Here's why Gettysburg battlefield officials won't say what was stolen and vandalized

It has been an unusual time at the Gettysburg National Military Park, where officials have recently sought the public's assistance on vandalism and stolen artifacts.

The park service has been tight-lipped about both cases, providing only a brief release and a mention of a reward for information.

Previously reported: Artifacts taken from Gettysburg battlefield: Officials offering reward for information

In the first case, artifacts were taken from the area of the Timbers farm, near Brooke Avenue on the southern end of the battlefield, sometime between December 2023 and January 2024.

In the second case, officials are investigating vandalism that occurred to the Benner barn, located at the Josiah Benner farm, sometime between Feb. 13 and Feb. 19, 2024.

Jason Martz, spokesperson for the park, said in an email to The Evening Sun that releasing further details or images of the artifacts would be detrimental to any tips received from the public.

Previously reported: Historic barn vandalized at Gettysburg Battlefield, officials seek public help

Ultimately, that leaves many questions. What were the artifacts? What was the extent of the vandalism? Why are officials reporting these cases now and not when the incidents happened?

But since we're talking about history, here's a trip back in time to other strange local occurrences involving the battlefield and Civil War relics

Stolen artifacts

While vandalism has been a relatively frequent occurrence, instances of the theft of artifacts are relatively infrequent.

Perhaps the most significant case in the Gettysburg area occurred in 1993, when between $25,000 to $75,000 (around $163,256 in today's money) worth of Civil War artifacts were stolen from the Adams County Historical Society in Gettysburg.

That theft occurred overnight between Nov. 29 and Nov. 30, 1993, investigators told the Evening Sun at the time, when unknown persons broke a window and made off with weapons, personal items, and other equipment used in the Battle of Gettysburg.

In a Dec. 9, 1993 article in the Evening Sun, one retired Civil War item dealer, George Lower, worried that the thieves might become spooked by the media attention and dump the items in a lake.

He wasn't far off: a few weeks later, on Jan. 5, 1994, a park employee, David Lutz, stumbled upon the items while checking trash containers at the Eternal Peace Light Memorial. Fortunately, instead of sitting at the bottom of a lake, the items were retrieved without significant damage.

A stolen cannon?

How on earth does someone sneak off with a cannon? It sounds bizarre, but it happened in 1986.

According to an article in the Oct. 1, 1986 edition of the Evening Sun, the owner of School House Antiques, on Emmitsburg Road in Gettysburg reported that someone had stolen a Civil War cannon from the front porch of the store.

A chain securing the cannon to the porch was cut, the article said, and the incident had been investigated by Pennsylvania State Police. It's not clear from the Evening Sun archives if the cannon was ever found.

Vandalism on the battlefield

Vandalism is nothing new to the Gettysburg National Military Park, as a look back through the Evening Sun archives shows that this has been a periodic issue across the battlefield's history.

In a 2009 Evening Sun article, Rick Hohmann, then president of the Association of Licensed Battlefield Guides, told the Evening Sun that records trace vandalism back to as early as the 1880s.

Multiple instances are documented from 1950s editions of the Evening Sun.

In the April 2, 1952, edition, a release from the park superintendent documents that vandals broke glass on an exhibit at Culp's Hill and stole a tour marker at Hancock and Humphreys Avenue.

In March of 1954, the Evening Sun reported that four cases of vandalism struck cannons at the battlefield in four months, where six cannon barrels were thrown to the ground, and an axle was broken to another gun carriage. Four cannons were near the Meade Statue along Hancock Avenue, and two were near the Pennsylvania Monument.

In the Oct. 5, 1956 edition of the Evening Sun, seven directional signs for the battlefield were reported destroyed along Hancock Avenue towards Little Round Top.

The sign theme continued in 1957, when the Nov. 19 edition of the Evening Sun reported that vandals stole a large sign providing a key to the figures of the Virginia Monument. In that incident, vandals had climbed the statues and placed a beer can atop the statue of General Lee. Two wooden signs were also smashed or stolen in this incident.

Moving ahead to the 1960s, a September 1964 report in the Evening Sun relates that the Gettysburg National Military Park would be shut down every night in an attempt to stop vandalism.

The report cited "continuous increase and severity of vandalism" in the park, which led officials to close the park from 10 p.m. to 6 a.m.

In that article, park officials describe how vandalism had led to the closure of the Gettysburg National Cemetery at night in the early 1900s, with fences and walls built around the cemetery to keep out vandals.

Part of what likely led to these changes includes one of the more brazen acts of vandalism at the park, when the nine-foot General Warren statue atop Little Round Top was toppled in 1963.

According to an article in the April 5, 1963 edition of the Evening Sun, officials believed that the vandals must have pulled the statue down using a car. In that incident, the statue's head was gouged and the sword was bent.

In some cases of vandalism, according to a April 28, 1991, article in the Evening Sun, incidents were tied to college fraternities.

During an April 20, 1991 vandalism incident at the battlefield, Greek letters that coincide with a Gettysburg College fraternity were drawn on a structure at the battlefield.

In 1999, sixteen monuments and an observation tower had been damaged with what park officials described in a March 16, 2000 Evening Sun article as an "oily substance," which left oil stains across the monuments.

In that case, Gettysburg officials estimated it would take 100 to 120 hours to clean the monuments at a cost of $4,000.

Those costs seems small in comparison to a February 2006 vandalism incident, where the damage to three monuments totaled over $75,000.

There, as related in a March 10, 2006 article in the Evening Sun, officials believed that vandals had pulled three monuments down using a strap tied to a vehicle.

The monuments damaged in that instance included the 114th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry monument, the 11th Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry monument, and the 4th New York Battery monument.

More than $36,000 were raised by the community towards a reward in that incident, though it appears the culprits were never found.

In 2009, vandals struck the Eternal Peace Light Memorial, spray painting words across the famous monument. That case, as related in the Jan. 14, 2009 edition of the Evening Sun, concerned park officials that the damage may not be able to be fixed. Fortunately, the peace light was able to be restored.

Spray paint is a common theme among vandals in recent decades, and in April of 2012, the then-127-year-old 2nd Andrews Sharpshooters monument was found covered in blue spray paint.

Selling a stolen cannonball

While it wasn't an entire cannon, in 2015 a Gettysburg man was charged with selling Civil War artifacts to a Gettysburg antiques shop.

In that case, Skylar Hertz, of Gettysburg, was charged after selling seven Civil War artifacts, including a cannonball, to the antiques shop over the course of 24 days, according to a Dec. 17, 2015 article in the Evening Sun.

Hertz had allegedly taken the items out of his landlord's garage on York Street in Gettysburg, and reportedly made around $1,825 selling the items before he was caught by police for a different crime.

While Hertz was in Adams County Prison for an unrelated crime, the landlord contacted Gettysburg Borough Police Department about the thefts, leading officers to interview Hertz in prison. There, Hertz reportedly confessed to the thefts, according to reports at the time.

This article originally appeared on Hanover Evening Sun: Here's why Gettysburg battlefield officials won't say what was stolen and vandalized