Two Fillmore County Boys at Gettysburg

In the early years of Fillmore County, social lines could still follow settlers into the frontier. One local story tells of a mother who once objected to her son’s friendship with another boy she considered beneath him.

Years later, the Civil War changed everything.

Charles Pray and Patrick H. McConville enlisted in the fall of 1861. At Gettysburg, Charles was wounded—and according to the 1912 history of Fillmore County, McConville carried him on his back to safety. When the two men eventually returned home, Charles’s mother welcomed McConville very differently than she had as a boy.

In this episode, Preston and Lenora explore the story of friendship, class, war, and reconciliation behind two young men from Fillmore County whose lives became forever connected on one of the most famous battlefields in American history.