Word Celebrity Blog

Civil War Heroine


On June 15, 1863, Confederate troops, marched across the Mason-Dixon Line into Pennsylvania, for the first time in the Civil War.  They crossed into  the townshps of Antrim and Greencastle.  By the end of June 1853, the citizens of Antrim and Greencastle had nervously watched,  from their farms and homes; as the troops marched past for days on end.  The Confederate troops were making their way to Gettysburg.  Most soldiers were marching;  others rode horses;  and some drove the wagons.  Many of them plundered food supplies and livestock, from the farms and the homes in town. 



















On Saturday, June 27, 1863,  "Dolly" Harris is said to have rushed to North Carlisle Street waving a Union Flag at Confederate Major General George Edward Pickett as he and his troops passed through Greencastle, Pennsylvania, on their way to Gettysburg.  Probably fearing that "Dolly" might incite a confrontation with his troops,  General Pickett rose in his stirrups, removed his hat and saluted the courageous young lady and the flag.  By doing this, he probably averted an uprising of local citizens in the streets.
























Dolly Harris - Civil War Heroine.


Frances M. Harris, daughter of a Greencastle cabinet maker, John Harris, was born about November 2, 1845.   She lived with her family in a weatherboard house,  on the lot just south of 45 North Carlisle Street, where the annex to the Susquehanna Bank (formerly the Citizens Bank) is now located.   According to the 1858 and 1868 maps of Greencastle,  the house sat back a fair distance from the street,  probably about 30 to 40 feet.   This is in stark contrast to all the other houses and buildings of 1858 and 1868, and which,  to this day,  are still situated along the sidewalk.

Frances’ childhood nickname was "Dolly".  There are no known records of what her family life was like,  but it was possibly very similar to that of her neighbors.   Current events,  including topics printed in "The Pilot", were probably discussed each day during the Civil War,  perhaps around the dinner table, as was the custom in the area.  That might be why "Dolly" Harris,  at about the age of 17,  was so impassioned and very brave  that she had the courage to express her feelings toward General George E. Pickett and his armed men,  as they marched for two days, through Greencastle, in late June,  on the 26th and 27th, 1863.

No one knows if "Dolly" Harris was just plain enraged with all the ravaging that had taken place for almost the last two weeks.  Maybe it was because of her patriotism.  It could have been that it was a combination of both, that prompted the young woman to rush out and confront the troops on the dusty dirt road of North Carlisle Street.

What "Dolly" did that day. was hardly known outside of Greencastle.  It was more than 20 years later,  at a Gettysburg Reunion in 1887,  that the flag-waving incident involving the young lady  was mentioned in a speech that was given  by Colonel William Aylett.

















Colonel William Aylett.


"Why the bravest woman I ever saw was a Pennsylvania girl who defied Pickett's whole division as we marched through the little town called Greencastle. She had a United States flag as an apron which she defiantly waved up and down as our columns passed by her and dared us to take it from her." - Colonel William Aylett of General Pickett's division, recounting the following incident at a Gettysburg Reunion in 1887.

He had been a Captain, in Company D, 53rd Virginia Infantry, on May 13, 1861,  a Major on August 29, 1862, a  Lt. Colonel, on February 2, 1863, and a Colonel, on March 5, 1863.

Colonel Ayllet was wounded at Gettysburg on July 3, 1863.   He assumed command of General Lewis A. Armistead's Brigade after the general's death,  although he was also wounded.  He was captured at Saylor's Creek on April 6, 1865,   but he was not released until July 15 from Johnson's Island.  Colonel Ayllet was the great-grandson of the patriot Patrick Henry.   He was also a lawyer in King William County, Virginia.





















The following account was printed in the "Public Opinion" newspaper’s account for Frances "Dolly" Harris.  -
 "For whatever reason, only known to Dolly, herself,  “Dolly Harris rushed to the street in front of the leader of the southern band,  waved the stars and stripes in his face and roundly denounced the troopers as traitors to their country,  cut throats,  and plunderers. "





















Major General George Edward Pickett.


"Aware that his men could very well retaliate physically,  General Pickett rose in his stirrups,  removed his hat and saluted the courageous young lady and the flag,  thereby quelling an uprising in the street.   Following suit, General Pickett’s men also saluted young "Dolly",  and as the division’s band passed by, it “serenaded” "Dolly" by playing Dixie."

At this point,  the :Harrisburg Telegram" picked up on Colonel Aylett’s story.   The assigned reporter was to investigate and find out who this young girl was.   The reporter tracked down Robert E. Garrett of Baltimore, who during the Civil War was an officer in the Fourth Alabama regiment,  which was part of Pickett’s division.  He remembered the flag-waving girl as “dark haired with a dark complexion.”   Garrett was even able to identify her home on North Carlisle Street.

John Boyd was a southern friend of the Harris family;  and during the Northern invasion,  he was a member of Company K of the Fifty-Seventh Virginia Volunteers.   Receiving permission from his commander, General Armistead Boyd left camp (which was south of town) to visit the Harrises overnight,  and then joined his unit the next morning.  The "Harrisburg Telegram"s reporter didn’t just talk to General Armistead Boyd,  but he interviewed him under the rare circumstances of an affidavit,  that was dated September 17, 1887.   Before he rejoined Company K, the next day,  General Boyd had remembered the following:  “An earlier officer had told her (Dolly) to take off the flag apron.  Dolly replied, "Not for you or any of your men."  He raised his hat and passed on.” 

General Boyd continued, “The next I remember well was General Pickett and his staff.  As they passed, Dolly waved the stars and stripes at them.  General Pickett saluted her and the boys all along the line gave her one of the old rebel yells.”

The Harrisburg Telegram did not stop there.  Two more affidavits were acquired in September 1887 – one from Dolly’s mother and one from "Dolly" herself.   Both of their accounts agreed with that of "Colonel Aylett and General John Boyd’s.





















LaSalle C. Pickett.


Mrs. LaSalle C. Pickett, widow of General George E. Pickett, the hero of the famous charge at Gettysburg, gave the following version of Dolly Harris's story in a magazine contribution :

"To the ringing notes of the "Bonnie Blue Flag" Pickett's men were marching through the town of Greencastle, in Pennsylvania, when a young girl, in a house upon the line, caught up a United States flag and, fastening one end about her waist, ran out on the porch. She waved the flag and shouted out at the top of her voice: "Come and take it who dares!"

"There was a growl along the line and a halt in the swinging tramp of the stern soldiers, when Pickett hurried on ahead and, lifting his cap. bowed with courteous grace to the maiden,  saluting her flag with all a soldier's reverence.  He wheeled his horse out of line, his head bared, his flashing eyes issuing his only command.  But his men understood,  and as they filed by every cap in the long line was swung aloft, and the "Rebel Yell" echoed thro' the streets of Greencastle, in honor of the girl and her flag."

"The little girl, who was overcome by this touch of Southern chivalry, called out: "I wish I had a rebel flag, and then I'd wave that too!"

"A brother officer asked Pickett how he could bring himself to salute the enemy's flag.   Fire flashed in his tiger-gray eyes as he replied:  "General,  I saw only the heroic womanhood in the heart of that little girl,  and the banner under which I won my first laurels."


Controversy arose when, in the October 15, 1891 issue of Greencastle’s "Valley Echo",  Charles W. Gaff, editor, published an account of the flag-waving girl incident.  In both the article and a poem,  he identified the girl not as "Dolly" Harris but as Sadie Smith,  a girl who lived about one block north of "Dolly" Harris on North Carlisle Street.

Charles W. Gaff wrote: "However, the preponderance of evidence gathered by the "Harrisburg Telegram", leads one to conclude that "Dolly" Harris was, indeed, the flag-waving girl on that late June day in 1863."

"A cousin of "Dolly" Harris,  a Confederate soldier,  had pointed out to her the various regiments of soldiers as they passed in their march."

"But Dolly Harris was not the only heroine of that day and occasion.  Another girl,  Sadie Smith by name,  dared to wave her flag at Pickett's veterans.  This is evidently the true solution of the controversy that has been going on for some time about the identity of the girl who performed the bold act.  Both girls named, share the honor."

The "Daily Calumet" of South Chicago, after printing Mrs. Pickett's story as above quoted, goes on to say : "There has been published time and again the Sadie Smith incident of the Civil War, when this pretty girl, tall and with light hair hanging down her back,  hurled a Union-flag apron in the face of Pickett's division, marching thro' the little town of Greencastle, Pa."

Sadie Smith died in Youngstown, Ohio, in 1884.  Her brother,  A. P. Smith,  was with the Illinois Steel Company in the auditor's office at South Chicago.  He said that he remembered many talks around the family-circle of her brave acts while the Confederate army lay around Greencastle.  At the time of Miss Smith's dcath, she was the wife of Hiram L. Gibbet,  whom she had married at Greencastle, in 1865.


















LaSalle C. Pickett


To be taken into consideration is the posthumous publication of the personal letters written during the war by General Pickett to his beloved fiancée,  LaSalle “Sallie” Corbell, whom he later married.   Contradicting the newspaper printed content of the letters, though,  it is the "Pickett Society", which takes great exception to the letters,  claiming that Sallie embellished the letters before giving them to Samuel S. McClure, who secured the rights from Sallie,  to publish the letters in his magazine, "McClure’s Magazine",  beginning in 1893. 

The society has long questioned whether the incident ever happened.  Did she run out on her porch or to the sidewalk?   It is only in General  Pickett’s letter that it is mentioned that "Dolly" ran out onto the porch of her “vine bowered” home to wave the flag.

All the claims need to examined, to be sorted, and to discount the discrepancies.   How many of the individual accounts are consistent with each other?   How many are not?

The Dolly Harris incident inspired a number of published poems, well into the first three decades of the 20th century.  Some of the authors included Charles W. Gaff, editor of the "Valley Echo", who thought the girl was Sadie Smith;  Helen Gray Cone, a professor of literature at Hunter College;  W. W. Jacobs of Waynesboro;  J. Howard West;  George W. Keetoman, Highfield, Maryland., known as the South Mountain Bard; and Moody Rock, a well-known teacher in Montgomery Township.


In The Lady of Winderslee and Other Poems, a volume issued in 1890 by Geo. W. Kettoman, of Highfield, Pa., the South Mountain Bard,  Dolly Harris's act has been immortalized in these stirring verses :

No more the cannons furrow deep
The mold wherein our fathers sleep;
The meteor flare of sunlit sword
No more lights up the bloody sward.

The beat of hoof and battle-yell
Xo more affrighten hill and dell;
The right has won, the conflict's past,
And peace serene is ours at last.

Now we delight at fall of night
To gather 'round our firesides bright,
And list to glorious battle-rhymes,
Or read the tale of iron times.

For martial is the human heart
And never will from valor part —
In peace we deck our battlefields
And burnish our forefathers' shields.

'Twas on a sunny day in June,
And wearing thro' the afternoon,
That General Pickett, under Lee,
Led up his Southern chivalry

Thro' old Greencastle's loyal town ;
And "stars and bars" and bayonets shone.
When out ran Dolly Harris true.
Wrapped in the old Red, White and Blue.

One hand lay hidden in a fold.
And clasped a dagger in its hold.
"Come, tear this from my loins," she said —
"The wretch that dares it — he is dead !

Vile traitors to our fathers' trust.
You should long since have bit the dust.
Your whole ciirs'd army I defy, ,
And I shall scorn you till I die!" ,

She flung aback her tangled hair.
Her eyes put on an angry glare ;
The pendent portion of her flag
She shook, and sneered the "rebel rag."

Louder she shouted in her wrath :
"Why do you seem to shun my path?
Come, take the flag you have betrayed — •
Rebellious horde, you are afraid!"

"Halt!" said the Southern general. "Halt!
Return salute for such assault !
Present arms! — She's a noble maid —
A true American," he said.

Five thousand rifles glittered clear,
Five thousand men sent up a cheer
For her, the bravest of the brave,
Unawed by prison-cell or grave.

"Forward, once more!" brave Pickett cried-
"Such girl should be our nation's pride.
And ever hold a lofty place
In the proud annals of her race!"

Then as the heavy ranks moved on.
With bayonets slanted in the sun,
A many a Southern hero gazed
On that young woman's face amazed.

An hour brave Dolly Harris stood.
Draped in her country's flag, and viewed
The massive columns passing by.
With proud contempt and flashing eye.

Was ever braver woman born,
A nation's record to adorn?
Is there no place for Dolly's name
On Pennsvlvania's roll of fame?






















The above photograph of Dolly Harris was provided by members of her family.


"Dolly" Harris married John R. Lesher, a Civil War veteran and Grand Army of the Republic member.  She and her husband lived in Waynesboro, where they raised four sons and two daughters.  In her adult years, Frances’ nickname was Fannie(y).  In about 1898, the Leshers moved to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Frances “Dolly” Harris Lesher died suddenly on Saturday, February 17, 1906 of a heart attack, while helping Mrs. Simon at her ice cream parlor on Memorial Square in Chambersburg.  She was a member of the Methodist church and was buried (according to cemetery records) on February 19, 1906, with full military honors, in Cedar Grove Cemetery, Chambersburg.  The military ceremony was led by the officers of Chambersburg’s "Col. Peter B. Housum Post of the Grand Army of the Republic". 

Dolly Harris is the only woman from Franklin County who was considered to be a Civil War heroine and was the only woman buried with military honors!

The following appeared in "The Pennsylvania-German" newspaper -

"Dolly Harris was married, November 19. 1865, to John Lesher or Lcsher, of Waynesboro. Franklin county. Pa., whohad enlisted in Company K of the 107th Regiment of Pennsylvania Volunteers. He was captured in a raid on the \V eldon railroad and imprisoned for seven months. He was wounded three times in the first battle at Fredericksburg, andagain by a sharpshooter in front of Petersburg, Pa."

"Mrs. Lesher became the mother of four sons and two daughters. One of the sons, Caleb D. Lesher, is a prominent official of the Erie Railroad, a man of marked ability and fine presence. Another of her sons, George Lesher, married a sister of George W. Kettoman (whose poem appears below). She was an enthusiastic member of the Ladies' Circle of Peter B. Housum Post, G. A. R., of Chambersburg. She collected every scrap of history relating to incidents of the Civil War and was unusually patriotic."

"She died suddenly in Simon's ice-cream parlor at Chainbersburg, February 17, 1906, and was buried with military honors February 21, 1906, in Cedar Grove cemetery. Revs. Stine and Brewbaker officiating."

"Manv vears after the occurrence the friends of Dolly Harris suggested that she should have her photo taken and sell it for revenue as well as for fame,  but her husband and friends dissuaded her from doing so.  The picture given here-with was taken from a crayon, by permission of her daughter."


"In The Lady of Winderslee and Other Poems, a volume issued in 1890 by George W. Kettoman, of Highfield, Pa., theSouth Mountain Bard, Dolly Harris's act has been immortalized in these stirring verses:

"No more the cannons furrow deep
The mold wherein our fathers sleep;
The meteor flare of sunlit sword
No more lights up the bloody sward;
The beat of hoof and battle-yell
No more affrighten hill and dell ;
The right has won, the conflict's past,
And peace serene is ours at last."


Author, Bonnie A. Shockey (President of The Allison-Antrim Museum), has done extensive research on "Dolly" and as to which individual is the genuine young woman who confronted General Pickett and his troops.  

Much of the information found here was first gathered by her.  She has come to the conclusion that Frances Harris who married John Lesher is the genuine "Dolly" and should be honored as such.

***























On September 25, 2006,  the Allison-Antrim Museum received, on behalf of the Greencastle-Antrim community,  an original oil painting depicting the Dolly Harris and General George Pickett incident,  by the nationally renowned Civil War artist,  Ron Lesser. 

"Attention to detail, a devotion to strong and dramatic compositions, coupled with a unique creative vision sets a Ron Lesser painting apart.”  


















The F&M Bank commissioned Ron Lesser to do a commemorative painting in recognition of the opening of a F&M branch bank in Greencastle.  The Allison-Antrim Museum’s board of directors thanked F&M Bank for donating the original painting to the museum and is proudly hanging the painting in the museum for everyone to see. 

Numbered prints have been given to Antrim Township,  the Borough of Greencastle,  the Greencastle-Antrim School District,  the Besore Library, and the Senior Citizens’ Center.  Note cards,  in packages of five,  will be given to the museum to sell,  with all of the profits going to the AAMI.

















The Allison-Antrim Museum has a fundraiser,  "Dimes and Dollars for Dolly", to purchase a life-size bronze statue to honor Dolly Harris,  Greencastle’s heroine and the only Franklin County woman to be buried with full military honors because of her bravery and heroism during the Civil War.

All donations will be tax-deductible.

The original oil painting, over three feet in length, depicts depicts Confederate Major General George Pickett saluting a courageous "Dolly" Harris and the flag in Greencastle.

You can own a limited edition print of the painting by Ron Lesser, created directly from the original oil painting, or choose a superb limited canvas edition Giclee.  Whichever you choose,  each will be personally signed and numbered by the artist Ron Lesser.