McMillan Woods CCC camp

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The McMillan Woods CCC camp was Civilian Conservation Corps camp NP-2 [1] on the Gettysburg Battlefield planned in September 1933 near CCC Camp Renaissance in Pitzer Woods (camp NP-1). Captain Francis J. Moran moved from Camp Renaissance to become the new camp NP-2 commander in October 1933 [2] (supervisors under Superintendent Farrell included Charles Heilman in 1936, and Major Renn Lawrence was the 1937 CCC sub-district commander.) The camp opened a new recreation hall in 1934 and provided manpower for building the veterans camp for the 1938 Gettysburg reunion, [3] and about 50 enrollees of CCC Company #1355-C served as aides for unaccompanied veterans. During the reunion, Company F of the 34th Infantry used the CCC camp and had a headquarters office under Major C. Gilchrist (executive officer of the "regular army camp") [4] and Capt. E. E. Wright. Captain Frederick L. Slade was the CCC commander on April 1, 1939.

McMillan Woods is a Gettysburg Battlefield forested area used during the Battle of Gettysburg and for camps after the American Civil War, including a CCC camp and the subsequent WWII POW camp at Gettysburg. The woods includes Rifle Pits and Earth Works from the battle

Civilian Conservation Corps public work relief program

The Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) was a voluntary public work relief program that operated from 1933 to 1942 in the United States for unemployed, unmarried men. Originally for young men ages 18–25, it was eventually expanded to ages 17–28. Robert Fechner was the first director of this agency, succeeded by James McEntee following Fechner's death. The CCC was a major part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal that provided unskilled manual labor jobs related to the conservation and development of natural resources in rural lands owned by federal, state, and local governments. The CCC was designed to provide jobs for young men and to relieve families who had difficulty finding jobs during the Great Depression in the United States. Maximum enrollment at any one time was 300,000. Through the course of its nine years in operation, 3 million young men participated in the CCC, which provided them with shelter, clothing, and food, together with a wage of $30 per month.

Gettysburg Battlefield site of the Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War

The Gettysburg Battlefield is the area of the July 1–3, 1863, military engagements of the Battle of Gettysburg within and around the borough of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. Locations of military engagements extend from the 4-acre (1.6 ha) site of the first shot at Knoxlyn Ridge on the west of the borough, to East Cavalry Field on the east. A military engagement prior to the battle was conducted at the Gettysburg Railroad trestle over Rock Creek, which was burned on June 27.

In 1939, the McMillan Woods CCC camp became the 1st under an "all colored staff" when the white supervisory personnel transferred to the Blue Knob CCC camp (the camp's singing quartet made public appearances in 1939.) The camp worked on Jones Battalion avenue and constructed a new walkway on Big Round Top. [5] The commander in 1940 was Captain Webb, and in March 1942, the McMillan Woods CCC camp was to be abandoned (the facility became the 1944-5 World War II POW camp at Gettysburg.)

Blue Knob State Park

Blue Knob State Park is a 6,128-acre (2,480 ha) Pennsylvania state park in Kimmel, Lincoln, and Pavia townships in Bedford County, Pennsylvania, in the United States. The average annual snowfall at the park is about 12 feet (370 cm). The park is named for Blue Knob, the second highest mountain in Pennsylvania at 3,146 feet (959 m). It is the location of Blue Knob All Seasons Resort, the ski slope in Pennsylvania with the highest elevation. Blue Knob State Park is just off Interstate 99 on Pennsylvania Route 869 west of Pavia.

Big Round Top hill in Pennsylvania, United States of America

Big Round Top is a boulder-strewn hill notable as the topographic high point of the Gettysburg Battlefield and for 1863 American Civil War engagements for which Medals of Honor were awarded. In addition to battle monuments, a historic postbellum structure on the uninhabited hill is the Big Round Top Observation Tower Foundation Ruin.

The World War II Prisoner of War camp on the Gettysburg Battlefield operated from June 29, 1945, through April 1946 at the former site of the McMillan Woods CCC camp.

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Seminary Ridge

Seminary Ridge is a dendritic ridge which was an area of Battle of Gettysburg engagements in July 1863 during the American Civil War (1861–1865), and of military installations during World War II (1941–1945).

Robert Fechner American labor leader

Played a central role in the development of state and national parks in the United States. Born in Chattanooga, Tennessee. With only a public school elementary education he had risen to become an American labor union leader and vice president of the International Association of Machinists. He had a reputation for fairness, tact, and patience in all his dealings. On 5 April 1933 he was appointed by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to be the Director of the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC). It was Fechner's fairness and ability for organization and administration that impressed the president to his appointment as director. Although he had been an important labor figure, Fechner objected to attempts of union organizers to form unions among CCC enrollees in the camps. He felt that the government was doing all it possibly could for the well-being of the enrollees: well fed, supporting dependents with monthly earnings, getting an education; and they were contributing in a constructive manner to the conservation needs of the nation. The need for a union in this situation was not necessary, and he issued orders to keep union organizers out of the CCC camps and gave instructions that if any of the CCC enrolees joined a union they were to be discharged. Upon Fechner's death while still serving as CCC Director he was succeeded by James McEntee.

1913 Gettysburg reunion

The 1913 Gettysburg reunion was a Gettysburg Battlefield encampment of American Civil War veterans for the Battle of Gettysburg's 50th anniversary. The June 29–July 4 gathering of 53,407 veterans was the largest ever Civil War veteran reunion, and "never before in the world's history [had] so great a number of men so advanced in years been assembled under field conditions". All honorably discharged veterans in the Grand Army of the Republic and the United Confederate Veterans were invited, and veterans from 46 of the 48 states attended.

Camp Sharpe

Camp Sharpe was a World War II military installation on the Gettysburg Battlefield that trained soldiers for psychological operations in the European Theater of Operations. Adjacent to Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) camp NP-2 in McMillan Woods, Camp Sharpe used camp CCC NP-1 and was located "in a muddy hollow at the bottom of a slanting road". A USO facility for Camp Sharpe soldiers was at the former Hill house on Chambersburg Street in nearby Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Pitzer Woods

Pitzer Woods is a Gettysburg Battlefield site used for Gettysburg Battlefield camps after the American Civil War such as the 1933–37 Camp Renaissance Civilian Conservation Corps camp.

Camp Colt, Pennsylvania

Camp Colt was a military installation near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania used for Tank Corps recruit training prior to deployment in World War I. The camp used the Gettysburg Battlefield site of the previous Great Reunion of 1913 and the preceding 1917 World War I recruit training camp for U. S. troops along the Round Top Branch.

Round Top Branch


The Round Top Branch was an extension of the Gettysburg and Harrisburg Railroad from the Gettysburg borough across the Gettysburg Battlefield to Round Top, Pennsylvania. The branch ran southward from the terminus of the railroad's main line, west of the school and St. Francis Xavier Cemetery, across the field of Pickett's Charge, south of Cemetery Ridge, east of Weikert Hill and Munshower Knoll, and through Round Top to a point between Little Round Top's east base and Taneytown Road. In addition to battlefield tourists, the line carried stone monoliths and statues for monuments during the battlefield's memorial association and commemorative eras and equipment, supplies and participants for Gettysburg Battlefield camps after the American Civil War.

1938 Gettysburg reunion

The 1938 Gettysburg reunion was an encampment of American Civil War veterans on the Gettysburg Battlefield for the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The gathering included approximately 25 veterans of the battle with a further 1,359 Federal and 486 Confederate attendees out of the 8,000 living veterans of the war. The veterans averaged 94 years of age. Transportation, quarters, and subsistence was federally funded for each veteran and their accompanying attendant. If an attendant was needed it was provided. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's July 3 reunion address preceded the unveiling of the Eternal Light Peace Memorial; a newsreel with part of the address was included in the Westinghouse Time Capsule for the 1939 New York World's Fair.

Greenmount, Pennsylvania Unincorporated community in Pennsylvania, United States

Greenmount is a populated place in Adams County, Pennsylvania, United States. It is located southwest of the Gettysburg Battlefield, at Marsh Creek along the Emmitsburg Road, in Cumberland Township.

Camp Renaissance was Civilian Conservation Corps camp NP-2 that was established on March 10, 1933, in the Gettysburg Battlefield's Pitzer Woods for reforestation. On September 22, 1933, Captain Moran transferred to Camp Renaissance to become the Company 1332 commander,. The camp with Company #385-C) in Pitzer Woods closed in April 1937.

Camp Michaux was a secret World War II camp for interrogating prisoners of war. The camp northwest of the Pine Grove Iron Works was previously used as a CCC camp that provided labor for state-owned lands and was used as a summer camp. The POW camp commander was Captain Lawrence C. Thomas, who also commanded the World War II Prisoner of War Camp, Gettysburg Battlefield, Pennsylvania.

Wheatfield Road highway in Pennsylvania

The Wheatfield Road is a Gettysburg Battlefield crossroad from the Peach Orchard east-southeastward along the north side of The Wheatfield, north of the Valley of Death, and over the north foot of Little Round Top. In addition to modern tourist use, the road is notable for Battle of Gettysburg use and postbellum trolley use associated with the 1892-1896 US v. Gettysburg Electric Ry. case of the US Supreme Court.

Camp George G. Meade

Camp George G. Meade was one of the Gettysburg Battlefield camps after the American Civil War for Pennsylvania National Guard training of the Keystone Division. The military installation's structures on the Gettysburg Battlefield were subsequently used in the battlefield's commemorative and development eras, e.g., for a WWI recruiting and Tank Corps camp, the 1913 Gettysburg reunion, and the Third Corps camp during the 1938 Gettysburg reunion.

She-She-She Camps

The She-She-She Camps were camps for unemployed women that were organized by Eleanor Roosevelt (ER) in the United States as a counterpart to the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) programs designed for unemployed men. ER found that the men-only focus of the CCC program left out young women who were willing to work in conservation and forestry and to sign up for the six-month programs living away from family and close support. She lobbied for a sister organization to the CCC that would be for young women. Eleanor Roosevelt proposed that this would consist of camps for jobless women and residential worker schools. The She-She-She camps were funded by presidential order in 1933. Labor Secretary Frances Perkins championed one such camp after ER held a White House Conference for Unemployed Women on April 30, 1934, and subsequently ER's concept of a nationwide jobless women's camp was achieved. While the public largely supported the New Deal programs and the CCC was a huge success, the women's version barely topped 5,000 women annually by 1936 and overall served 8,500 as a result of ER's support.

References

  1. ↑ "Camp Information for NP-2-PA". Pennsylvania CCC Archive. Department of Conservation and Natural Resources. Retrieved 2010-02-01.
  2. ↑ Davis, James E. (October 7, 1933). "Gettysburg C.C.C. Camp Men Get Four Days' Leave" (Google News Archive). Baltimore Afro-American. Retrieved 2011-11-07.
  3. ↑ [ dead link ]Nagle, George F. "Research Project-CCC Camps". Afrolumens.org. Archived from the original on 2007-09-22. Retrieved 2010-06-01.
  4. ↑ "Last Army Officers Leave" (Google News Archive). The Gettysburg Times . Times and News Publishing Company. August 10, 1938. Retrieved 2011-12-06.
  5. ↑ "New Stone Walk Helps Climb On Big Round Top" (Google News Archive). The Star and Sentinel. July 13, 1940. Retrieved 2011-06-07. new walk nearly completed by C.C.C. enrollees on the steep slopes of Big Round Top … C.C.C. enrollees also are at work on the Jones Battalion avenue east of the Harrisburg road about a mile north of Gettysburg
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