The Battle of Gettysburg As Seen by Two Teens: The Stories of Tillie Pierce and Daniel Skelly. Dieser Artikel ist nicht verfügbar.The Battle of Gettysburg As Seen by Two Teens: The Stories of Tillie Pierce and Daniel Skelly

There have been a great number of books written about the critical Battle of Gettysburg, but few of them convey the drama and emotion experienced firsthand by Tillie Pierce (a 15-year-old school girl) and Dan Skelly (an 18-year-old store clerk.) Their stories are among the best civilian observations of the war. Matilda "Tillie" Pierce Alleman self-published "At Gettysburg: What a Girl Saw and Heard of the Battle" (1888), and Daniel Skelly wrote "A Boy's Experiences During the Battles of Gettysburg" (1932), including his eyewitness account of President Abraham Lincoln's immortal Address. The full text of both teens' stories are reprinted here. The editor has included forty-one historic photographs and maps to enhance the reading experience.

Matilda "Tillie" Pierce was only 15 at the time of the Battle of Gettysburg, yet her writings of those dramatic three days would make her famous. Born on March 11, 1848, Tillie witnessed much of the first day of battle from her home at the corner of Baltimore and Breckinridge Streets. Later that same day, at the urging of her parents, Tillie left town with her neighbor, Hettie Schriver, for the Weikert farm on Taneytown Road. They could not have known that they had walked into the heart of the next two days of fighting within a few hundred yards of Little Round Top. Tillie served as a volunteer nurse at the Weikert Farm and returned home to minister to five wounded men in her own home. In August, Tillie went to Camp Letterman, where she volunteered as a nurse until November. In September, 1872, Tillie married attorney Horace Alleman, and the couple moved to Selinsgrove, PA. When Selinsgrove was ravaged by a devastating fire, Tillie put her energy to best effect and raised funds for the restoration of the town. In 1888, Tillie published her account of the battle: At Gettysburg...or What a Girl Saw and Heard of the Battle. It was an immediate best-seller and has seen several subsequent printings. Tillie succumbed to cancer in 1914 at the age of sixty-six. "The horrors of war are fully known only to those who have seen and heard them. It was my lot to see and hear only part, but it was sufficient." - Matilda "Tillie" Pierce -