Killed in Action at Hanover

Hanover photographer Peter S. Weaver, who operated a studio on Baltimore Street, recorded this view dated February 6, 1964. The man holding the book in the photo is Samuel Weaver, Peter's father. Samuel supervised the operation in which the remains of over 3,500 Union soldiers were exhumed and then reburied in the Gettysburg National Cemetery.<br><br>The workers used long hooks to pull decomposed bodies from the graves. Nineteen Union cavalrymen were reported killed or mortally wounded in Hanover on June 30, 1863. Some bodies had been moved elsewhere, but eleven still remained buried at Hanover in 1864.<br><br>The evening of the battle, citizens took the Union corpses to J.P. Flickinger's foundry on York Street. By 9:00 p.m. the bodies were placed in caskets ordered by Henry Wirt, a leading citizen of Hanover. Reverend W. K. Zieber of Emmanuel Reformed Church performed ceremonies for the deceased at the Reformed Cemetery. Also, two soldiers were buried in St. Matthew Church Cemetery.<br><br><i>"They were all taken up, put in coffins and conveyed to Gettysburg and re-interred in the National Cemetery near that place." </i> - The Hanover Spectator, February 12, 1864<br><i>"Although view 60 </i>(photo shown)<i> was recorded in nearby Hanover, it provides the only known visual documentation of the exhumation process supervised by Gettysburg's Samuel Weaver, the man seen standing to the right with the notebook in hand."</i>