Boys of Wartime: Will at the Battle of Gettysburg (16 page)

Mr. Lincoln's face was lined and sad, but his expression was kindly. Finally, Mr. Everett finished. While the band played, Mr. Lincoln reached into his side pocket and drew out a case containing a pair of spectacles. Then reaching into his pocket again, he drew out a sheet of crumpled paper.

He looked taller than ever when he stood. He walked to the front of the platform and began to speak. I held my breath, listening.

 

 

It was over almost before I knew it. Indeed, the audience did not clap for a full minute, expecting the president to continue speaking, but he had already turned to the others on the platform and began shaking hands.

I barely had time to absorb his words before the party began to leave the stage. Descending the stairs, the president's eyes came into contact with mine. He held out his hand as he passed by and said, “Hello, young man, who are you?”

I grasped his hand. My face flushed and my throat closed up, but I managed to squeak, “I am Will Edmonds.”

And then he was gone, swallowed up by the crowd.

I watched them go, stunned that I had actually gotten to shake the president's hand. I was still turning his words over in my mind.

“... government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” I whispered to myself.

I was glad I had not gone to war with Colonel Braxton. I was glad I did not have to face another battle. I was still a boy, and shooting and dying was the work of men. Still, I believed what the president said—that our Union shall not perish. If my country needed me to fight for her another day, I would do it. But I hoped it would not be necessary. I hoped I could spend my life waging peace, not war.

Today my job was only this—to go home and let Grace know that I had shaken the president's hand, and she had not. That and to give thanks that my family was safe. All of us. Together.

HISTORICAL NOTE

T
he Battle of Gettysburg was the biggest, bloodiest battle ever fought on North American soil. More than 150,000 men waged war on the rocky hills, wheat fields, orchards, and ridges surrounding the town and in the town itself.

Gettysburg resulted in the highest number of casualties in any battle of the Civil War. More than 50,000 men were killed or wounded. Not all of the casualties were soldiers. Trees were shot so full of bullets that they died of lead poisoning.

The town of Gettysburg and its 2,400 citizens found themselves in the middle of two vast armies. The experiences of those people were the inspiration for this story. William Edmonds and his family are fictional characters set down in the middle of real events. You might be wondering how much of Will's story is true and how much is fiction.

Many of Gettysburg's citizens wrote about their experiences in the battle, and I relied on their firsthand accounts to tell Will's story. I used many sources, but Will's experiences are based largely on those of two of Gettysburg's young citizens.

Daniel Skelly, a seventeen-year-old clerk, watched the battle begin from a high branch on an oak tree on Seminary Hill. Later that morning he escorted General Howard to the observatory on the top of the Fahnestock Brothers store, as Will does in this novel.

Tillie Pierce was fifteen when the fighting broke out. Her neighbor, Henrietta “Hettie” Shriver, asked Tillie to go with her and her two young daughters to Mrs. Shriver's parents' farm on the Taneytown Road when the battle began. Mrs. Shriver thought they would be safer there. Instead, they found themselves on the front lines.

The Rebels did indeed thunder into town shooting and hollering on June 26, 1863.

Some of them captured a group of African-Americans with plans to sell them in the South. There is no record of anyone trying to stop the Rebels, as Will does in this story, but at least one black woman did manage to escape and hide in a church belfry. The fate of the rest of the captured people is still unknown today.

More than a few Union soldiers found hiding places in Gettysburg during the retreat of July 1. Most famously, General Alexander Schimmelfennig hid in the Garlach family's woodshed from July 1 until the morning of July 4. The Garlachs kept his presence a secret and slipped him food when they could. This was dangerous. They were surrounded by Confederate troops and could have been shot for helping a Union soldier.

I didn't come across any records of Union soldiers slipping across enemy lines to rejoin their comrades, but I like to think that one or two might have tried—perhaps with the aid of one of Gettysburg's brave citizens. That inspired me to invent the story of Will's dangerous journey across the Rebel lines with the fictional Colonel Braxton.

The Battle of Gettysburg proved to be a major turning point in the war. The South lost one-third of its army and never regained its full fighting strength. In addition, the battle had exactly the opposite effect on the North than Robert E. Lee had hoped.

Before the battle, some Northerners had begun to pressure President Abraham Lincoln to negotiate a peace with the South. But the Union victory, coupled with their anger over Lee's invasion of a Northern state, caused many of them to renew their support of the president and the war.

The war lasted for two more years, but the Confederate defeat at Gettysburg, followed by the fall of Vicksburg, Mississippi, the next day, was the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.

CHILDREN'S ROLES
in the
CIVIL WAR

M
ore than three million Americans fought in the Civil War, and over 600,000 men died in it. Battles were fought in over 10,000 places, primarily in the South. Armies swept across farms and burned towns. Homes became military headquarters. Churches and schoolhouses were turned into hospitals.

Never before had civilians been exposed to war and suffering the way they were in this war, when the fighting was in their own backyards. As a result, children played an important role in the Civil War.

Girls and their mothers took their brothers' and fathers' places in fields and factories when the men went off to war. Some girls even disguised themselves as boys to serve in the armies on both sides.

Many girls had no choice but to become nurses when wounded soldiers needed help. Gettysburg resident Sadie Bushman was just nine years old when an army surgeon asked her to hold a cup of water to a soldier's mouth while he sawed off the man's leg. Sadie assisted that doctor for weeks, until every last wounded soldier left Gettysburg.

When the war began, the minimum age to join the Union army was eighteen. But many soldiers, especially in the South and at the end of the war, were barely into their teens. Some boys thought war would be a great adventure and lied about their ages, or used false names in order to become soldiers. Others joined with their fathers and became drummers and musicians. These musicians were vitally important. Drums were used to send signals to troops in battle and at camp.

Some of those boys paid for their military service with their lives. Six boys earned our nation's highest military award—the Medal of Honor. One of them, William “Willie” Johnston, was eleven when he saw his first action during the Peninsular Campaign of 1862. He was a drummer for the 3rd Vermont Infantry. Willie managed to hold on to his drum in a desperate retreat and was personally thanked by President Lincoln.

The children who happened to live on the battles' front lines were forced to grow up fast and take on adult roles. They were ordinary children living in extraordinary times, and they rose to the occasion with grace and courage.

HISTORIC CHARACTERS

Some of the characters in
Will at the Battle of
Gettysburg, 1863
, were real people who played a part in
the Civil War.

 

 

Brigadier General John Buford
was the commander of a cavalry division in the Union army. Buford's troops rode into Gettysburg on Tuesday, June 30, 1863. He stayed in the area overnight and waited for the Confederates to return. His decision to stay in Gettysburg set the stage for the battle to begin the following day.

 

Jefferson Davis
, a graduate of West Point, was a plantation owner in Mississippi. He also served in Congress. Davis became the president of the Confederate States of America when the Southern states seceded from the Union.

 

Edward Everett
was the leading speaker of his day. He had a long political career as a congressman and senator as well as governor of Massachusetts.

 

Major General Joseph Hooker
, known as “Fighting Joe,” was a commander of the Union army. He was defeated by Confederate General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Chancellorsville in May 1863. President Lincoln replaced him with General Meade a few days before the Battle of Gettysburg.

 

General Oliver O. Howard
served in the Union army. He surveyed the Gettysburg battlefield from the observation deck of the Fahnestock Brothers store on the morning of July 1, 1863. He took charge of the battlefield after the death of General Reynolds.

 

General Robert E. Lee
, the son of Revolutionary War hero “Light-Horse Harry” Lee, was a top graduate of the West Point Military Academy. He served in the United States army for thirty-two years, but resigned when his home state of Virginia seceded from the Union. As commander of the Confederate army he won a series of battles against the Union. His army seemed unbeatable when they marched into the North in 1863. The Union victory against Lee's forces at the Battle of Gettysburg was a major turning point in the war. Lee's army retreated south and never again fought in the Northern states.

 

Abraham Lincoln
, the president of the United States, visited Gettysburg and gave his famous address in November, 1863.

 

Albertus McCreary,
fifteen, lived in Gettysburg. During the battle he wore a blue soldier's cap and was nearly taken prisoner by the Confederates. A number of his neighbors came to his rescue and assured the Rebels he was not a soldier. After the battle, McCreary sold tobacco to Union soldiers and battlefield souvenirs to tourists.

 

Charlie McCurdy
was ten years old and lived across the street from Petey Winter's sweet shop at the time of the battle. He watched a Rebel soldier fill his hat with candy through the store's window. When the soldier came outside, he gave a grateful Charlie a handful of candy.

 

Mary McLean
was six years old during the Battle of Gettysburg. She did indeed stick her head out of a window and sing, “Hang Jeff Davis from a sour apple tree,” to the Confederate soldiers on the street below. Her father worried the house would be destroyed, but the Rebel soldiers only laughed.

 

Major General George Gordon Meade
, commander of the Union army at the Battle of Gettysburg, was asked to take command just three days before the battle. His men called him the “Snapping Turtle.”

 

Matilda “Tillie” Pierce
was born in Gettysburg in 1848. She was fifteen when the fighting began. In hopes of escaping danger, she traveled to the Weikert farm outside of town with her neighbor Mrs. Shriver. She had no idea that she would find herself in the middle of some of the worst fighting of the three-day battle.

 

General John Reynolds
was offered the command of the Union army several days before the Battle of Gettysburg. He turned it down, and General Meade was appointed instead. Reynolds was killed on July 1st leading his troops into battle.

 

Henrietta “Hettie” Shriver
left her home on Baltimore Street with her two young children and her neighbor Tillie Pierce when the battle began. She traveled to her parents' farm on the Taneytown Road near the hills known as the Round Tops, the scene of some of the fiercest fighting.

 

Daniel Skelly
was a seventeen-year-old clerk at the Fahnestock Brothers store. He watched the battle begin from a tall oak tree on Seminary Hill and escorted General Howard to the store's observation deck on the morning of July 1.

 

Brigadier General J.E.B. Stuart
, a Confederate officer and the most famous horseman of the Civil War, led Lee's cavalry. He did not arrive at Gettysburg until long after the battle started. Stuart's horsemen were defeated in fighting three miles east of Gettysburg on the afternoon of July 3rd. He retreated south with the rest of Lee's army but was killed later in the war.