GDG- Jennie Wade

[Ginny Gage]

For those interested in learning more, Cindy Small wrote a book entitled
³The Jennie Wade Story - ³A True and Complete Account of the Only Civilian
Killed During the Battle of Gettysburg.²  Appendix IV is entitled ³Why Was
John Burns Antagonistic Toward Jennie Wade and Others in Gettysburg?²  In
this section Burns was evidently contacted by a NYC newspaperman who was
preparing a book on Women of the War.  John Burns wrote back regarding
Jennie Wade:  ³I knew Miss Wade very well.  The less said about her the
better.  The story about her loyalty, her being killed while serving Union
soldiers, etc., is all of fiction, got up by some sensation correspondent.
The only fact in the whole story is that she was killed during the battle in
her house by a stray bullet  Charity to her reputation forbids any further
remarks.  You can refer, if you choose, to C. Wills Esq. - Postmaster
Buehler or any loyal citizen for the truth.  I could call her a she-rebel.²

Pretty harsh words!

And Ms. Small does comment that Burns had to ³share² the hero¹s spotlight
with Jennie and that ³Jealousy probably provoked some of Burns¹ resentment
toward the young girl who had become instantly famous.²

She also mentions that Mayor William Weaver was a man who knew both Jennie¹s
mother and her sister.  He said that ³John Burns¹ slighting remarks about
Jennie were not borne out by the facts as he knew them.  Weaver said:

If John Burns intended to impute that Jennie Wade was not a Union
sympathizer, it may have been because she was not one of the throng of young
women who gathered to greet the arrival of General Buford¹s cavalry.  (At
the time, Jennie was busy altering the uniform of her brother who had just
joined the 21st Pennsylvania Cavalry, a patriotic task, indeed.)...John
Burns¹ opinion might have been the expression of an old, and probably
somewhat irascible resident who may or may not have known much of the young
girl.²  

Burns had at another time accused a Gettysburg resident of being a Southern
sympathizer.

While reading excerpts from this book, I ³rediscovered² that Jennie¹s
sister, Georgia, helped with the wounded soldiers in the Adams County Court
House shortly after her sister died, and then later went up to Camp
Letterman, and for the next two years tended to the wounded and ill soldiers
on several other battlefields.

Regarding her monument, according to this book, Jennie¹s grave was unmarked
except with a small tombstone until 1900.  Georgia at that time was living
in Iowa and was National Executive Board Chairman of the Iowa Woman¹s Relief
Corps.  Since there were no regiments from the state of Iowa in the battle,
in 1901 ³Because of the noble deeds of Jennie Wade and her relationship to a
noted Iowa lady it is most fitting that the Iowa W.R.C. erect the memorial
in contemplation...of the only woman who lost her life, directly in the line
of patriotic duty in this, the most memorable battle of the civil war.²  The
cost of the monument was $1,200.  The Gettysburg Battlefield Commission paid
$1,000 of that.  It was erected August 17, 1900 and unveiled on September
16, 1901.  Georgia gave a speech then.  The flagstaff was placed by the
Gettysburg Association of Iowa Women in 1910.

I think I need to go to the Evergreen Cemetery and reacquaint myself with
the monument.  The ³Wade family motto² is inscribed on one side:
³Whatsoever God Willeth Must be, Though a Nation Mourns.²  I need to talk to
Lew (my husband).  I don¹t believe we have a ³family motto!²

Ginny Gage