Tillie Pierce: Teen Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg

Gr 6–9—Fifteen-year-old Gettysburg resident Matilda Pierce witnessed the momentous 1863 battle and recounted it in her 1889 memoir. Anderson combines lengthy excerpts from the memoir with a narrative that follows the teen and her family through the battle and includes background information about the Pierces and Gettysburg and its importance in the Civil War. The family lived in town, but as the Union and Confederate armies drew near, Tillie's parents sent her to a nearby farm to help a neighbor. It was there, near the area known as the Round Tops, that she observed some of the most savage fighting of the day. As she and the women at the farm saw the horrors of war firsthand, they aided Union soldiers, cared for wounded and dying men, and worried about their relatives in town. The memoir records the girl's anguish, and Anderson's use of those quotes and a smooth narrative will help readers identify with Tillie's feelings and better understand the human cost of the war. Large, well-captioned period photos and maps and sidebars about related topics supplement the text. Offering far more detail than Patricia Gauch's fictional account of Tillie's experiences, Thunder at Gettysburg (Coward, 1975), this book offers a unique perspective through the eyes of a young woman who observed and survived the worst of war.—Mary Mueller, Rolla Public Schools, MO