Another Lady Of Gettysburg Speaks, Elizabeth Gilbert

JPK Huson 1863

Brev. Brig. Gen'l
Joined
Feb 14, 2012
Location
Central Pennsylvania
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Chambersburg St., McAllister House ( Pinterest ), near Elizabeth Gilbert's.
" Ladies of Gettysburg ", one hopes becoming heard, beyond myth have their own voices. SO odd, women like Elizabeth Masser Thorn spoke. Her own story in her words tends to be ignored.

Love accounts from these women. Frequently awkward, sometimes confusing; always our best look into Time's window. Some are now famous, other names are unfamiliar. Mrs. Elizabeth Gilbert, like her sisters immersed in chaos that July, was there.

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Chambersburg St., McAllister House ( Pinterest ), near Elizabeth Gilbert's.
" Ladies of Gettysburg ", one hopes becoming heard, beyond myth have their own voices. SO odd, women like Elizabeth Masser Thorn spoke. Her own story in her words tends to be ignored.

Love accounts from these women. Frequently awkward, sometimes confusing; always our best look into Time's window. Some are now famous, other names are unfamiliar. Mrs. Elizabeth Gilbert, like her sisters immersed in chaos that July, was there.

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Great story! Thanks for sharing!
I find these personal accounts among the most interesting. There must be more out there, awaiting discovery. For anyone who thinks all of the Civil war books have been written, consider these vignettes as the basis for a new work....
 
That's a terrific account, @JPK Huson 1863; thanks for posting it! I think the block shown below is the one referenced in the story, just west of the intersection of Chambersburg and North Franklin streets. The tree in the distance at far left stands in front of the Broadhead house. Here's a view of the Broadhead house, too, and the plaque that was placed a few years ago.

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It's so difficult to take in, isn't it? " Women Behind These Walls " seems to have had the same perspective- while this overlay " The Battle of Gettysburg " raged, citizens .... did what? That the battle took place over their heads, in and around and through their homes tends to be if not forgotten, overlooked. It's as if it was possible at the time to hold an entire battle, like Hollywood staged it, on a neat chessboard. It was more like a Tsunami, water reaching every corner of every life, throwing open doors and windows, leaving chaos and death behind in literal heaps. Tsunamis change landscapes, sucking everything they touch back to sea- Gettysburg citizens had their town sucked into History.
 
Great story! Thanks for sharing!
I find these personal accounts among the most interesting. There must be more out there, awaiting discovery. For anyone who thinks all of the Civil war books have been written, consider these vignettes as the basis for a new work....


There are so many. Somehow, a few have become famous and remain so. You know, Tillie Pierce, Sarah Broadhead- a few others. Mary Virginia Wade's face if not her real name continues to bear mute witness to a fascination with her story- kinda. There are a few terrific books on Gettysburg citizens, kudos to the authors but still- for all the first hand accounts only a handful ' make headlines '.

Heck, we have Elizabeth Thorn's first hand account. It's an amazing, hair-raising, poignant and somehow exhausting journal written by her- incredible in content. The story we're told of her bears little resemblance to her own words. That she hacked around 100 graves from baked, PA dirt is the single commonality. Point being, in telling their stories, it seems terribly important to get it right.

So many, many others are out there- quite a few already discovered, written of and faded back into Time. I'm not an historian nor an academic; just persistent on the topic. It's very nice, poking around in the past- in 2017, it'd be called ' nosy '. :giggle:
 
Came back to this thread because there's not a lot on how many civilians were wounded during the battle. I'd forgotten Jacob! ( have a list..... )

That and Elizabeth's opinion the fourth day was the most dangerous for civilians. That day has always fascinated me because once again we've kinda truncated history- The Battle of Gettysburg was three days, The End. Only it wasn't.
 
Came back to this thread because there's not a lot on how many civilians were wounded during the battle. I'd forgotten Jacob! ( have a list..... )

That and Elizabeth's opinion the fourth day was the most dangerous for civilians. That day has always fascinated me because once again we've kinda truncated history- The Battle of Gettysburg was three days, The End. Only it wasn't.

Thanks for bringing this thread to our attention again, @JPK Huson 1863. I've been remiss in not correcting my earlier post about the location of the Broadhead house. According to a knowledgeable Gettysburg researcher who has since directed me to the correct location, the house at 221 Chambersburg Street (the purple house in the photo below, from my post #3 above) was actually the home of David Troxell. Troxell's basement is where the Broadheads and several other neighbors sheltered themselves from the bombardment, and apparently that is why the "Women Behind These Walls" historical marker was posted there instead of at the Broadheads' own home. According to "A Tour of Gettysburg's Visual Battle Damage" by Timothy H. Smith, the Broadheads lived at 217, which is one of the two-story brick houses in what was known as the "Warren Block." I've circled them in the photo below. Those houses are shown to the right of the Troxell house in the Google Maps view at this link. If the house numbering is consistent, I believe 217 would be the home in the middle of the three painted facades.

I apologize for the earlier misinformation and am glad to finally make this correction. Until checking this out, I was unaware of Tim Smith's article, which I look forward to reading in its entirety. It's available here, as a downloadable PDF file on the Gettysburg College website.

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I apologize for the earlier misinformation


So funny @LoyaltyOfDogs ! I couldn't find either with a GPS anyway- my method of visiting Gettysburg consists of either following one of you around or screaming into the first parking spot I see and walking around until bumping into good stuff.

You know how there are several accounts by civilians who spent the battle in basements? A good tour would be ' Basements of Gettysburg '. Who was it who hid their African American neighbors in the basement, under their porch? I forget from the top of my head. I'd sincerely like to see where that was, and a few others.
 
Hiding under a porch? Imagine crouching low and seeing boots and bare feet running to and fro just a yard away, and the fear of discovery. No water, nothing. Waiting until someone comes along and tells them the coast is clear, and moving to a new hiding place.
Thanks for the story. I like the analogy of the tsunami. It is impossible without pictures of the wreckage or this war to understand the depth of the carnage, havoc and utter waste of everything.
Lubliner.
 
This thread opens the door to another Gettysburg love story. Mention was made of Prof. Gundrum, who was actually Jacob Friedrich Gundrum of the 2nd Wisconsin, an emigrant from Darmstadt, Hesse, and a member of the Iron Brigade band at Gettysburg. Jacob and the band serenaded the wounded in the Courthouse after the battle, and that is where he likely encountered Susanna "Susie" Herr, the 19-year-old daughter of Frederick Herr (then 77) and Susan Lind (age 69), whose residence was located on the north side of W. Middle Street, west of S. Washington Street, or less than two blocks from the Courthouse. Susie is on record as having attended the wounded at the Courthouse after the battle. Their long-distance romance culminated in a marriage at Susie's home in Gettysburg on February 5, 1865. The ceremony was presided over by Rev. William R. H. Deatrick. They raised three boys until Susie's untimely death in 1882 at age 38. Jacob never remarried and died in 1904, joining his wife at Mt. Olivet Cemetery in Hanover. An excellent article on their romance written by Charles Joyce appeared in Military Images magazine, Summer 2020, pp. 46-49.
 
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Chambersburg St., McAllister House ( Pinterest ), near Elizabeth Gilbert's.
" Ladies of Gettysburg ", one hopes becoming heard, beyond myth have their own voices. SO odd, women like Elizabeth Masser Thorn spoke. Her own story in her words tends to be ignored.

Love accounts from these women. Frequently awkward, sometimes confusing; always our best look into Time's window. Some are now famous, other names are unfamiliar. Mrs. Elizabeth Gilbert, like her sisters immersed in chaos that July, was there.

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Thanks for sharing this? The Gilberts are my 2nd great grand-parents and I thought you might appreciate this photo of Mrs. Gilbert I recently unearthed in a family archive. It was taken in 1930 when she was 97 years old. The Adams County Historical Society has an excellent new interactive display recreating the experiences she and others endured while being trapped inside the cellar.

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