Transcript battle of gettysburg - citizens

THE CITIZENS OF GETTYSBURG
TOWN OF GETTYSBURG IN 1863
In 1863, Gettysburg had nearly 450 buildings and
almost 2,400 inhabitants. The railroad had arrived in
1858, and the railroad station had been built on
Carlisle Street in 1859. Gettysburg’s economy was
built around the carriage industry, but farms and
warehouses were also important. The Gettysburg
Railroad was very good for business as it made
getting local products to new markets easier.
The town had six hotel and tavern establishments.
There were seven churches in Gettysburg, all of
which would be used as hospitals during the battle.
On July 1-3, 1863, 163,000 men and 15,000 animals
invaded the town and fields.
Men fought and died in the streets. Many back yards
surrounded by high board fences that restricted troop
movements and trapped soldiers. Lots were deep and
narrow, and generally contained a stable or carriage house, a
well, a privy, and a kitchen garden. For two and a half days,
the town was occupied by an invading army of Confederates.
Citizens became civilians in danger of the deadly
missiles of war. When the armies departed, about
21,000 helpless wounded needed care. Corpses
littered sidewalks, porches, and backyard flower
gardens. Resident, Jennie Wade, lay dead, and every
citizen was traumatized. Homes were wrecked, riddled
by artillery and musketry. Crops were destroyed, barns
burned, and miles of fence leveled with livestock
slaughtered or driven off. The stench of death hung
everywhere.
JOHN BURNS
JOHN BURNS was a 69 year old veteran of the War of 1812
who lived on Chambersburg Street. A cobbler by trade, he
also served at the town’s constable. On July 1, 1863, he
decided to take up arms and go up against the Rebels
personally, so he took up his musket and joined the Union
troops on McPherson Ridge. During the battle he fought
with the 150th PA and the 7th Wisconsin. Wounded three
times in the legs, he was brought home to his wife,
Barbara, by a neighbor. There he was left in peace by
Confederate occupiers of the town.
BURNS became a national hero after the battle and was
the first resident of the town that President Abraham
Lincoln stated he wished to meet during his trip to
dedicate the Soldiers' National Cemetery that November.
ELIZABETH SALOME “SALLIE” MYERS
SALLIE MYERS was a 21 year-old
Gettysburg schoolteacher and
assistant principal who still lived at
home with her family on the north side
of West High Street, just off Baltimore
Street. Her father was a justice of the
peace.
When the wounded and dying began
seeking shelter in the homes and
buildings of Gettysburg, SALLIE
MYERS put the nursing skills she had
been taught to good use.
At her first sight of a wounded soldier, SALLIE MYERS fled
the hospital in the Catholic Church in West High Street,
soon after entering as a volunteer nurse. She ran back
outside and collapsed on the front steps, uncontrollably
convulsed with sobs.
Slowly regaining her composure, she reentered and
embarked upon a two week stint without a break, caring
for the helpless in the church and later in her home a half
block to the west. SALLIE also provided food and nursing
assistance at Camp Letterman Hospital after the battle
ended.
When the brother of a soldier who had died in her care
came to claim his body after the battle, she married him
and became Mrs. Harry F. Stewart.
CARRIE SHEADS
MISS CARRIE SHEADS was principal of
Oakridge Seminary, located a short distance
west of the village. On June 30, Buford’s
cavalry camped on the Chambersburg Pike,
about 200 yards from her school. The next
morning, the battle was raging a few hundred
yards from her door, and she had no time to get
the girls in her charge to a place of safety.
The buildings of Oakridge Seminary were soon
used as a hospital, and she found herself and
her girls caring for 72 wounded soldiers. During
the battle, the Seminary was hit in more than
60 places, with two shells passing entirely
through it.
The Sheads’ home sat on the Chambersburg Pike at the
western edge of Gettysburg. Toward it on the afternoon
of July first, came the brunt of the Union retreat. A
group of Union soldiers from the 97th New York veered
off and sought shelter at this house standing by itself
out in the fields adjacent to the Chambersburg Pike.
Colonel Wheelock led the group of soldiers.
The house was filled with wounded Union
soldiers , and when Colonel Wheelock entered
the house, he went immediately down into the
basement. A few moments later, Confederate
soldiers barged into the house and they began
to disarm the Union officers, demanding their
sidearms.
Colonel Wheeler took out his sword, which had
been given to him by his friends earlier in the
war. The sword is a symbol of honor, and he
refused to let the sword fall into Confederate
hands.
CARRIE SHEADS distracted the
Confederate officer by directing him to
look outside for a moment. When he
wasn’t looking, she hid the sword in the
folds of her petticoat.
Colonel Wheelock was forever indebted
to CARRIE for the deed she performed on
his behalf in the basement that afternoon
of July first.
In their own house, CARRIE SHEADS and her sisters
became nurses to dozens of seriously wounded men.
The war had come to CARRIE’S parlor, but it also took
her brothers, who were Union soldiers. The tragedy in
that family is that though she had four brothers, two
were killed in action during the Civil War in various
battles. The other two came home but did not live long
because of service-connected disabilities.
Carrie’s sister, Louisa, married one of her Union Army
patients, but she also died shortly after the Civil War,
perhaps as a result of her work as a nurse in the field
hospital that occupied their home. They claim that it was
from the effects of formaldehyde. That means that four
brothers and one sister were casualties in that one
family.
MARY MCALLISTER
MARY MCALLISTER supported herself by re-selling to
the townsfolk bacon and other cured meats that she
obtained from area farmers. She lived on
Chambersburg Street with sister, Martha, who was
married to Joseph Scott. The Scott’s son, Hugh, ran a
telegraph office from the first floor of his parents’
house. It is very likely that the sisters had a garden as
most townsfolk did, and that they stored and
preserved vegetables and other foods as the process
of the day permitted.
On the first day of the battle, she handed out cups of
water to Union soldiers as they raced down
Chambersburg Street toward the battle. Later she
helped to care for 140 wounded soldiers (from both
armies) in Christ Lutheran Church on Chambersburg
Street, across the street from her home.
MARY recalled that “Every pew was full; some sitting,
some lying, some leaning on others.”
She also mentioned that an artillery shell struck the
roof of the church on July 1st.
She recalled, “I gathered up sheets and water and
Mrs. Nancy Weikert and I went the church and we
went to work. They carried the wounded in there as
fast as they could. We took the cushions off the seats
and some officers came in and said, ‘Lay them in the
aisles.’ Then we did all we could for the wounded
men... wetting cloths and putting them on the
wounds.”
DAVID AND FANNY BUEHLER
One of David McConaughy’s closest friends and business
associates, DAVID BUEHLER was also an attorney and
the town’s postmaster. When first word of Confederates
approaching reached him, he and his wife, Fanny, thought
it was another false alarm. Then David saw
Confederates at the end of Chambersburg Street. Fanny
met him with a satchel packed with valuable government
property and a valise of clothes. He left on the run as
the Rebels turned on Baltimore Street from the Diamond.
He escaped to Hanover and then to his wife’s family’s
home in New Jersey.
FANNY BUEHLER spent the battle alone with her
youngest child. (Her other children had been sent out of
town to stay with her family.) In her memoir which was
written in 1896, she tells of Confederate soldiers
entering her house at 112 Baltimore Street, and she
writes of taking care of wounded Union soldiers in her
home.
SARAH BROADHEAD
SARAH BROADHEAD was 30 years old and lived with her
husband Joseph and daughter Mary on the western end
of Chambersburg Street. Her husband was an employee
of the Gettysburg Railroad. During the three days of the
battle, she, her child, and several neighbors, anxiously
spent long, dark hours in the cellar of harness maker,
David Troxell.
Beginning on June 15, 1863, SARAH began keeping a
journal. Her detailed chronicle provides insight into
the battle and its aftermath that would have
otherwise been lost to history. After the Federal
victory, SARAH helped care for the wounded in a local
hospital located in the Lutheran Theological
Seminary, and in her home. Her account of this
experience was deeply personal. She described
feeling overwhelmed upon seeing so many injured,
helpless and hungry in dirty hospital wards.
Repulsed by the suffering she saw around her,
but compelled to try to help, SARAH continued
her work in the hospital and noted a change in
her own fortitude. Some weeks since I would
have fainted had I seen as much blood as I have
to-day, but I am proof now, only caring to
relieve suffering."
Days after the battle SARAH stated, "I am
becoming more used to sights of misery. We
do not know until we are tried what we are
capable of doing.”
The Lutheran Theological Seminary had served as a hospital from
the first day of battle, and perhaps as may as 400-500 men had
been brought there. SARAH came out there a couple of days
after the battle to do whatever she could do to help. There had
been heavy rain as the battle was ending, and she went
downstairs to find the helpless men in water, and she was fearful
that they would drown.
According to SARAH, “Men wounded in three or four places,
not able to help themselves in the least, lay almost swimming in
water.”
SARAH realized that she had to get the men out of there, so
she enlisted the help of another woman and some nurses, and
they carried all of those men, nearly a hundred of them, up to
the fourth floor of the Seminary building. It is certain that it
was a very painful experience for those men to be moved at all
when some of them had probably not been treated, but it may
well have helped save some lives.
At about the same time, about
4,000 men in the Second Corps
hospital were lying out on a
hillside along a creek. The rains
got so bad that the creek
flooded and washed away ten,
fifteen, or twenty of these men
to their deaths because they
were just lying on the ground,
unable to move on their own.
PETER AND ELIZABETH THORN
At the time of the Battle of Gettysburg
ELIZABETH was caretaker of Evergreen
Cemetery, the job normally performed by
her husband Peter who was serving with
the 138th Pennsylvania. She had her
parents, Catherine and John Masser age
63, and her three sons: Fred age 7,
George age 5, and John age 2, all living
with her in the cemetery gatehouse.
ELIZABETH was also six months
pregnant.
As the war began and as late as June of 1863,
ELIZABETH was able to keep up with the
volume of burials coming her way, which
averaged about five interments per month.
Things would change drastically after the
Battle of Gettysburg a month later. On July 5,
she received a visit from David McConaughy,
the Cemetery President. He directed her to
start burying the dead who, by that time,
were stacked up around the gatehouse.
Although McConaughy made several trips to
get her some help, none of the helpers would
stay because of the terrible sights and
smells.
Working from 6:00 a.m. until 8:00 p.m. every day, with
help from her father and her little boys, Elizabeth
would bury over 100 soldiers after the battle.
In her own words, Elizabeth Thorn stated: “[We] kept
on burying the soldiers until they had the National
Cemetery ready, and in that time we buried one
hundred five soldiers.
In front of this house there were fifteen dead horses
and beside the Cemetery there were nineteen in that
field.
So you may know it was only excitement that helped
me to do all the work, with all that stench. And in
three months after I had a dear little baby.”
GEORGE AND HETTIE SHRIVER
GEORGE WASHINGTON SHRIVER was 23
when he paid $290 for a lot on south
Baltimore Hill in Gettysburg in the spring of
1860. He planned to build a new home for his
family there. He and his wife HETTIE had two
children: five-year-old Sadie and three-yearold Molly.
THE SHRIVERS were barely settled in their
new home when the Civil War broke out in
April of 1861. When President Lincoln called
for 75,000 troops to help in the war effort,
GEORGE enlisted in the PA Cavalry.
When the Battle of Gettysburg began early in the morning on July
1, 1863, HETTIE could hear the roar of the cannons from the west
side of town. As the noise grew louder, she decided to leave for
her parents’ farm about three miles south of town. She asked her
neighbors, the Pierces, to allow their daughter Tillie to accompany
her and her little girls.
HETTIE could not know they were jumping from the frying
pan into the fire. Her parents' farm, the Jacob Weikert
Farm sat between Big Round Top and Little Round Topwhere some of the worst fighting of the Battle of
Gettysburg took place. Over the next three days, the noise
of the battle was so loud that they had to shout to hear
each other inside the Weikert house. The house shook
from the cannons firing all around them. When the fighting
stopped there were wounded and dying men everywhere.
HETTIE and Tillie knew they had to stay and help.
On July 7, HETTIE and her daughters returned home. As
they approached town, they realized that in seven days
their whole world had turned upside down. Fences were
broken, buildings were gone, and many others stood in
ruins. HETTIE found that Confederate soldiers had
occupied her home while she was gone.
HETTIE’S neighbor, butcher James Pierce, told her that
he had seen Confederate soldiers set up a
sharpshooters' nest in her garret (attic), and he that he
had watched the soldiers knock several "port holes"
through the brick wall on the south side of the house in
effort to pick off Union soldiers. According to Pierce, at
least two sharpshooters had been killed inside
HETTIE'S home, and their bodies had been dragged
away through her garden.
Five months after the Battle of Gettysburg,
GEORGE SHRIVER was granted a four-day
furlough. This gave him the opportunity to
spend Christmas with HETTIE and his girls.
Shriver was a changed man when he returned.
He had been away from his family for almost
two and a half years and saw things he could
not even begin to describe. GEORGE reported
back to duty on December 29, 1863. Two days
later, New Year's Day, 1864, he was taken
prisoner by the Confederates and sent to
Andersonville Prison in Georgia, where he died.
Numerous bullet holes are visible on the south side of
the SHRIVERS’ home---a silent reminder of the struggle
between the Union soldiers at the base of Cemetery
Hill and the Confederates sharpshooters who occupied
the SHRIVERS’ home during the battle.
Confederate sharpshooters commandeered the
SHRIVERS’ home during the battle to fire at Union
troops on nearby Cemetery Hill through two holes
which they knocked through the south-facing brick
wall.
A CSI police detective, using a luminol-like chemical,
confirmed the presence of mass quantities of blood in
the area where it is known at least two soldiers died
during the siege.
ALBERTUS MCCREARY
ALBERTUS MCCREARY, whose house stood on the
corner of Baltimore and High streets, was a month shy
of his fifteenth birthday when the soldiers came to
Gettysburg. He later recalled:
“We did not dare to look out the windows on the Baltimore street
side. Sharpshooters from Cemetery Hill were watching all the
houses for Confederate sharpshooters and picking off everyone
they saw, since from that distance, they could not distinguish
citizen from soldier. Along the street from east to west was
stretched a line of Confederate infantry in reserve. I remember
how poorly clad they were. Most of them were ragged and dirty,
and they had very little to eat. One day while I was having a talk
with the soldiers, I heard cheering down the street. It seemed to
be caused by the passing along High street, toward our house, of
a small body of officers on horseback. As they drew near, the men
along our pavement stood and cheered also. One of the men told
me it was General Lee and his staff.”
“I had a good look at him as he passed. He
looked very much the soldier, sitting very
erect in the saddle with his short-cropped
beard and his Confederate gray. The whole
staff was a fine-looking set of men --- at least,
they seemed so to my youthful eyes and it is
needless to say that I gazed at them with
keen curiosity. They rode up as far as a slight
elevation in the street, stopped, took their
glasses, and surveyed Cemetery Hill, where
they could see the positions of their enemy.
This was just before the Louisiana Tigers
made their famous charge. What a racket
they did make! It was an infantry charge and
the sound was as of a million boys with sticks
were beating on a board fence. It was not in
volleys, but continuous.”
ALBERTUS was friends with Charles McCurdy,
whose father, Robert, was President of the
Gettysburg Railroad and Gates Fahnstock (both
Robert and Gates were 10 years old). All three
boys ran all over town witnessing the shelling,
sniping, and fighting.
Being a typical Gettysburg boy, ALBERTUS
enjoyed “playing soldier” in his Union soldier’s
hat (kepi).
Believing that he was actually a member of the
Union Army, Confederate soldiers almost took
him prisoner, until his father pleaded for
his release, claiming that he was “only a school
boy.”
In another incident, ALBERTUS recalls: “It was about
noon…the street was full of Union soldiers, running and
pushing each other, sweaty and black from powder and
dust. They called to us for water. We got great buckets
of water and tin dippers, and supplied them as fast as
we could from the porch at the side of the house off the
main street….. While we were carrying water to the
soldiers, a small drummer boy ran up the porch, and
handing me his drum, said, “Keep this for me.” I took it,
ran down the cellar steps and hid it under a pile of
shavings. He looked to be about twelve years old…. We
were so busy that we did not notice how close the
fighting was until, about half a block away, we saw
hand-to-hand conflicts…. We kept right on distributing
water until an officer rode his horse up on the
pavement…and said, “All you good people go down in
your cellars or you will all be killed.”
THE GARLACH FAMILY
ANNA GARLACH was 18 years old and lived on
Baltimore Street. During the three days of the
battle, Anna took care of her baby brother,
FRANK, and helped her mother, CATHERINE
manage their house and the soldiers there.
Her father, HENRY, was a cabinet-maker,
whose shop was adjacent to their house.
HENRY was not at home during the battle, as
he was observing the battle from the crest of
Cemetery Hill the first day and was cut off
from home for the remainder of the battle.
The Garlach’s cellar flooded during the battle,
but but the family and neighbors (about 15
people in all) stayed there by sitting on
stumps.
One of the town's best known stories features
General Alexander Schimmelfennig hiding in
the Garlach's woodshed in their back yard
behind the Garlach's brick house.
As recounted in ANNA GARLACH'S memoirs,
her mother, CATHERINE, fed Schimmelfennig
food under the pretense of feeding pigs.
Schimmelfennig briefly hid in a culvert on
Baltimore Street, and then stayed for several
days in a shed on the Garlach property,
avoiding capture. After the battle, he rejoined
the corps, much to the pleasure of the troops
who thought he was dead.
GARLACH HOUSE
LOCATION OF WOODSHED
WESLEY CULP
WESLEY CULP was a native of Gettysburg
and lived there until he was a teenager. He
learned to hunt in the woods on Culp’s Hill,
which was owned by his uncle, Henry Culp.
As a teen, WESLEY took a job with C.W.
Hoffman, a carriage and harness maker on
Chambersburg Street in Gettysburg, making
leather trappings for horses and wagons. In
1858, Hoffman moved his business to
Virginia, and WESLEY moved there to
continue working. Although Wesley made
new friends in Shepherdstown, he still kept
in contact with friends and family in
Gettysburg.
In 1861, when the war broke out, WESLEY chose to join
the Confederate Army and fight alongside his new
friends and neighbors as a member of Company B, 2nd
Virginia Infantry Regiment. The 2nd Virginia, part of the
famous “Stonewall Brigade” led by General “Stonewall”
Jackson, saw its first combat during the First Battle of
Manassas.
WESLEY survived the battle and went on to participate
in the Valley Campaign of 1862, the Peninsula
Campaign, the Second Battle of Manassas,
Fredericksburg, Chancellorsville, the Second Battle of
Winchester and Gettysburg.
Sometime during the fighting on July 3, WESLEY CULP
was struck and killed on or near his uncle’s farm at
Culp’s Hill. Members of the 2nd Virginia Infantry
Regiment buried Culp, the only casualty of Company
B, and supposedly marked his grave. The only
remains of Private Culp to be uncovered later,
however, was a rifle stock with his name carved into
it.
William Culp, WESLEY’S brother, served in the
Union Army. He survived the war and left the
service as an officer. The story goes that he
considered his brother a traitor for fighting against
Pennsylvania and never spoke of him again.
TILLIE PIERCE
TILLIE PIERCE was 15 years old and lived at 301 South Baltimore
Street at the time of the battle. She was the daughter of James
Pierce, a butcher, and she lived next door to the Shriver family. At
the time of the battle, TILLIE was a student at the Young Ladies’
Seminary on the corner of Washington and High Streets.
During the first day’s fighting, her family moved her out of the town
with Hettie Shriver to the Weikert farm (the farm of Hettie’s father),
thinking she would be safer there. It turned out that she ended up
right behind the Union lines on the second and third day.
The farm where she stayed became a field hospital, and this young
girl witnessed much suffering and death.
Care of wounded soldiers continued upon returning to the family
home on Baltimore Street. Among those she nursed was Colonel
William Colvill of the 1st Minnesota Infantry. Tillie later wrote about
her experiences in an article, "What a Girl Heard and Saw at the
Battle.”
JENNY WADE
MARY VIRGINIA “JENNY” WADE was the 20-year-old
daughter of James and Mary Ann Wade. Jennie came
from a poor family because her father, a tailor, was
sent first to state prison (in 1850). Two years later, he
was declared insane by his wife, and committed to the
Alms House where he died. Mary Ann supported
herself and her four children as a seamstress, and
Georgia and Virginia took up their mother’s trade.
By 1863, Georgia had married and lived in a brick house
on Baltimore Street, along the northern slope of
Cemetery Hill. Five days before the battle, she gave
birth to a son, and Jennie and her mother had gone to
Georgia’s home to care for her and the new baby. They
were trapped there, just within Union lines. By not
going into the cellar, they exposed themselves to errant
sniper fire, and on the morning of July 3, Jenny fell
victim to that danger.
JENNY WADE was killed instantly by a stray
Confederate bullet that penetrated two wooden
doors and struck her in the back as she mixed
bread dough in the kitchen. Buried by Union
soldiers in the yard of the home, she was later
moved to Evergreen Cemetery where a
monument and flag mark her final resting place.
Hers was the only civilian death at Gettysburg,
made even more tragic when it was discovered
that Jack Skelly, her childhood friend and
betrothed, who was serving in the 87th
Pennsylvania Infantry, had been mortally
wounded at Winchester the week before.
DAVID WILLS
DAVID WILLS was a prominent Gettysburg
attorney, who was appointed by the state of
Pennsylvania to oversee the establishment
and construction of the Soldiers' National
Cemetery, a final resting place for the Union
dead at Gettysburg.
WILLS arranged the dedication ceremony,
inviting orator Edward Everett to speak and
President Lincoln to attend.
President Lincoln accepted Wills’s invitation,
and he spent the night before the ceremony at
Wills‘s home on the square in Gettysburg.
DAVID MCCONAUGHY
DAVID MCCONAUGHY was the son of a minister and a
lifelong resident of Gettysburg. He was a noted attorney
and civic leader, as well as a part-time intelligence
officer for the Union Army during the Civil War. Upon the
June 1863 invasion of the village, McConaughy offered
his services to the government and was assigned to the
secret service. There is substantial confirmation that he
supplied, and persuaded friends to supply, intelligence up
to the time of the battle.
McConaughy was also a driving force behind the
preservation of the Gettysburg battlefield for future
generations. He established the Gettysburg
Battlefield Memorial Association, which purchased
portions of the battlefield to preserve it as a memorial
to the Union Army that fought the great battle.
GETTYSBURG ADDRESS
The citizens of Gettysburg gathered together
on November 19, 1863 for the dedication of
the Soldiers’ National Cemetery, four and a
half months after Union armies defeated
those of the Confederacy at the Battle of
Gettysburg. In just over two minutes,
President Lincoln delivered what would
become what has come to be regarded as
one of the greatest speeches in American
history.
President Lincoln’s brief but unforgettable
“Gettysburg Address” followed a two-hour
speech by renowned orator, Edward Everett.
Four score and seven years ago our fathers
brought forth on this continent a new nation,
conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war,
testing whether that nation, or any nation so
conceived and so dedicated, can long endure.
We are met on a great battlefield of that war.
We have come to dedicate a portion of that
field, as a final resting place for those who
here gave their lives that that nation might
live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we
should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not
consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave
men, living and dead, who struggled here, have
consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or
detract. The world will little note, nor long remember
what we say here, but it can never forget what they did
here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here
to the unfinished work which they who fought here have
thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here
dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that
from these honored dead we take increased devotion to
that cause for which they gave the last full measure of
devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead
shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God,
shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government
of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not
perish from the earth.