JPK Huson 1863
Brev. Brig. Gen'l
- Joined
- Feb 14, 2012
- Location
- Central Pennsylvania
Margaret Palm, one of the Gettysburg Citizens whose life would be forever changed the summer of 1863.
Finally found something I've been looking for, forever and ever, an account of what happened to at least some of the African American citizens swept up in the horrors of the Confederate invasion, July 1863. You read accounts, they're always nameless- how it seems the Confederate army arrived in Pennsylvania, found African American people living as they did like anyone else, free- and considered them fair game. ' Oh look- free stuff! ' So, so many swiped right out of their own shoes, sent into the slavery system in the South. Makes my head hurt just thinking about it.
No one will ever know what happened to most, some made it back- for a bare few there's a record. This super web site gives a glimpse of the sheer terror those dreadful days. Used to just imagine what it must have been like, do not have to imagine any more.
The rest of the article is well worth the reading, heavily sourced and chilling.
"Old Liz” was a washerwoman for the McCreary family. In all probability, the “Old Liz” that young Albertus McCreary remembered and would later describe in his account of the Battle of Gettysburg was Elizabeth Butler, who, in 1863, was in her fifty-third year. Her husband Samuel was a wagonmaker, and together they owned a house worth one hundred dollars and owned another hundred dollars in personal possessions: pots and pans for cooking, clothing, maybe a horse. The Butlers lived comfortably compared to the standard of living in Gettysburg’s African American community in 1863. They were able to send their children to school and had lived long enough to enjoy their four young grandchildren. Although she could not have know it at the time, when Elizabeth Butler walked to the McCreary’s house on the morning of June 15, events were unraveling which would forever change her life. Within three weeks, “Old Liz” would be a captive of the Confederate States Army, and she would be bound and gagged in preparation for being sent south into slavery. She would make a dramatic escape, and would return to her home when the Confederate army retreated the next day. But Elizabeth Butler would never be able to return to the life she had known before the Battle of Gettysburg."
http://www.gdg.org/gettysburg%20magazine/gburgafrican.html
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