Although no Civil War engagements came as far north as Northumberland County, the call for Union soldiers reached here and beyond.
On April 15, three days after the battle for Fort Sumter began, President Abraham Lincoln issued a proclamation for 75,000 "loyal men." The following day, citizens of Shamokin and surrounding area held the county's first public meeting to discuss the call for troops. In that meeting, A.R. Fiske, W.P. Withington and Alexander Campbell discussed ways to assist families of the 108 men who answered the president's request.
Throughout the war, families of absent soldiers were assisted by several acts of private charity, community groups and regular contributions by the county commissioners.
In the evening of April 17, another public meeting was held, this time at the Sunbury courthouse with an objective of forming a "military association, out of which association of a full company may be furnished at the call of the proper authorities," and also a committee of three to solicit subscriptions to defray the expenses of the company.
Companies routinely traveled to Camp Curtain, an 80-acre training camp on the northern outskirts of Harrisburg, where soldiers trained in the art of drill and discipline. The camp was named after then-Gov. Andrew Curtain.
According to the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, between April 1861 and 1865, more military units organized there than any other northern camp.
During the war's duration, trains filled with troops from throughout the state regularly passed through Sunbury on their way to, or from, Camp Curtain. Regardless of their destination, soldiers were always met with a friendly openness by area residents.
The Cameron connection
By the time Robert E. Lee surrendered his army to General Ulysses S. Grant on April 9, 1865, in the village of Appomattox Court House, Va., an estimated 600,000 Americans had died on the field or of disease.
Col. James Cameron was the first soldier from Northumberland County to loose his life. Cameron died on July 21, 1861, at age 61, while leading the 79th New York Regiment (commonly known as the Cameronian Highlanders) at the battle of Bull Run, near the city of Manassas, Va.
A monument in Sunbury's Cameron Park was dedicated to Cameron and all county Union soldiers during a grand ceremony on July 4, 1879. Inscribed on the shaft of the monument are the 12 leading battles that troops from the county fought: Petersburg, Williamsburg, Wilderness, Bull Run, Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, Fair Oaks, Vicksburg, Winchester, Gettysburg, Antietam and Appomattox.
An inscription on the base reads, "Erected to the memory of the gallant soldiers of Northumberland County who fell in the battles of the great Rebellion."
An additional inscription describes Cameron's fall at Bull Run.
Shamokin monument
The Shamokin Soldiers' Monument stands 13 feet tall in the Soldiers' Circle in northeastern section of the Shamokin Cemetery. Dedicated on May 30, 1871, it consists of a piece of solid block granite from the Gettysburg battlefield.
Although faded from 140 years of weathering, an inscription several feet high on the monument, which reads, "To our fallen heroes," serves as a constant tribute to all area citizens who sacrificed their lives for the freedom of others.