In the home at 329 S. Front Street between 1866 and 1880 resided Brigadier General Joseph Farmer Knipe (1823-1901), accomplished Union commander during the Civil War. It was Knipe who named Camp Curtin, the largest Civil War troop deployment camp in the United States located in what is now a part of Uptown Harrisburg, after the wartime Governor Andrew Curtin. Knipe first served in the Mexican War (1846-1848). In response to Lincoln's call to arms after the fall of Fort Sumter in 1861, Knipe was commissioned Colonel of the 46th Pennsylvania Volunteers, which was organized in Harrisburg. He was promoted to Brigadier General in 1862 and served in the Antietam, Chancellorsville and Gettysburg Campaigns. During Antietam, he was wounded at Cedar Mountain. He was involved in the defense of Harrisburg when General Robert E. Lee threatened its invasion in June of 1863, and later commanded a cavalry division at the Battle of Nashville, Tennessee, during which his troops scored a decisive victory over Confederate General John B. Hood including the capture of over 6,000 men and eight battle flags. In the Atlanta Campaign, he was wounded at the Battle of Resaca, Georgia. After being discharged from the Army in 1866, Knipe served as both the Postmaster of Harrisburg and of the United States Senate, and later as the superintendent of the military prison
at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. Knipe died in Harrisburg and is interred at Harrisburg Cemetery. This, his former home, was built between 1856 and 1858, and has been sensitively restored as a fitting tribute to yet another chapter of Harrisburg's illustrious history.
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