United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Anecdotes
Jennie Wade was a girl of twenty who lived in a red-brick house right
in the path of the battle. They could not move to a safer place, for
her married sister was there with a day-old baby, so the imprisoned
family was in the thick of the battle. Recently when the old roof was
taken off to be repaired, over two quarts of bullets were taken from
it. During the first day, Jennie's mother moved her daughter and her
baby so that her head rested against the foot of the bed. She had no
more been moved than a bullet crashed through the window and struck the
pillow where her head had lain an instant before. While her mother
watched her daughter and the baby, Jennie carried water to the soldiers
on the firing-line. At the end of the first day fifteen soldiers lay
dead in the little front yard and all through that weary day and late
into the night Jennie was going back and forth filling the canteens of
the wounded and dying soldiers as they lay scattered on that stricken
field. Throughout the second day she kept on with this work and many
and many a wounded soldier choking with thirst lived to bless her
memory. On this day a long procession of blue-clad men knocked at the
door of the house asking for bread until the whole supply was gone.
After dark on the second day, Jennie mixed up a pan of dough and set it
out to rise. She got up at daybreak and as she was lighting a fire, a
hungry soldier-boy knocked at the door and asked for something to eat.
Jennie started to mix up some biscuit and as she stood with her sleeves
rolled up and her hands in the dough, a minie ball cut through the door
and she fell over dead without a word. Her statue stands as she must
have appeared during those first two days of battle. In one hand she
carries a pitcher and over her left arm are two army-canteens hung by
their straps. Not the least of the heroic ones of that battle was
Jennie Wade who died while thus engaged in homely, helpful services for
her country.
These are the stories of but a few who fought at Gettysburg that men
might be free and that their country might stand for righteousness. The
spirit of that battle has been best expressed in a great poem by Will
H. Thompson with which we end these stories of some of the brave deeds
of the greatest battle of the Civil War.
HIGH TIDE AT GETTYSBURG
A cloud possessed the hollow field,
The gathering battle's smoky shield;
Athwart the gloom the lightning flashed,
And through the cloud some horsemen dashed,
And from the heights the thunder pealed.
Then, at the brief command of Lee,
Moved out that matchless infantry,
With Pickett leading grandly down
To rush against the roaring crown
Of those dread heights of destiny.
Far heard above the angry guns,
A cry across the tumult runs,
The voice that rang through Shiloh's woods
And Chickamauga's solitudes,
The fierce South cheering on her sons.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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