Existing comment:
Politics and "Penelope"
This is the 1863 site of the COMPILER newspaper office, Gettysburg's weekly "voice" of the Democratic party, and the home of its outspoken publisher Henry Stahle.
During the Battle of Gettysburg Stahle took into his home a badly wounded Union officer and persuaded a Confederate surgeon to come and perform a life-saving leg amputation. This humanitarian act led to Stahle's temporary incarceration at Ft. McHenry in Baltimore for aiding the enemy to capture a Union officer, a baseless charge of disloyalty concocted by a local Republican for political revenge.
The breech of the cannon "Penelope," is seen protruding from the pavement nearby. Traditionally, "Penelope" was fired in Gettysburg's streets to celebrate Democratic election victories but was abruptly silenced in 1855 when an over-charge of powder ruptured her barrel. Fittingly the old political cannon was memorialized in front of the "voice" of the Democratic party. |