November, recruits in the "'Squire's" company began trickling in to Camp Curtin with the plan of joining the 61st Pennsylvania.  After some shuffling and reorganization, Roath's command eventually ended up as Company E, 107th Pennsylvania, a regiment organized in March 1862, and gave themselves the nickname of the "Union Fencibles."  [WM 5/18, 11/16/1861]       

His first letter appearing in the Weekly Mariettian was to thank the ladies of Marietta for their Valentine's Day contribution of fifty-one pairs of mittens and other useful items.  The company's resolution made sure to state, "That if the young men (those able to leave their business,) were inspired with half the patriotism of woman, they would cheerfully join the army of the Union, so they would never be placed under the painful blush of cowardice, when in the presence of a patriotic lady."  

Roath's letters to the Weekly Mariettian continued through 1862, although as one of the regiment's senior captains he understandably did not find as much time to write as the regiment fought in more and more battles in fall 1862.  Although the regiment fought in just about all the battles of the Army of the Potomac, a quick glance at the roster reveals the toughest fights to have been the Battles of Second Bull Run and Gettysburg and the Siege of Petersburg.  Controversies occasionally arose, with the regiment's adjutant apparently having run-ins with Roath and other unnamed sources trying (unsuccessfully) to impugn Roath's bravery under fire around the time of the Battles of 2nd Bull Run and Antietam. [WM 10/11/1862] 

At Gettysburg, Roath's regiment stood along Oak Ridge with the First Corps as it tried to buy time on the battle's first day.  After the regiment's commanding officer was wounded, Roath took command of the regiment's few remaining men for the rest of the battle, most notably  leading them while on Cemetery Hill during Pickett's Charge.  Roath wrote a long and interesting letter two months after the battle for publication in the Mariettian [10/10/1863].  Its contents include the regiment's actions during and after Gettysburg, the Union party ticket for the 1863 elections, and the joy which the wounded men of the Second Division, First Corps, felt when they learned that the Patriot Daughters of Lancaster would be tending to their hospital at Gettysburg. 

Roath continued with the regiment through the Overland Campaign of 1864, but was captured at the Battle of Weldon Railroad (part of the Siege of Petersburg) on August 19, 1864.  Roath was confined for nine months in various prisons and was exchanged in February 1865 and mustered out shortly thereafter.  His diary entry for the day of his capture as well as a copy of a letter that Roath wrote from a prison in Danville, Virginia, appealing for better food, are presented below: (alternate link)


After the war, Roath continued his life in Marietta, serving as Justice of the Peace and in the State Legislature, leading a militia company, and joining various fraternities.  Roath died on September 12, 1907.  Now, just over a hundred years later, we are very fortunate to still gain many insights into his life and Civil War experiences through generous descendants and digitized newspapers.  To understand how the typical experienced the Civil War, it is necessary to understand how a Civil War company formed and fought, and this information pulled together about Capt. Roath from various sources help us to do just that.

If anyone else is interested in or research Capt. Roath, please feel free to post in the comments here, or send me an email, and I'll happily pass anything on to John Mulcahy.  There are many fascinating avenues of investigation about Capt. Roath and his life before, during, and after the Civil War, so any additional information would be eagerly received.      
      
References:

• Roath bio in 1903 Biographical Annals of Lancaster County
• Regimental History from Bates
• Weekly Mariettian in the PA Civil War Newspapers Project
• Roath report from Gettysburg in Official Records (p. 304)
• Company E, 107th Pennsylvania Roster
• Civil War Letters of James B. Thomas, Adjutant of the 107th Pennsylvania
• Hospital Scenes after the Battle of Gettysburg by the Patriot Daughters of Lancaster

Jettisoned Posts

(From Hardtack and Coffee)

As the ship of Civil War Sesquicentennial sails on, I need to jettison a couple drafts of posts from my little canoe to try to keep up.  Most of these posts are related to the Lancaster home front, and were conceived under the delusion that I would have a few hours to compile various primary sources to put together a story.  Unfortunately, I haven't had time, especially of late, so I'm just going to note each post and provide references or pseudo-references so anyone trying to tell the story of Lancaster and the Civil War can find them. 

Here are the posts on which I'm giving up, roughly in chronological order:

• Muster Rolls by Company.  I still need to post these as a reference, although they were printed in the September and October 1861 editions of the Intelligencer and LEH, which are available online.
• The War Loan.  [DEE 9/17/1861; LEH 9/11/1861]
• The Election of 1861, voting by soldiers in the 79th Pennsylvania, and the ensuing lawsuits over the validity of their votes.
• County and municipal relief work for soldiers' families, which was perhaps the first large-scale government cash assistance effort. Also interesting [List in 11/06/1861 LEH; Comments in 11/12/1861 Intelligencer; 12/20 & 12/30/1861 DEE; Mariettian: 6/8/1861, 8/24/1861, 9/7-9/21/1861, 10/26/1861; Also see original committee minutes at Lancaster County Historical Society]
• Interactions between Patriot Daughters (and other aid organizations) and the 79th Pennsylvania.  Especially related to socks. [DEE 1861: 11/11 blankets, "Warwick" letter late November 1861, Acknowledgement Letter from Wilberforce Nevin on 11/26/1861; LEH: Poem and note mid-December 1861; HW: 1/11/1862 poem] 
• Deaths in the 79th Pennsylvania, December 1861 - February 1862.  
• A public meeting to form a hospital in Lancaster. [DEE 1/7/1862]
• Curiosities from Kentucky. [DEE 1/10/1862]
• Patriot Daughters of Lancaster report for 1861. [DEE 1/11/1862]
• The Mayoral Election of 1862.  War Democrats and Republicans work very hard in an unsuccessful bid to unseat Mayor George Sanderson.  A couple 79th Pennsylvania connections, including a smear by the Sanderson campaign of their opponent--a doctor who helped poor soldiers' families--that prompted the family of Lewis Jones to write a letter to the Daily Evening Express.  [See newspapers from late January into early February 1862, especially DEE]

Let me know if you have any questions about any of these topics.  I'll be happy to clarify or expand upon anything I've written above for anyone interested.

Adam C. Reinoehl's Civil War

I happily take a break today from the Lancaster County Regiment to republish the letters of Adam C. Reinoehl to the Lancaster Daily Evening Express during his service with the 76th Pennsylvania.  Welcome to any readers visiting this blog through Prof. Louise Stevenson's Civil War class at Franklin and Marshall College, the institution from which Reinoehl graduated as the valedictorian of the Class of 1861.

Wartime photograph almost certainly
of Adam C. Reinoehl
See Note [1] below.

As not only one of the most prolific of Lancaster's many Civil War soldier-correspondents, Adam C. Reinoehl also had some of the more unique experiences in his service with the 76th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry (the "Keystone Zouaves") between 1861 and 1865.  The regiment spent most of the war around Hilton Head, South Carolina, where Union forces encountered issues of slavery, emancipation, and African-American soldiers in very raw form.  The 76th Pennsylvania was even brigaded with the 54th Massachusetts in the famous July 1863 attacks on Fort Wagner, in which Reinoehl was wounded for the first time and which are chronicled in the movie Glory.

After the war, Reinoehl carried on Thaddeus Stevens-style Radical Republicanism as a member of the Pennsylvania Legislature for three-terms.  He also remained one of Lancaster's most active Civil War veterans, helping to lead efforts to erect the Soldiers and Sailors Monument, working on soldiers' orphans issues, and organizing Grand Army of the Republic posts in Lancaster County.   

By my count [2], Reinoehl penned twenty-nine letters to the Daily Evening Express, usually spaced in one-month intervals.  He wrote under a pen name, which I'm guessing was more to provide a literary flair than preserve anonymity, as the letters' author's identity would have been pretty obvious in Lancaster (although perhaps it provided a buffer against a negative reaction by someone in the War Department).  Reinoehl curiously signed his letters, "Demas," presumably alluding to the Apostle Paul's companion in mission who later deserted Paul "because he loved this world" (2 Timothy 4:10) and is held up for as an example not to emulate for Christians.  I wonder if Reinoehl chose the name as a playful way of recognizing how he--the valedictorian of Franklin and Marshall College's Class of 1861--got caught up in the spirit of the times and enlist in the army to abandon the higher calling of academic life.

Uniform of soldier in Keystone Zouaves (76th Pennsylvania) sold by Heritage Auctions

For a fuller biography of Reinoehl, I defer to Officers of the Volunteer Army and Navy who served in the Civil War (L.R. Hamersly & Co., 1893):

Brevet Major Adam Cyrus Reinoehl was born in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, November 15, 1840. In 1856 his parents settled in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Entering Franklin and Marshall College at Lancaster, he graduated in 1861, receiving the valedictory oration,the highest honor of the class. On commencement day, on taking formal leave of the Board of Trustees, he commented on the action of that body at their meeting held on the previous night, when they dismissed from the faculty Professor Koeppen, a learned, faithful, but somewhat eccentric gentleman, greatly beloved by the students. The president of the college arose and ordered him to stop, but, disregarding the interruption, the valedictorian continued. The president called on the band to play, but the orator proceeded until his voice was lost in the music. The exercises were abruptly ended. The public insisted that the valedictory should be delivered, and the owners of the hall refusing to hire it, in the evening Charles Eden tendered the balcony of his ice-cream saloon, adjoining Fulton Hall, from which the oration was delivered in the presence of several thousand ladies and gentlemen, who crowded the streets in the vicinity.

After teaching school for two months and twenty-three days in Ephrata Township, he enlisted in the Seventy-sixth Regiment Pennsylvania Volunteers, Keystone Zouaves. Entering the service as a private in Company D, he took part in all the campaigns and battles of the regiment. The Seventy-sixth was ordered to Port Royal, South Carolina, in the fall of 1861, and was actively engaged in the sieges and engagements in the Department of the South. In April, 1862, the regiment was ordered to Tybee Island, and was present at the siege and capture of Fort Pulaski. Reinoehl served as private of Company D in the campaign against Charleston on James Island, June, 1862, and in the battle of Pocotaligo, South Carolina, October 22, 1862. On the 10th of December, 1862, he was promoted to regimental quartermaster-sergeant, and January 24, 1863, he was promoted to sergeant-major. The Seventy-sixth was in Strong's brigade, which charged and captured the rebel batteries on Morris Island, South Carolina, July 10.

On the morning of July 11, 1863, the Seventy-sixth Pennsylvania, with four companies of the Seventh Connecticut and Ninth Maine, charged Fort Wagner, and were repulsed. The Seventy-sixth lost one hundred and eighty-seven killed, wounded, and missing. Sergeant-Major Reinoehl was shot through the left arm with a Minnie-ball, and was permanently disabled.

Returning to his regiment after a furlough, he remained in the service, and re-enlisted April, 1864, for three years, and while on veteran furlough, having been recommended for promotion by Colonel Strawbridge, received from the hands of Governor A. G. Curtin, at Harrisburg, a commission as first lieutenant of Company B, April 27, 1864. He commanded the company during the campaign of the Tenth Corps, in the Army of the James and Army of the Potomac, at Cold Harbor, at the explosion of the mine, and in the siege of Petersburg. On the 4th of August, 1864, he was promoted to adjutant. On the 27th of October, in a charge on the rebel works at Darbytown Road, Va., the outer defenses of Richmond, he was severely wounded in the left thigh by a ball from a shrapnel shell, and was removed to his home at Lancaster. Disabled for months, he resigned, and was honorably discharged Feb. 6, 1865. March 13, 1865, he was brevetted captain " for gallant and meritorious service in the assault on Fort Wagner, S. C.," and was brevetted major "for gallant and meritorious service in the attack on the enemy's works on Darbytown Road, Va., Oct. 27, 1864."

In 1866 he was admitted to the bar of Lancaster County. In 1868 he was elected to the Pennsylvania Legislature, and subsequently re-elected in 1870 and 1871, serving three terms. In 1872 he was appointed Deputy Secretary of the Commonwealth by Gov. John W. Geary, and was continued by Gov. John F. Hartranft, until he resigned, in 1873, to resume the practice of his profession. On retiring he was tendered letters highly complimentary of his services by Gov. Hartranft and Hon. M. S. Quay, Secretary of the Commonwealth. In 1889 he was appointed a member of the Soldiers' Orphans' Commission of the State of Pennsylvania by the department commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. In 1889 Major Reinoehl was elected district attorney of the county of Lancaster, his term expiring Jan. 1, 1893. He married Miss Lucy Davis, Nov. 24, 1870. They have four children,-Walter Allan, Mary Acheson, Gertrude Laughlin, and Albert Riegel. He is an active member of the Grand Army of the Republic, and of the Pennsylvania Commandery of the Military Order of the Loyal Legion.

Reinoehl died on December 14, 1900, in an incident described as suicide in a New York Times account.  Another biography is available here.

Adam C. Reinoehl Tombstone at Lancaster Cemetery (vws)

I have compiled Reinoehl's letters (except the May-October 1862 letters [2]) as a pdf available to view and download at this link <https://docs.google.com/open?id=0B5luPkqpDDWkZTViNWQzNTctZjY4NC00Zjg3LTk0ZTktN2RmYjBjZDFhZTBl>.

Or, you can view them here:



Further Reading and Research:

• Search "Reinoehl" in the digitized Lancaster Intelligencer, a staunch conservative Democratic newspaper which had many colorful things to say about the Republican Reinoehl.  
• Find the letters from "Demas" written to the New Era in the 1880s(?) as part of the Tucquan Club, a fraternal organization for prominent Lancaster men that went camping along the Susquehanna River. 
• Find Reinoehl's account of the Battle of Fort Wagner appearing in the March 31, 1886, Philadelphia Weekly Press.  This also appeared in the April 10, 1886, New Era (I have a paper copy, but not an electronic copy). 
• Regimental history and roster of the 76th Pennsylvania.
• Illustration of 76th Pennsylvania zouave uniform in Don Troiani's Civil War. 
• Learn about Lieut. W. Wilberforce Nevin, valedictorian of F&M's Class of 1853 and son of future F&M president.  

Notes:

1. I recently stumbled upon this image sold by Heritage Auctions a couple years ago.  It is a mid-war image of a sergeant major of the Keystone Zouaves taken in Lancaster by Jamison and Benson photographic gallery in Lancaster.  Given that there's only one sergeant major in the 76th Pennsylvania (which was Reinoehl after he was wounded at Fort Wagner and subsequently returned home) and that none of the 76th PA companies were recruited in Lancaster, this image almost certainly has to be Reinoehl.  
2. Thanks to Richard Sauers' index in the PA Save the Flags Collection at USAMHI for expediting the process by which I found these letters.  The May-October 1862 editions of the Daily Evening Express are not microfilmed but available as part of newspaper bound volumes at the Lancaster County Historical Society.  I do have pictures of those letters, but they need some processing (maybe transcription) before I can post them.

Understanding the Rise of the Republican Party

Engraving of a torchlight rally of the "Wide Awakes," a paramilitary organization active across the North that supported Lincoln in the 1860 election.  Some officers in the 79th Pennsylvania, such as Lt. Col. David Miles were active in Lincoln rallies before the war.   

As it is today, Lancaster County during the Civil War stood out as one of Pennsylvania's most reliably Republican counties.  While the city leaned toward the Democratic Party, there really wasn't much of a contest in the rest of the county.  The 79th Pennsylvania generally represented the politics of community from which it was recruited, with some of the older officers as lifelong Democrats and the younger officers as staunch Republicans. 

In my post about S. H. Zahm's anti-Southern patriotic covers, I mentioned how trying to understand boiling Northern antipathy toward the South is interesting but not necessarily obvious.  A corollary to that is understanding how the Republican Party came out of nowhere, only being founded in the mid-1850s but winning the presidency with the election of Abraham Lincoln just a few years later in 1860.  Lancaster County, formerly of stronghold of the defunct Whig Party, quickly rallied to the Republican cause, and several Republican newspapers including the Daily Evening Express loudly voiced support for the Republican Party.

Political cartoon featuring the main players in the election of 1860, with Abraham Lincoln on left.
By Currier & Ives [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

Prof. Brooks Simpson posts a summary of the environmental factors in the North that enabled the rapid rise of the Republican Party at his blog, Crossroads.  Highlighting one paragraph in particular:

The Republican party of the 1850s was a coalition opposed to “slavery” in its many forms, but primarily in the form of a “slave power”: that is, a political and economic movement designed to dominate the federal government in the interests of slavery, casting aside the interests of white northerners.  Sure, many Republican leaders (including Lincoln) thought slavery was evil and immoral, but they gained support from voters when they identified northern Democrats as the puppets of that slave power and argued that only Republicans served northern interests.  Democrats like Stephen Douglas found it impossible to retain southern support while appealing to northern voters (which is one reason why Douglas played the race card all the time … because he knew that many northern voters harbored deep racial prejudices, especially among Democrats).

Topics for further research: Reaction in Lancaster to the Fugitive Slave Act and the Christiana Riots, Reaction to John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Involvement of future 79th Pennsylvania officers in rallies leading up to the election of 1860, the Wide Awake movement in Lancaster.