York Civil War Roundtable

April 17, 2024 – James McCLure – “York County’s Reaction to Fort Sumter and the Beginning of the Civil War”

This program will be in person and on-line (on Zoom and Facebook).

In Person registration: Click Here

For Zoom link: Click Here

Description – When the Confederates artillery fired on Fort Sumter on April 12, 1861, the impact of those cannons reverberated in York County and beyond. Life changed immediately. Men promptly marched to guard duty and then to war. Women rolled bandages. The town hosted – and provided for – thousands of green recruits at the Union military camp hastily established on its fairgrounds. The railroad carried fighting men and military supplies South. Even when fighting erupted miles away, the Civil War never seemed far from York County, with its 45-mile border from the South.

Jim McClure will tell about the war’s impact and the community’s response in these early days and months of America’s Civil War.

Biography –  Jim McClure is the retired editor of the York Daily Record/ York Sunday News and associated digital products. He held that position since May 2004, after serving for 15 years as managing editor of the YDR. After Gannett Co. purchased the YDR in June 2015, McClure also served as state editor for Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, overseeing six newsrooms. For about 2 1/2 years, he served as East Region Editor for the YDR’s former parent Digital First Media, with oversight for 20+ daily newsrooms and 50 or more weeklies. In that capacity, he was the senior editor on DFM on-site teams that covered the school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and the Boston Marathon bombing.

He is the author or co-author of nine books on York County history, including “East of Gettysburg.” He has co-authored four Civil War books with Scott Mingus. He also moderates Retro York, a 28,500- member Facebook Group.

The York Civil War Round Table is a non-profit organization that seeks to promote, interpret, preserve, and protect the Civil War heritage of York County, Pennsylvania, through the education and exchange of information with its members and the general public. Membership is free and open to anyone interested in learning more about the American Civil War.

Founded as the White Rose Civil War Round Table, the York CWRT holds monthly meetings the third Wednesday of every month except December at 7:00 p.m. in the Meeting Hall of the York County History Center’s Historical Society Museum at 250 East Market Street in York, Pennsylvania. Each meeting features a guest speaker talking about a Civil War topic of local or national interest. Meetings are FREE and open to the public.  For upcoming programs, please visit the Cannonball webpage http://www.yorkblog.com/cannonball/york-cwrt/.