Union Bridge: Reynold’s Last Journey

History: Union Gen. John F. Reynolds was killed at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, in the early fighting. His body was carried by ambulance to Union Bridge. Here, John Hollenberger, working for undertaker John Forney, built him a coffin. The body was packed in ice and placed aboard a train bound through Westminster to Baltimore, then routed to Philadelphia and finally Lancaster, Reynolds' home town. Reynolds was interred in Lancaster Cemetery on July 4. The route through Union Bridge to Baltimore on the Western Maryland Railroad was a heavily traveled one after Gettysburg, as thousands of wounded soldiers made their way to Baltimore. Railroad timetables identify the tracks just southeast of the station as the "Hospital Tracks" of July 1863.

More to Explore: Union Bridge offers restaurants and a railroad museum complete with artifacts from the Western Maryland Railway.

Photo Credits:

1. "Drawing of Gen. John F. Reynolds on horseback being shot."
2. "Photograph of General John F. Reynolds"Photos Courtesy of Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.