Women Walking Through Time; Gettysburg Photograph

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
Perhaps these two have already been well documented. One of my favorite " Gettysburg " photographs shows the town post battle- you could almost dismiss it for what it is- another delightful, mid-century Pennsylvania village replete with clapboard, tidy gardens, raked paths and requisite church steeples hugging gentle hilltops. We're lucky there are a few of these- I think August? One distracts your eye with a scattering of white and brave shapes on heights beyond Gettysburg. We know this to be Camp Letterman, the flowering of tents coinciding with the removal of all wounded from the tidy houses seen below as Gettysburg struggled to return to some semblance of normalcy. It never would.

Fortunate, National Archives allows downloads at high resolution and huge sizes- love tooling around Gettysburg's streets and alleys through this medium, don't ask me why. Always been a puzzle why the streets are so deserted- and they are not. Never noticed these two citizens before. Love this stuff- may not be a kick for everyone.

women in street largest.jpg

Now that I know they're there, seems very obvious! Looked at this photograph a hundred times without picking up on them.

women in street1.JPG
 
Perhaps these two have already been well documented. One of my favorite " Gettysburg " photographs shows the town post battle- you could almost dismiss it for what it is- another delightful, mid-century Pennsylvania village replete with clapboard, tidy gardens, raked paths and requisite church steeples hugging gentle hilltops. We're lucky there are a few of these- I think August? One distracts your eye with a scattering of white and brave shapes on heights beyond Gettysburg. We know this to be Camp Letterman, the flowering of tents coinciding with the removal of all wounded from the tidy houses seen below as Gettysburg struggled to return to some semblance of normalcy. It never would.

Fortunate, National Archives allows downloads at high resolution and huge sizes- love tooling around Gettysburg's streets and alleys through this medium, don't ask me why. Always been a puzzle why the streets are so deserted- and they are not. Never noticed these two citizens before. Love this stuff- may not be a kick for everyone.

View attachment 109147
Now that I know they're there, seems very obvious! Looked at this photograph a hundred times without picking up on them.

View attachment 109149
Great post-the Lutheran Seminary full of wounded soldiers from both sides is directly to the right of Brady's camera here. It is well known that Carrie Sheads was one of the many GB civilians nursing the casualties there. Is it possible that one of these ladies is Carrie in the road in front of her home? I've often wondered about that .
 
The two women appear to be wearing a standard type of "uniform," which suggests to me the Sisters of Charity, or Patriot Daughters of Lancaster. However, the latter reportedly wore plain black dresses with an unusual bonnet, while the former wore a white habit. Also, the Sisters of Charity tended to Confederate wounded at the Lutheran Seminary hospital, which is not far from where this image was taken.
 
Great post-the Lutheran Seminary full of wounded soldiers from both sides is directly to the right of Brady's camera here. It is well known that Carrie Sheads was one of the many GB civilians nursing the casualties there. Is it possible that one of these ladies is Carrie in the road in front of her home? I've often wondered about that .


No way! You know, with all the ' Carrie Sheads ' short story limitations, we just do not hear a lot past that! It does drive me a little crazy when you wish to extend the story of any one of these civilians- Carrie or Harriet or Maggie Palm or any of them. Old Burns made an appearance in a nurse's journal, post battle, he and his wife came to Letterman to see the wounded then faded back into time. It took forever and ever to discover when the civilian prisoners made it back- posted that somewhere. March, 1865, found several articles in an era newspaper.

Thinking this could be Carrie is very helpful, maybe seeing her outside the one, single ' loop' reserved for the poor thing inside ' Gettysburg, The Story ', so thanks very much1
 
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