Mumma House

The Mumma home was the only structure deliberately destroyed during the battle. Around 6:30 am, Brigadier General Roswell S. Ripley, whose brigade had been stationed to the south and west of the Mumma farm, ordered his troops to burn the home. He was concerned that enemy sharpshooters would use the structure as cover to pick off his Confederate soldiers. Members of the 3rd North Carolina Infantry led by Sgt. James F. Clark volunteered for the task. Clark, “recalled throwing a torch through an open window and onto a quilt covered bed. Within a few moments the whole house was in flames.” The fire would quickly spread, and by 7:30, the house and outbuildings were in flames. A stray Union artillery shell would set the barn ablaze and completed the total destruction of the Mumma farm. The soldiers who fought on the northern end of the field witnessed the fire raging from about 6:30 to 11:00 am. The bright flames and mass of smoke further added to the confusion and chaos of the battlefield. A soldier of the 83rd New York remarked that, “just in front of us a house was burning, and the fire and smoke, flashing of muskets and whizzing of bullets, yells of men …were perfectly horrible.” Night brought an end to the fighting, but the nightmare for the Mummas had just begun.