As Lee’s soldiers moved into enemy territory, many of them were surely tempted to pillage and plunder Northern towns and fields in retaliation for the destruction Virginia had been enduring for close to two years. However, in general the Confederates behaved themselves during their invasion of Pennsylvania.
Recognizing the need to avoid turning public opinion against his troops, General Lee on June 22 had issued General Orders Number 72, admonishing his men to avoid injuring or destroying private property. The order also placed the army’s quartermaster corps in charge of appropriating goods for military use, all of which it would pay for in Confederate money, which, however, was worth only a fraction of Northern currency. If the owner refused to accept such payment, officers were to issue a receipt that enumerated the goods taken. Owners refusing to comply with requests for supplies would have their goods seized, but receipts would still be issued.
For the most part,the Southerners obeyed this order, but there were a number of exceptions. General Early contravened it when he burned the Caledonia Furnace, which was owned by Pennsylvania’s Radical Republican Congressman Thaddeus Stevens. Throughout the Confederate sojourn in Pennsylvania, relatively little violence took place between soldiers and white civilians.
www.explorePAHistory.com
From General Early as found on this Link:
As we were leaving, I caused the iron works of Mr. Thaddeus Stevens near Greenwood, consisting of a furnace, a forge, a rolling mill--with a saw mill and storehouse attached,--to be burnt by my pioneer party. The enemy had destroyed a number of similar works, as well as manufacturing establishments of different kinds, in those parts of the Southern States to which he had been able to penetrate, upon the plea that they furnished us the means of carrying on the war, besides burning many private houses and destroying a vast deal of private property which could be employed in no way in supporting the war on our part; and finding in my way these works of Mr. Stevens, who--as a member of the Federal Congress--had been advocating the most vindictive measures of confiscation and devastation, I determined to destroy them. This I did on my own responsibility, as neither General Lee nor General Ewell knew I would encounter these works. A quantity of provisions found in store at the furnace was appropriated to the use of my command, but the houses and private property of the employees were not molested.
Perhaps that was from General Early's memoirs. I read somewhere that General Lee later provisioned some of the people at the destroyed Stevens iron works out of his own commissary, but I can't document it myself.