Amid calls for secession and threats of violence following the presidential election of Abraham Lincoln in November 1860, Bellefonte, Pennsylvania’s antislavery newspaper editor James Brisbin prepared to physically combat disunionists even before the Civil War began. “I will march at a moment’s warning,” Brisbin informed Virginia Governor John Letcher, “and, if necessary, give my life for the maintenance of the Constitution and the Union.” Join Codie Eash, SRMEC Director of Education and Interpretation, as he explores Brisbin’s and Letcher’s series of back-and-forth public letters—which exposed a political rift in central Pennsylvania, unearthed secret Southern sympathies in Centre County, and launched Brisbin’s own military career as an eventual wartime colonel of Black cavalry and a brigadier general in the United States Army.

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Lydia Ziegler Clare Education Center

Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center