Traveling to History: Seventeen
THE ONLY ONE: JENNIE WADE WAS THE LONE CIVILIAN FATALITY OF THE BATTLE OF GETTYSBURG
By James F. Lee
Jennie Wade House Museum manager Starr Fagerstrom points to a bullet hole in the door of the McClellan house, where Jennie Wade was killed by an errant bullet during the Battle of Gettysburg. (Photo by James F. Lee)
Between July 1 and July 3, 1863, over 58,000 soldiers lost their lives during the Battle of Gettysburg. Incredibly, only one civilian is known to have been killed during that battle.
Twenty-year-old Mary Virginia (Jennie) Wade stood in the kitchen of her sister Georgia McClellan’s house on Baltimore Street kneading dough when a bullet pierced the outside door of the house, traveled through an interior door, and struck Jennie just below the left shoulder blade. She died instantly. Georgia had just given birth to her first baby and Jennie stayed over to help her sister out. She lived nearby on Breckinridge Street.
The only known photograph (detail) of Jennie Wade. {{PD-US}}
Judging from the positions of the armies around Gettysburg on July 3, there is little doubt that she was struck by a Confederate bullet.
That house is still there, just south of town, as are the two doors, and the kneading table where Jennie Wade worked when she was killed.
We traveled to Gettysburg recently to see the Jennie Wade House Museum. The house stands on busy Baltimore Street, an unimpressive brick duplex, noticeable only by the statue of Jenny Wade facing the street.
Museum manager Starr Fagerstrom set the scene. Two families lived in the house at that time: the McClellans on the north side and the McClains on the south side. The house was caught between the two armies and received withering fire during the battle; at one point an artillery shell shot through the upper floor creating a hole in the wall between the two households. By July 3, every window on the north side (town side) of the house had been shot out. On that day, a bullet struck the bedpost of Georgia’s bed, which had been moved to the first-floor parlor. An hour later the fatal bullet struck Jennie.
“McClellan House, 528 Baltimore Street, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, circa 1865,” (House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/40181).
Before leaving us for our self-guided tour, Fagerstrom pointed out the hole in the McClellan’s front door made by the fatal bullet that killed Jennie Wade.
The self-guided tour takes you through both sides of the house, visiting all eight rooms. In the McClellan side of the house, where Jennie was killed, we entered the kitchen where Jennie worked the dough at the kneading table. When the museum opened in 1901, Georgia, who had moved to Iowa after the war, donated this special piece of furniture. The walls are papered in a floral pattern, and a hearth for bread baking is in a corner.
This is the original kneading board at which Jennie Wade was standing when she was killed during the Battle of Gettysburg. (Photo by James F. Lee)
In the parlor to the right, a period four-post rope bed has been placed in front of the fireplace where Georgia lay with her newborn. A photo of Jennie is on the wall. Upstairs are two bedrooms sparsely furnished with rough-hewn rope beds and tables. An opening in a wall separating the two sides of the house outlined by bricks is the spot where an artillery shell tore through the upstairs.
The McClellan’s parlor at the Jennie Wade House Museum. The period-piece bed recalls the original bed that had been placed there during the pregnancy of Jennie Wade’s sister Georgia. The horizontal pin on the headboard is a rolling-pin bedpost for beating quilts to shake out bugs. (Photo by James F. Lee)
We passed through this opening into the McClain side of the house, where the furniture is of better quality, reflecting the relative wealth of the McClains. One room has a marble-top cabinet with a washing pitcher and basin on top. Many of the beds in both sides of the house have a horizontal bedpost on the headboard; these removable posts shaped like rolling pins were used to beat the quilts and mattresses at night to shake out bugs.
One item of particular interest in the McClain side of the house is the mantle clock in the downstairs parlor, which was in the house, and probably on the same mantel, during the Battle of Gettysburg.
Lots of civilians participated in the battle, some providing food to troops, others medical aid. A few actually took up arms or provided intelligence to the federal government. Jennie Wade made bread to serve the United States troops in the vicinity. The National Park Service maintains a website honoring these civilians.
The NPS also mentions that Jennie’s mother used the same dough Jennie had been kneading to make 15 loaves of bread for soldiers after the battle.
Jack Skelly, (Johnston Hastings Skelly, circa 1869, detail), a corporal in the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry. Jennie Wade’s sweetheart, killed after the Battle of Winchester. (House Divided: The Civil War Research Engine at Dickinson College, https://hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu/node/40184).
And in a sad note, Jennie’s sweetheart, Jack Skelly, a soldier in the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry, died just nine days after Jennie did, from wounds received at the Battle of Winchester.
Jennie Wade’s tragic death and her aid to United States troops has not been forgotten. Starr Fagerstrom told us that at the Wade gravesite at nearby Evergreen Cemetery, a perpetual American flag flies beside her monument. She is only one of two women to receive that honor.
The statue of Jennie Wade carrying a loaf of bread and a pitcher on the Baltimore Street side of the Jennie Wade House in Gettysburg. (Photo by James F. Lee)
Note: Guided tours will start at the Jennie Wade House Museum on May 1, 2022.
Jennie Wade’s gravesite at Evergreen Cemetery in Gettysburg. Wade is entitled to a perpetual flag beside her grave, a privilege granted to only two women in U.S. history. (Photo by James F. Lee)
