The Civil War didn't end for my father when the fighting stopped.

He was a private in company B for the 76th Pennsylvania Infantry.

He made it home alive, but the war stayed with him until his death.

Long after the battlefield smoke cleared, far too many children like me were left behind without a father.

Some with mothers, two broken to care for us, others with no one at all.

That's how my sister Annabell and I ended up at Jumonville, way up in the mountains above Uniontown.

It's one of many special schools for soldiers orphans.

These schools were built to pay a debt to the sons and daughters of fallen soldiers.

We wear uniforms like our fathers.

We march, we study, and we pray.

I am just one of thousands living reminders of the war.

This isn't just my story.

It's a story of every child who found a home in the soldier's orphan schools.

And I want you to hear it.

Soldiers Orphan Home Jumonville, Pennsylvania, June 28th, 1893.

Dear mother, I take the pen in hand to write you a letter.

I am well, and hope this will find you the same.

If they let me come home, I will.

Will you come down to see me?

I am lonesome without you.

How is Claude and Aunt Mary, and Aunt Lizzie?

How is grandpa getting along?

What does Wesley do?

I was up on the mountain today, and I could see Uniontown.

And I could see the cook ovens.

I guess I will close now.

From your loving son, Vere Clark.

Very early on during the war, there were various efforts put forward, and one of the arduous supporters of that effort was, of course, Governor Andrew Greg Curtin in Harrisburg, who after the Battle of Gettysburg was lobbied by children and began to advocate for the idea of a soldier's orphan system.

The story goes that in 1863, which was four months after the Battle of Gettysburg and was actually the first official year of Thanksgiving, the two orphans showed up at his front door on Thanksgiving, and he was compelled to start a Soldier's Orphan Schools program.

He was adamant about creating a residential system where the children would be brought up as good moral and religious citizens.

I think he saw a moral obligation to the families of soldiers who had fought.

I think about them in the broader context of how to deal with the enormous tragedy of the American Civil War, and the dilemma that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania faced during the war, and immediately afterwards, was the reality that thousands of soldiers had been killed or maimed.

Their economic circumstances, had they survived, were dire.

And the of course, the most tragic impact would be the effect on wives and children.

In those days, if there was no father.

The child was considered an orphan.

There were no social rescue systems in place at that time.

You had to do what you had to do to survive.

Well, not only after the Civil War, but before and during.

It was unusual for a woman to work outside the home.

And I think of it in another context, and that is what is the situation for the postwar soldier himself?

One of the huge areas that we're just learning a lot more about in scholarship is what we now widely acknowledged as post-traumatic stress syndrome.

Men who never fully recover from the wounds of battle, psychological wounds, not to mention physical wounds.

Many men.

And we know this from looking at statistics either are not functional or in some cases have to be institutionalized.

The subject that we don't like to talk about, and that leaves their families in a difficult situation.

Well, the state decided to after after being kind of pushed by social conditions and certainly by the Grand Army of the Republic to open orphan homes around the around the state.

First one being developed, of course, in Gettysburg.

And the immediate aftermath of that battle led to the establishment of the Gettysburg Soldiers Orphanage, which by 1864 was an idea that was in progress, and by 1867 had become a reality and became, in a sense, one of the many models that would be used or adopted, that is housing for the orphans, but schooling for the orphans at the same time, so that when they were finished they could go on, presumably into productive lives.

One of the things that they kind of calculated was the cost of creating these schools and funding these privately owned schools versus and a street urchin, who was going to get in trouble with the law and be like a menace on society.

So the best use of their funds was to train the child to teach them a skill.

Teach them morals, to be a productive citizen and to give them an education.

I think it was a wake up call because there was such volume, and when they began the schools, there were thousands and thousands of children.

You look at the soldiers, orphans homes in the context of this huge social problem.

That puts it in a little better perspective of, you know, the scale of the war was unprecedented.

We now know that the actual casualty count in the war was not just 600,000 dead, perhaps closer to a million.

And that included civilians.

These men left their homes, left their jobs, their families, and they went off to fight for a cause.

You risked your life.

You gave up your youth.

You gave up your health.

Um and a A nation needs to repay that somehow.

Not just in songs and stories, but by caring for.

And Lincoln said, caring for the widows and orphans of the conflict.

There, there is a moral obligation to care for those who lost a family member.

Dear mother, I sit down to write you a few lines to let you know that I am well, and hope this will find you the same.

I ran away and I was gone for one day, and I came back.

Mr.

John did not whip me.

He said for me not to do it again.

I ran away because I felt homesick.

I feel better satisfied than when I did it.

And I like it here better too.

You send me $0.25 to spend.

Annabell has been sick for a little while, but she is better now.

How is Wesley getting along?

I guess I will close for this time.

Daily life was pretty common between the children, so they had to do chores.

Okay.

They had do their homework, go to classes.

They lived in a dormitory.

They would sleep in with dozens of kids in rows in their bunks, and they were expected to sleep at a certain time and get up at a certain time.

They taught education, skills and morals.

They wanted a home like environment.

Well, it was regimented, of course, some people would look at that and say, gee, you know, this seems inappropriate.

But again, keep in mind at the time, in the 19th century, this is not unusual.

A regular schedule was considered the best way in order to, if you will, if you like.

Pardon the pun, drill into these children a sense of duty, responsibility as well as learning.

It was done in the public schools, so why not in a at Jumonville?

And a lot of these men who had passed through the civil war.

I'm talking about administrators or whatever, had been through the war and had watched the organization of the military.

And, you know, every little detail is prescribed when you wake up, what you wear, how you get paid, what time is schedule.

And these became effective tools for them to use, to try to give some structure to the lives of these young kids.

The young men, of course, were given military training.

They wore Civil War uniforms, carried Civil War muskets.

The young ladies were were taught the various appropriate things that a young woman, quote unquote, should know how to do.

Of course, sewing, proper etiquette, how to cook and clean.

And so we can look at those now and say, of course, they're very they're sexist.

From looking generally at the correspondence, many of these children were enormously grateful and their lives benefited from it.

So it's all too easy to put it in a modern context and impose our view of things on their view of things at the time.

In that sense, I think many of these programs were beneficial, albeit somewhat rigid.

There was always a military component which stemmed from the Civil War, and that extended to all the schools, the Hartford school.

You just see them.

There's the band in uniform, and there they are in their drill activities, and there are the girls in their white outfits doing their drills.

So the chapel would have been a central place, both in terms of the students gathering there for services, which would have been mandatory, of course, but religious instruction throughout their daily routine would have been important to remind them that there were things that were more important than what happens now, but in the afterlife.

And this tradition, of course, goes back to our colonial founding.

I think you have to look at America at that time, it was very prevalent.

You know, the the church, churches, church communities, the message of God, morality, those were all things that were embedded in American culture.

So naturally, I think they carried over into the orphans homes to to give the children a moral base because they're not getting it at home at this point.

You know, they could be street children running around, you know, learning the trades of the street.

But here they are now in an orphan school, and they're getting a religious component to it.

Morality to it, of course, its going to represent the country at the time, but it's also going to carry them through their through their lives.

Dear mother, Annabell received a letter from Aunt Louise.

Dearest mama, did you get our last letter?

DeVere sent it to Lebanon.

How are you getting along at Fredonia?

How many rooms has the house?

You need not send the money when it gets nice.

This is all your darling little daughter, Annabell Clark P.S.

I got a purple dress, mama.

I think we can look at the development of poor houses, orphanages that that came out of social movements in the 18th and early 19th century as a beginning.

But of course, a beginning that was fraught with abuse, fraught with lack of economic support, in many cases a place of last resort rather than a place specifically designed for the care of children and their cultivation.

And so, in that sense, very definitely the Soldiers Orphan Schools took into account the limitations at the county level institutions had, and I think largely viewed them as unacceptable, that also they needed state support as well as private support.

And of course, the war was, again, the enormous event that prodded that development.

Through the course of the next several years, there were 46 privately owned schools scattered across the state.

That was definitely an issue in managing the schools.

And they realized, oh, maybe we got to do something different.

So then they moved toward the state owned model with a single school.

I think it was a combination of both the funding and also the understanding that a more family oriented approach would be even better.

Well, I think on one level, the school served as a foundation for the importance of recognizing each child individually and that you can't put children together in a clump and say, this is going to be appropriate for all of them.

Each case is an individual case, and the superintendents, the principals and the faculty wrestled with that.

The very notion of child care and what what is appropriate for a child, of course, was evolving.

When they were 16, they graduated and went to work or got married or went to live with their mother.

Once they were done, the numbers began to shrink.

Why the schools ultimately closed or transitioned in other forms of care, I think says a lot simply about what we learn about children and about child welfare over time.

And, you know, we continue to learn.

Looking back, it wasn't as good as what we can do today, but it was better than it had been and it was a step forward.

It also created a model really for organization.

And that's another thing.

The Soldiers Orphan Schools, in one sense, were partly organized as military schools.

It's no coincidence that military drill was part of the regimen of these schools, the legacy of the Civil War, but also because those that organize them had military backgrounds and they tied with the ministry.

They felt this is a good way to do this and to make sure that the children and their care had some uniform treatment, that they weren't lost in the system.

So that was an improvement, very much of an improvement over much of what had happened prior to that, but only a step in a process.

Of course, a moving forward.

They would come back for reunions every year here to Jumonville, up into the 1980s.

They loved this mountaintop.

They loved what was done for them.

They knew the alternative would have been so much worse.

This place has such a rich history, and it was really amazing to me that what started as an orphan school became a church camp where children could thrive and grow and have precious memories of what they learned and try new things and make new friends and and grow in their faith.

And so that was always a really special memory for me.

And so I think right now, let me just think this for a moment.

What is the what is the biggest thing that you're afraid of right now?

What is the biggest thing going on in your life?

I'm working here for the summer as a camp counselor.

This week we're a thing called Hope camp, which is for at risk youth.

They come up for the week.

Different age groups come up for the week.

So this is high school Hope Camp.

I've been coming here since I was a little kid, since I was maybe like 8 or 9.

The first tim when I got dropped off here, it was definitely a new experience because I haven't I don't really like talk to people.

So I was like, I don't really like know what to do.

I was like real shy.

But now it's just like, it's like a second home pretty much.

Most of them have, you know, either been in or around foster homes or having incarcerated parent or guardian issues, things like that.

Maybe a parent who passed away or something like.

Jumonville helped me get over the loss of my mom, because dealing with that loss gave me a lot of confidence from knowing that I can overcome something challenging in life.

It's hard when you lose someone, and I feel like when you lose someone, it brings you down.

You don't feel like you have a purpose.

So I feel like coming here, well, go you back up and prepare you for life to continue.

It just means a lot to be able to like, try to empathize with them.

I might not completely always get where they're coming from, but just try to like, do my best to see things how they're seeing them.

So right now, father, speak to each person here.

May they sense you.

May they know that you were going to help them with that area.

It is complicated, this heart because you can do all things and you love them.

We pray these things in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.

I think the orphan schools were a new way of helping care for children.

It was a huge step forward from what had been just neglect.

I mean, children were left to fend for themselves.

And so it was a shift in how people thought about taking care of children because there were so many.

I think their legacy is that we we learned that there's collateral damage, you know, in, in families, when a soldier dies or goes off to war, it's not just him.

He leaves behind a family.

And if he were injured, killed, that's collateral damage.

And there's a big he could never be replaced.

So how do you do that?

And that's that's where these institutions picked up and tried to plug in.

And I think it gave us a sense of responsibility.

Yes.

You need to feed and clothe them and meet their basic needs.

Yes.

You need to educate them and give them tools and skills to be able to go out into the world.

But you also need to build character.

And in this case, it was spiritual and moral character development that was really important.

The legacy is a reminder that while it was a solution for some, it was not for many and needed an additional support.

It's a great story and it's a common story.

I think the lasting legacy is taking care, committing to, and a patriotic duty to take care of the children of the veterans of the state.

Dear mother, tomorrow is Christmas.

Aunt Cecilia sent me a handkerchief and Annabell some ribbons.

There is 37 turkeys to be roasted and eaten tomorrow.

We get candy and nuts for supper.

And cranberry, celery, pie, turkey, and stuffing.

They got a Christmas tree for the church.

Goodbye from your loving son, Vere Clark.

Soldiers orphan home.