SW Pennsylvania Invasion Threats Part 7 Gettysburg

The Pittsburgh Gazette
June 12, 1863

In mid-June, coinciding with Morgan's Raid, Robert E. Lee’s Army of the Potomac began to enter central Pennsylvania as a prelude to the Battle of Gettysburg. Communities throughout the lower part of the commonwealth from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia were warned by Governor Andrew Gregg Curtin to prepare for aggressive action on the part of Lee’s army. It was thought that the state capital at Harrisburg was to be a target. In Greene County, the Waynesburg Messenger preached, “No time is to be lost, if you would save the capital of our proud old Commonwealth from the despoiling invader and our fields from devastation.” [117] 
   The Messenger noted that one hundred volunteer militiamen from Greene County were on their way to Pittsburgh under the command of a Waynesburg resident, Lieutenant Levi R. McFann, who had just completed a nine-month enlistment in the 123^rd PA. McFann’s volunteers would serve under Major General William T. H. "Bully" Brooks in the newly created Department of the Monongahela. This command was organized to protect western Pennsylvania from Pittsburgh to Johnstown in Cambria County, as well as parts of West Virginia and Ohio. [118]

Wheeling Daily Ingelligencer
         June 18, 1863

General Outline of the Department of the Mononghela
            Western Pennsylvnania, parts of Ohio and (West) Virginia
    LOC

Uniontown had the unlikely benefit of infantry protection from the 27th New Jersey. The nine-month enlistments of these men had expired on June 3 while they were in Louisville, Kentucky. On their way back home to New Jersey, they learned that Lee’s troops had entered central Pennsylvania and that their rail trip back home might be blocked.  Twenty-one year old Colonel George Mindil polled his troops and they collectively agreed to extend their military service while in southwestern Pennsylvania for this emergency. The 27^th New Jersey was briefly ordered to guard Uniontown before being shipped to the state capital at Harrisburg.  [119]

         The Army of the Monongahela saw little action in Ohio and West Virginia during the time of the Gettysburg Campaign. Following his defeat at Gettysburg, Lee crossed the Potomac River back into Virginia, and Pennsylvania was not threatened again for the remaining two years of the war.