GDG- Diary of a Lady - Sarah Broadhead

[Ginny Gage]

July 1 -
I got up early this morning to get my baking done before any fighting would
begin.  I had just put my bread in the pans when the cannons began to fire,
and true enough the battle had begun in earnest, about two miles out on the
Chambersburg pike.  What to do or where to go, I did not know.  People were
running here and there, screaming that the town would be shelled.  No one
knew where to go or what to do.  My husband advised remaining where we were,
but all said we ought not to remain in our exposed position, and that it
would be better to go to some part of the town farther away from the scene
of the conflict.  As our neighbors had all gone away, I would not remain,
but my husband said he would stay at home.  About 10 o¹clock the shells
began to ³fly around quite thick,² and I took my child and went to the house
of a friend up town.  As we passed up the street we met wounded men coming
in from the field.  When we saw them, we, for the first time, began to
realize our fearful situation, and anxiously to ask, Will our army be
whipped?  Some said there was no danger of that yet, and pointed to
Confederate prisoners who began to be sent through our streets to the rear.
Such a dirty, filthy set, no one ever saw.  They were dressed in all kinds
of clothes, of all kinds and no kind of cuts.  Some were barefooted and a
few wounded.  Though enemies, I pitied them.  I, with others, was sitting at
the doorstep bathing the wounds of some of our brave soldiers, and became so
much excited as the artillery galloped through the town, and the infantry
hurried out to reinforce those fighting, that for a time we forgot our fears
and our danger.  All was bustle and confusion.  No one can imagine in what
extreme fright we were when our men began to retreat.  A citizen galloped up
to the door in which we were sitting and called out, ³For God¹s sake go in
the house!  The Rebels are in the other end of town, and all will be
killed!²  We quickly ran in, and the cannonading coming nearer and becoming
heavier, we went to the cellar, and in a few minutes the town was full of
the filthy Rebels.  They did not get farther, for our soldiers having
possession of the hills just beyond, shelled them so that they were glad to
give over the pursuit, and the fighting for the day was ended.  We remained
in the cellar until the firing ceased, and then feared to come out, not
knowing what the Rebels might do.  How changed the town looked when we came
to the light.  The street was strewn over with clothes, blankets, knapsacks,
cartridge-boxes, dead horses, and the bodies of a few men, but not so many
of these last as I expected to see.  ³Can we go out?² was asked of the
Rebels.  ³Certainly,² was the answer; ³they would not hurt us.²  We started
hoe, and found things all right.  As I write all is quiet, but O! how I
dread to-morrow.

Ginny Gage