GDG- Bullet that killed Jennie Wade comes home???????

[James Cameron]

The following is from yesterday's Gettysburg Times.

The part about the (so-called, IMO) expert the bullet was shown to being able to determine from looking at it that it was fired using a light powder charge, and that this proves it was fired at close range, and that the nose damage looks like it struck corset fabric like Jennie was wearing, is one of the more out-and-out pieces of nonsense I've read in a while. What did the troops do, dump out half the powder charge if they expected to be shooting somebody up close? 

A whole confabulated secnario is them constructed built around this babble, which the staff at the Jennie Wade house is supposedly going to conduct ballistic tests to confirm!

The frightening thing is that once displayed as "the bullet that killed Jennie Wade (or a replica of it)", people will buy the whole story hook, line, and sinker. Bring their children and grand-children to gaze upon it.  And I'm sure replicas of it will be available for sale.  Corset marks and all.

Of course, if it is the genuine article, perhaps the ghost tour folks can use it to conjure up her spirit, and drum up even more business. 

Jim Cameron

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>From the Gettysburg Times (8/11/2007): 

BULLET THAT KILLED JENNIE WADE COMES HOME 

BY RICK FULTON 
Times Staff Writer 

"A force more strong than powder, each deadly ball shall urge, The memory of the maiden who died at Gettysburg." 
- "Home on the Hill," E.S.T., 1864. 

An important memento of one of Gettysburg's greatest icons of the battle fought here nearly 145 years ago has returned - the bullet that killed Jennie Wade. But the bullet, kept by a Union soldier who fought at Gettysburg and passed down through his family, could challenge the most popular versions of the legend. The fatal bullet, along with documentation, was recently obtained by Gettysburg resident Kenneth J. Rohrbaugh. Rohrbaugh wears a number of managerial and executive hats in conjunction with Heritage Inns, Inc., the Gettysburg Tour Center, and a multi-business holding company. 


THE BULLET'S 'QUIET' RETURN 

The bullet that created a heroine was quietly brought home about three weeks ago, Rohrbaugh told the Gettysburg Times, delivered in person by a descendent of the soldier, William J. Fleming, who had kept it. Fleming was a member of Company E, 6th Regiment, Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery by war's end. Efforts are being made to determine what unit he was with during the Gettysburg Campaign. He may have been with one of the Pennsylvania volunteers units at Gettysburg which served as the precursor of the heavy artillery unit in which he finished out the war. 

For decades, the bullet laid among the belongings and photographs of Fleming, kept in a drawer in the home of descendent Ted Simon and his wife, Mary Lou, in West Newton, Pa. "My great-grandfather brought it home in 1865," Simon told the Times. "It was told to me 55 years ago that he had either dug it out of the wall, or that it had been found lodged between her body and her clothing." The soldier could only tell his family that this was the bullet who killed a lady in Gettysburg baking bread in the kitchen. "That's all we ever knew," Simon stated, adding that no one (in the family, including the soldier) had a clue as to whom the lady was that had been the victim of the shooting. 

"Back in the 60s, when visiting Gettysburg, I went to the Jennie Wade museum and realized this must be the lady (his great-grandfather had mentioned)," Simon said. He then contacted Gettysburg historian and actor Cliff Arquette (aka Charlie Weaver), who owned the Soldiers Museum (now called the Soldiers National Museum), 777 Baltimore Street, who "was really enthused" about seeing the bullet. Simon then "took it home and put it in the drawer and forgot about it." 

"This summer we were going to go out in that (Gettysburg) area for a vacation, and a few months ago, talked to Ken (Rohrbaugh) who said he would like to have it. The bullet's owner decided to donate it to the museum (operation), not asking anything for it in return. "Who knows what it is worth. It is better there (in Rohrbaugh's care) than in my hands sitting in the drawer," he told the Times. Additionally, Simon gave Rohrbaugh Fleming's discharge papers, a York (Pa.) reunion medal, and photographs. "I thought it was great to bring it back," Simon said. 

Rohrbaugh plans on displaying the bullet (or a replica of it) along with Fleming's papers and photographs in the Jennie Wade Museum and House when appropriate security measures can be implemented. 


JENNIE WADE THE LEGEND 

On July 3, 1863, a 20-year-old Gettysburg woman found herself caught in a No Man's Land between opposing troops during the great Battle of Gettysburg. Mary Virginia Wade, later known as Jennie Wade due to a reporter's error (she spelled it Ginny), and her mother, Mary Ann Wade, had made their way to the Baltimore Street home of her sister, Georgeana Wade McClellan, when fighting ensued on July 1, thinking McClellan's home might offer greater safety. McClellan lived in the northern-facing side of the house that had been divided into two residences. 

According to the "traditional" story, about 8:30 a.m. on the morning of July 3, Confederate sharpshooters opened fire on the McClellan house, either due to the proximity of Union soldiers who were being fed bread being made by the Wade family, or thinking those inside the house might be Union sharpshooters. 

The entrenched version says a bullet fired by Confederate sharpshooters struck Wade with sufficient force to fatally penetrate her body from the back, finally coming to rest in the front of her corset. Two versions exist regarding the entry of the fatal bullet into the house itself. The most popular version states the bullet penetrated the outside kitchen door of the home, and then blew through a second door. Another less-told version states the bullet came through a glass window in the kitchen. 

Cindy L. Small, author of The Jennie Wade Story (Thomas Publications) noted that the first account of Wade's shooting attributed the fatal shot to having been fired by a Union soldier, published in the Adams Sentinel, July 7, 1863. Other late-1800s and early-1900s accounts also indicate or suggest Confederates were on the property at the time the fatal shot was fired, and that a Confederate captain fell in the same volley of Union gunfire that struck Wade. 

Most accounts agree the Confederates had warned the Wades to abandon the home, suggesting even more that Confederates were on the grounds. Early accounts also state the coffin Jennie Wade was placed in was one that had been brought up for the Confederate captain who fell not far from McClellan's doorstep. It seems likely the story was changed, since it would not have served the legend of a Union heroine well if she had been shot by a Union soldier while serving bread to Confederates. In addition, an account opposing the pro-Union version of the incident could have resulted in Mary Wade being denied a federal pension as well as $1,440 in compensation (at a rate of $8 per month made retroactive to the date Jennie was killed). However, even John Burns, another local hero at the time who had fallen in with Union soldiers during the first day of battle with his antique musket, never doubted that Wade had been catering to Confederates. He said the rumor of Wade feeding Union soldiers "is all of fiction," and called her "a she-rebel," according to Tom Desjardin, renowned Civil War author. 


BULLET LIKELY TO PROVIDE CLUES 

Rohrbaugh asked the Times reporter, a former Revolutionary War and Civil War small arms projectile dealer and specialist, to identify the bullet. The bullet. a three-ring, cone cavity Minie' ball. was measured and found to be of .577 caliber, and of Union manufacture. The bullet had been fired using a light charge of black powder. The nose of the bullet did not appear to have impacted any wooden object, much less two doors, but did appear to have some nose damage that could have been caused by striking an item, such as stiff clothing. 

The lack of serious impact damage suggests the bullet may have entered the building through a closed or open window or an open door. In addition, what nose damage exists seems to bear a corduroy-like pattern as if it had struck cloth, not unlike that which may have been a herring-bone design commonly used in period corsets. The bullet had no patina (lead oxide build-up) indicating it had never been buried or otherwise exposed to the elements. The lack of any patina suggested it had been a "kept bullet" retained soon after it had been fired. Both sides, North and South, used Union manufactured bullets. The South relied heavily on captured quantities. Thus, the bullet being of Union manufacture would not really indicate which side may have fired it. 

But one tell-tale piece of evidence is that a fatal bullet fired with a light charge almost certainly means it was fired at relatively close range. The light powder charge used to fire the projectile was also likely a contributing factor in the soft lead bullet not "mushrooming" or becoming deformed during impact. Further, a bullet entering the kitchen through the kitchen window and striking Wade could almost only have come from a Union position. The angle involved in accomplishing that shot could not have been achieved by any Confederates on the west side of Baltimore. 

The physical evidence provided by the bullet would tend to support the original accounts of the death of Wade - that Wade was killed by a shot fired by a Union soldier at reasonably close range while trying to drive-off Confederate soldiers that were then located on the Wade side of the house, and, further, the fatal shot had most likely come through the kitchen window, and not through the main door and a kitchen door, before striking her - and not the versions of her death generated later. 

Volunteers associated with the Jennie Wade Museum will be performing ballistics tests in the near future to verify the damage preserved on the Jennie Wade bullet and the findings stated above.