Eli Slifer and the Civil War Home Front

During the Civil War, while Union armies fought in the South, someone had to hold Pennsylvania together on the home front. Eli Slifer was central to that work. Serving as Secretary of the Commonwealth under Governor Andrew Curtin, Slifer was the key administrator behind Pennsylvania's massive mobilization of men and supplies for the Union war effort.

Governor Curtin earned the nickname the Soldiers' Governor, but Slifer made much of that reputation possible, coordinating the logistics and state resources that kept Pennsylvania regiments armed and in the field. He lived in this house from eighteen sixty-one to eighteen eighty-eight, the same years that spanned the war itself and the long reconstruction that followed. He had also served as State Assemblyman and State Treasurer before the war, and died in eighteen eighty-eight.