Research Proposal for Gettysburg Citizens’ Accounts of the

Christian Dakota Kibler

16SP HIST 301 Historiography and Research Meth (02)

Professor Sarah Jones

March 5, 2016 Hypothesis: During the Battle of Gettysburg, the citizens of Gettysburg exhibited varying degrees of fear and apprehension about the battle, but just as importantly they also shared unified attempts to aid and show friendliness to both Union and Confederate military forces.

Discussion of Sources:

The overall research topic that I have decided to analyze is the evaluation of what the citizens of Gettysburg’s reactions, opinions, and thoughts were regarding the 1863 Civil War

Battle of Gettysburg. In conjunction with the Battle of Vicksburg, the Battle of Gettysburg is widely considered amongst expert historians to have been one of the two major battles which marked the turning point of the Civil War, tipping the scales in favor of the Union. There is a enormous wealth of both general and specific historic information available on this battle, and additionally there are innumerable accessible sources which list personal accounts of both

Confederate and Union soldiers who fought in the battle. However, there is an extremely limited amount of information available which discusses how the citizens of Gettysburg felt or reacted to the epic landmark battle that took place right outside of their front doors. Therefore, I have chosen to narrow my focus on this lack of information, restricting myself to purely Gettysburg civilian accounts and examinations of the Battle of Gettysburg and its associated aspects.

Discarding military accounts and broad, well-known knowledge of the battle, my intent is to explore only what the citizens of Gettysburg noted privately or publicly about the battle, how these citizens were or were not involved in the battle, and how the battle affected Gettysburg citizens’ lives and emotions as the battle raged on for three whole days. The overriding question that influenced my research is, “Despite the large number of military accounts available on the Battle of Gettysburg, what did the supposedly overlooked citizens of the town have to say or do about this same battle?” Therefore, I decided to look mainly into official or unofficial accounts of Battle of Gettysburg-era civilians as well as search for any personal diary entries or interviews of these civilians in order to gain insight into their involvement or lack thereof in the Battle of Gettysburg. Initially, my thesis and thoughts upon beginning my research were that there would be an underlying terror which existed in nearly all of the hearts of Gettysburg citizens, and henceforth this terror would have kept Gettysburg citizens locked up and hiding in their homes awaiting the end of the battle. To my surprise, upon further research my thesis was forced to change, it became quite obvious that the Gettysburg citizens played a larger role in aiding both military sides of the Battle of Gettysburg than I would have imagined. Therefore, I maintain that while fear and terror did indeed play a significant role in Gettysburg civilians’ thoughts and actions towards the battle, their desire to show hospitality and provide aid of any manageable sort to both the Union and the Confederacy played just as big of a role. I argue that even though the actions and reflections of Gettysburg civilians seem to be unrecognized and unstudied to a sizable extent, this does not mean that their actions and reflections were minor or unimportant. Rather, I insist that the citizens of Gettysburg, while certainly frightened of the Battle of Gettysburg, nonetheless displayed unbiased compassion and remarkably involved stances towards the battle.

To make these arguments, I am using three different types of primary sources: diary entries, newspaper articles, and personal narratives in book form. Firstly, the diary entries that I am using are authored by Sarah Broadhead and Sallie Myers, both of whom were women living in Gettysburg at the time of the battle. These two primary sources present a unique and invaluable look at each woman’s thoughts on a day-by-day basis in the heat of the battle. These diaries even provide entries before and after the battle, which provide some useful and much needed context. Together, these two diary entries are crucial to my research, as they are literal firsthand accounts written in the midst of the battle, whereas all of my other primary sources were written after-the-fact. Secondly, I have gathered three primary source newspaper articles for my research. Two of these articles are interviews of Gettysburg civilians Aaron Sheely and once again Sallie Myers, who each share their experiences, thoughts, and involvement in the Battle of

Gettysburg. The third article is of particular interest and value to my research, as it is an interview of John Charles Willis who was associated with an inn in Gettysburg at the time known as the Globe Inn. His words on the battle prove to be priceless to my research as he not only speaks for himself but also for those staying at and around the inn, which was a social hub during the time of battle. Finally, the personal narratives in book form that I have found make up the majority of my primary sources, combining for a total of five sources. All written by a variety of different Battle of Gettysburg-era citizens, these critical and indispensable sources serve to both firmly reinforce my thesis and further shed light upon the very personal notions, reactions, and actions of the people of Gettysburg during the battle. Altogether, I feel that I have put together an extremely thorough and informative arsenal of research which serves my research purposes exceptionally well.

I wholeheartedly believe that my research on this topic of Gettysburg citizens’ is desperately needed and exceedingly valuable in the field of Gettysburg Battle history. As previously mentioned, when it comes to the Battle of Gettysburg, the reactions of Gettysburg citizens have either gone largely unnoticed or have simply been undervalued by most historians.

Despite this, this topic is still of large necessity, as the contributions of Gettysburg civilians towards the Battle of Gettysburg while perhaps not being decisive to the battle’s outcome still played an important role in the battle that should not be overlooked. The fact that the Battle of

Gettysburg played such an enormous role in the overall result of the Civil War but yet the very perspectives and actions of the citizens of Gettysburg were overshadowed is unacceptable.

Therefore, in researching this topic my goal is to provide evidence of the variety of thoughts and deeds that the people of Gettysburg respectively maintained and performed as well as promote and encourage further research into this topic in order to expand its significance all the more. Historiography: Gettysburg Citizen’s Accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg

The Battle of Gettysburg is one of the most significant battles fought in America’s history and especially in Civil War history. Taking place in the fields and slopes outside of the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in 1863, this battle is generally viewed by nearly all historians as the turning point of the Civil War. After Union forces won this battle and forced the

Confederates to retreat, it became more and more clear that the Union would be the victors of the

Civil War. Hence, this battle quickly became of critical interest and cruciality to historians. This was due to both its initially unexpected importance to the outcome of the Civil War and the strategies and intensity that the battle employed, such as the failure of the infamous Pickett’s charge as well as the last stand of the 20th Maine regiment on Little Round Top which earned

Commander one of the first ever American Congressional Medals of Honor.

While historians have documented this battle exhaustively and thoroughly, they have tended to either partially or fully neglect the accounts of the actual citizens of Gettysburg. This being said, the resources which do happen to document the thoughts, actions, and contributions of Gettysburg civilians towards the Battle of Gettysburg are somewhat difficult to discover.

However, those historians who have examined Gettysburg citizens’ accounts of the Battle of

Gettysburg generally have produced historiography which highlights either the extreme fear and terror that the citizens of Gettysburg endured or the noteworthy acts which the citizens performed to aid both Union and Confederate forces. Nearly every historian who has studied

Gettysburg civilian reactions towards the Battle of Gettysburg has implemented into their work firsthand primary documents such as journal and diary entries written by Gettysburg civilians either during or after the battle. Diary entries written by Sallie Myers and Sarah Broadhead, as well as personal narrative account written in book form authored by and Fannie

Buehler are all favorite sources to use among historians. Historians have also taken advantage of newspaper articles which featured interviews of Gettysburg civilians who were present in

Gettysburg during the battle. Interviews of John Burns are the most prominent sources found, but on some instances interviews of the aforementioned Sallie Myers are also present in historiography on this subject.

One of the earliest historiographical writings which focused on the accounts of

Gettysburg civilians during the Battle of Gettysburg was written almost a century after the battle in 1957 by Robert K. Murray and Warren W. Hassler, Jr. Simply entitled “Gettysburg Farmer,” this journal article centers around analyzing letters which were written by a Gettysburg farmer and Union soldier who, among the many battles in his campaign, happened to participate in the battle for his home town of Gettysburg. Murray and Hassler point out that these letters are therefore of particular uniqueness and usefulness in studying Gettysburg citizens’ accounts of the battle, since “Few of the Northern troops engaged in the battle of Gettysburg were fighting simultaneously to defend the Union and their home town.”1 Murray and Hassler state that the letters of this Gettysburg farmer and soldier overall “record the daily life, tribulations, and fears”2 that were present not only in the life of a Union soldier but also in the hearts of

Gettysburg citizens who were concerned about the welfare of their town during the Battle of

Gettysburg. Murray and Hassler also describe how the farmer-soldier was plagued by the “stark,

1. Robert K. Murray and Warren W. Hassler, Jr., “Gettysburg Farmer,” Civil War History 3, no. 2 (1957), 180.

2. Ibid., 179. naked horror of the battlefield,”3 which was a terrible sight to witness whether one was a soldier or a civilian onlooker. In making these two statements, Murray and Hassler firmly imply that in the end, the daily life of the typical Gettysburg civilian during the Battle of Gettysburg was one filled with fear and terror.

In 1988, Robert Bloom in his journal article entitled “‘We Never Expected a Battle’: The

Civilians at Gettysburg” definitely agrees with this premise set forth by Murray and Hassler.

Bloom mentions throughout his article numerous times how Gettysburg civilians “responded to what they saw and heard (through a) prevailing atmosphere of unbelief, tension, fear, [and] confusion,”4 and how constantly “Gettysburg citizens were in real danger.”5 However, in addition to providing analysis on this fear and danger that Gettysburg citizens felt during the battle, Bloom also attempts to add on a further premise. Bloom asserts that despite the rampant fear which struck Gettysburg citizens’ hearts, these citizens were still nonetheless “pressed into service to tend the needs of hundred of wounded and suffering men.”6 Supplementing this claim with examples of Gettysburg residents being forced to give up housing space and household possessions and infrastructure,7 Bloom makes it his goal to reveal that many times, regardless of their terror, the citizens of Gettysburg did not have any choice but to provide shelter and assistance to Union and Confederate forces. Just as significantly though, Bloom then argues a third premise that some Gettysburg citizens willingly presented help to both Union and

3. Murray, 185.

4. Robert L. Bloom, “‘We Never Expected a Battle’: The Civilians at Gettysburg,” Pennsylvania History 55, no. 4 (1988), 163.

5. Ibid., 177.

6. Ibid., 179.

7. Ibid., 184. Confederate soldiers without being pressured into doing so. Bloom states that “From the outset of the fighting women in the community volunteered their services as nurses.”8 Bloom goes on to say that “Gettysburg physicians such as Drs. J. W. C. O’Neal and Robert Horner also turned out to minister to the wounded,” and that “As did the volunteer nurses, they appear to have made no distinction between friend or foe.”9 Thus, Bloom’s contribution to the historiography of this subject proves to be invaluable, as he not only affirms the earlier ideas of Murray and Hassler on this topic but also branches out from these ideas to forcefully and comprehensively declare and prove his own.

In a chapter of William Alan Blair and William Pancak’s 2001 book Making and

Remaking Pennsylvania’s Civil War, Christina Ericson presents a very different, unique, and refreshing view of Gettysburg civilians’ accounts and roles in the Battle of Gettysburg. Rather than grouping all Gettysburg civilians together, Ericson decides to split the civilians according to gender and aims to explain how depending on a Gettysburg civilian’s gender, Gettysburg civilians reacted differently to the battle. Ericson firstly suggests that male Gettysburg civilians for the most part tended to adhere to the “protective male” stereotype and either flee Gettysburg or stay behind and attempt to protect their families, although many times the protection that they could offer was insufficient or nonexistent.10 Ericson goes on to say that female Gettysburg civilians mostly played to the “caretaker” female stereotype and “cooked, cleaned, washed, and

8. Bloom, 186.

9. Ibid., 187.

10. William Alan Blair and William Pencak, Making and Remaking Pennsylvania’s Civil War (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001), eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2016), 91. generally supported the hordes of visitors”11 through medical and physical care. Ericson is careful to note that there were exceptions to these gender stereotypes, and that not all Gettysburg civilians reacted to the battle according to how they supposedly or typically were assumed to do so. Mentioning that “Men abandoned their families to flee with horses…. [while] Women, in turn, frequently became assertive and empowered… by war work,”12 Ericson makes it clear that her theory is not absolutely applicable to all citizens of Gettysburg during the battle. However,

Ericson's historiography further advances a new and at worst debatable and thought-provoking insight into how the people of Gettysburg reacted to and felt about the Battle of Gettysburg.

Also published in 2001, William G. Williams’ book Days of Darkness: The Gettysburg

Civilians is written with a once again refreshingly different tone, with Williams preferring to write in a non-fiction story dialogic format rather than from a narrative, speaker-to-audience perspective. However, in his narrative-style introduction, Williams clearly states his additions to this topic’s historiography. Williams first partially affirms Ericson’s theory that Gettysburg civilians’ reactions to the battle differed according to their gender, saying that because

Gettysburg men tended to want to protect their livestock from the battle and therefore fled their homes and left their wives and families behind, “[Gettysburg] Women… were dependent on themselves to house, to feed, to keep loved ones out of the range of bullets and shells and, in the end, to nurse, to comfort, [and] to bury.”13 Secondly, Williams declares that “The goal of soldier

11. Blair, 99.

12. Ibid., 100.

13. William G. Williams, Days of Darkness: The Gettysburg Civilians (Shippensburg: White Mane Books 2001), xv. and civilian alike was two-fold: first, help the wounded; second, bury the dead,”14 undoubtedly suggesting that Williams believes that civilians did not differ too much from soldiers during the

Battle of Gettysburg in terms of their duties, mindsets, and reactions. Williams does maintain the point common with other historiographers of this topic that fear, or lack thereof, played a large part in the lives of Gettysburg civilians during the battle. Through his use of descriptions of

Fannie Buehler’s and Sarah Broadhead’s frightfulness which overwhelmed them at all hours of the day15 to statements such as “Doctor John W. C. O’Neal arose… with no fear of what would happen that day…. (feeling) prepared for anything,”16 Williams does not stray from previous historiographers’ arguments that the presence or absence of fear influenced many Gettysburg civilians’ minds and actions. Even so, Williams plainly reveals and proves his historiographical necessity of an opinion that the people of Gettysburg took active endeavors towards the Battle of

Gettysburg above the influence of fear.

On the contrary, much like Murray and Hassler, Richard Wheeler appears to have solely concentrated on Gettysburg civilians’ fearful thoughts and responses to the Battle of Gettysburg in his 2006 book Witness to Gettysburg. Here, Wheeler frequently mentions how the Battle of

Gettysburg frightened many civilians, noting that “The thunderous hour of heavy fighting… in no way diminished the concern of the town’s citizens,” as well as that “The greater number of the town’s citizens remained in their homes for the purpose of protecting their property, relying on

14. Williams, xvii.

15. Ibid., 26-27.

16. Ibid., 107. their cellars to keep them from harm.”17 Wheeler strongly seeks to make his point that fear played more of a role in the hearts and minds of Gettysburg civilians than anything else, mentioning how Tillie Pierce was deathly afraid that she had lost her home in the chaos of the battle18 and how even after the battle she was horrified by the graphic “bloated and putrefying remains of men and horses, made more loathsome by the multitude of flies that hummed about them and cavorted upon them.”19 This latter point in particular makes an interesting case, as

Wheeler expresses here how the emotions and actions of Gettysburg civilians towards the battle did not end when the battle did, but rather carried on for days if not months afterwards. Wheeler does not show complete bias towards the citizens of Gettysburg being paralyzed by fear, as is evident by his antithesis account of citizen John Burns. Wheeler states that Burns, a Gettysburg civilian at the time of the battle who was also a veteran of the War of 1812, picked up his gun without the slightest bit of worry or reluctance and fought with the Union against the

Confederates.20 However, altogether Wheeler’s historiography reveals that no matter how involved or uninvolved Gettysburg citizens were in the Battle of Gettysburg, fear was still a factor to some degree.

To summarize, as time has gone on, historiographers have grown deeper and deeper in their analyzation of the citizens of Gettysburg’s accounts, emotions, actions, and involvement during the Battle of Gettysburg. The historiography of this event has evolved from being focused

17. Richard Wheeler, Witness to Gettysburg (Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2006), eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2016), 133.

18. Ibid., 173.

19. Ibid., 255.

20. Ibid., 137. primarily on the citizens’ fear regarding the battle, to exploring how differences in gender may have affected citizens’ stances towards the battle, to discovering more about how the citizens acted whether out of the influence or nonexistence of fear. Despite this past historiography written on this subject though, there still remains much need to further research and analyze this topic in the current day as well. Questions regarding this topic still exist and have yet to be fully and thoroughly answered. For example, although it has been established that Gettysburg citizens were fearful to some extent, what other emotions did these citizens exhibit? How did these other emotions affect how they participated or reacted to the Battle of Gettysburg? Additionally, historiographers have only within the past sixty years begun to take a much more in-depth look at Gettysburg citizens’ accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg, and with new accounts and research material surfacing every year from donations or authentic historical findings, more and more valuable information and primary sources on this subject are becoming available. As historians gather these primary sources and this information, more questions and theories arise just as quickly as they are answered and either proven or discarded. As for where the historiography on the subject of Gettysburg citizens’ accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg exists today, it can be accurately stated that Gettysburg citizens at the time of the battle were influenced by both fear and their internal moral consciousness to help or assist others. What else were they influenced by? Did they react in other ways in addition to what has been documented so far? As time goes on and research of this topic increases even more, answers to these questions and more will be found. BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blair, William Alan, and William Pencak. Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2016).

Bloom, Robert L. “‘We Never Expected a Battle’: The Civilians at Gettysburg.” Pennsylvania History 55, no. 4 (1988), 161-200.

Murray, Robert K., and Warren W. Hassler, Jr. “Gettysburg Farmer.” Civil War History 3, no. 2 (1957), 179-187.

Wheeler, Richard. Witness to Gettysburg. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2006. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2016).

Williams, William G. Days of Darkness: The Gettysburg Civilians. Shippensburg: White Mane Books, 2001.

Primary Documents

1. The Diary of a Lady of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, from June 15 to July 15, 1863.

(http://0-search.ebscohost.com.library.regent.edu/login.aspx? direct=true&db=cat01529a&AN=ru.b1556862&site=eds-live)

2. Three Weeks at Gettysburg.

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3. At Gettysburg or What a Girl Saw and Heard of the Battle; A True Narrative.

(https://archive.org/details/atgettysburgorwh00alle)

4. Recollections of the Rebel Invasion and One Woman's Experience During the Battle of Gettysburg.

(https://archive.org/details/recollectionsofr00bueh) 5. Battleground adventures.

(https://archive.org/details/battlegroundadve00john)

6. John Charles Wills: Reminiscences of the Three Days Battle of Gettysburg at the Globe Hotel.

(http://cupola.gettysburg.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1093&context=ach)

The following primary sources are originally located at the Adams County Historical

Society in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in the “Citizen’s Accounts” section (I made copies of them to bring home in order to further research and utilize; I have attempted to cite them as best I can with the very limited publication information available):

Sheely, Aaron. “Terrible Fourth.” Philadelphia North American, July 4, 1909. Document located at Adams County Historical Society (ACHS).

Stewart, Sallie M. “How a Gettysburg Schoolteacher Spent Her Vacation in 1863.” San

Francisco Sunday Call, August 16, 1903. Document located at ACHS.

Stewart, Sallie M. “Recollections of the Battle of Gettysburg; Written for my son, Harry.” Diary

Entry (not published), 1897. Document located at ACHS. SECONDARY SOURCE BIBLIOGRAPHY

Blair, William Alan, and William Pencak. Making and Remaking Pennsylvania's Civil War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001. eBook Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2016).

Bloom, Robert L. “‘We Never Expected a Battle’: The Civilians at Gettysburg.” Pennsylvania History 55, no. 4 (1988), 161-200.

Huntington, Tom. “Out to Shoot Some ‘Damned Rebels.’” America’s Civil War, July 2008, 46-49.

Murray, Robert K., and Warren W. Hassler, Jr. “Gettysburg Farmer.” Civil War History 3, no. 2 (1957), 179-187.

Wheeler, Richard. Witness to Gettysburg. Mechanicsburg: Stackpole Books, 2006. eBook Academic Collection (EBSCOhost), EBSCOhost (accessed March 5, 2016).

Williams, William G. Days of Darkness: The Gettysburg Civilians. Shippensburg: White Mane Books, 2001.