July 3rd, 1863 - The Confederacy’s Joan Of Arc

[JohnMeeks]

The Confederacy’s Joan Of Arc
July 3rd, 1863
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
‘Pickett’s Charge’ Cemetery Ridge

In that charge a flag-bearer in the Confederate ranks is shot. A fair, sweet-faced young soldier raises the old standard. For a moment it floats above the storm of battle. Thick the bayonets gleam, but the youthful hero, with a rigid countenance and unflinching bravery, keeps an eagle eye fixed on the silken banner as it waves in the smoke. A stream of sunlight floods it for a moment, and hallows the ghastly upturned face of the girl soldier as she holds aloft the silken emblem. A sword pierces her, and she falls beside her husband. Both surrender life in this wonderful charge.


THE HERO OF PICKETT'S OLD BRIGADE
By The Author Of "Love And Rebellion."

Story from the May 1893 issue of Confederate Veteran

It is the eve before a great battle. The sun is low in the west. A death-like stillness has settled over the two armies—one on Seminary Ridge, the other on Cemetery Hill. It is the battle of Gettysburg. The fight of the first day is over. The Confederates are hopeful, for Gen. Lee's small army has held in check Gen Mead's vast forces. The sun goes down, the hush deepens, the armies slumber, the golden stars come out in the violet skies above. They shine down upon the pale, sweet face of a young soldier. The night is sultry, and the youth sleeps on the uncovered ground. The delicate face has the innocence and infantile purity of a baby's holy countenance. All day the dreaming boy has fought with tiger fearlessness, now he sleeps quietly under the watching stars, and his weary limbs rest in the careless grace of slumber. Beside the sleeping boy is a strong, manly warrior. He does not sleep, but guards the resting youth. A thickly foliaged tree shelters them.
This fair young soldier is the man's wife, but their comrades deem the two father and son. Sleep on, weary soldier, take your brief, unconscious rest, tomorrow's night will find you in eternity! The Gettysburg of your life will have been fought, and you and hundreds of your comrades will have pitched your tents on the camp fields of the great beyond. Ah, child-woman! you have no equal in your heroic devotion. The perils of battle are joys when shared with your heart's idol.
With the first dim streak of light that crosses the blood-stained hilltops commences the cannon's boom. The hollow roar echoes down the valley between Seminary Ridge and Cemetery Hill, then dies far away like the roll of distant thunder. The great battle of Gettysburg rages in fierce fury. In this battle Pickett and his division make their charge that renders their names immortal, and gives the historian a chapter of unparalleled heroism. In the fiercest shriek and wildest roar of battle, suddenly the cannon's thunder dies over the hilltops, the smoke rolls down the valley, a hush solemn as death falls over these vast armies. A small band in Confederate gray goes down the opposite hillside, slowly and calmly. Orderly and straight into the teeth of death they march. They reach the foot of the hill, and are crossing the valley. The silence is yet unbroken. Stern Federal warriors stand awe-stricken, and are thrilled with wonder at sight of this unequalled heroism.
At length the silence is broken. The roar of cannons shake the earth. The boom dies, the smoke clears, and shows a wide gap in that moving wall, but in good order the broken ranks come together. Steadily the brave immortal Pickett and his men march forward, and again the cannons thunder. The smoke drifts away and reveals a wide, wide gap. The ranks move together again, closing the gap. A long line of their gray-clad comrades crosses the valley behind, and the little band moves unfalteringly forward. The cannons again boom. The smoke clears. A wider gap than ever this time, but once more it is closed and the heroic few move onward. The hearts of brave Federal soldiers grow sick at such slaughter. At last Pickett and his survivors reach the hill on which is stationed Gen. Mead's great army. Up the steep side they charge, over the breastworks they go, and back goes the Federal army, but it is only for a time. Pickett's division is slaughtered charging that vast Federal army.
In that charge a flag-bearer in the Confederate ranks is shot. A fair, sweet-faced young soldier raises the old standard. For a moment it floats above the storm of battle. Thick the bayonets gleam, but the youthful hero, with a rigid countenance and unflinching bravery, keeps an eagle eye fixed on the silken banner as it waves in the smoke. A stream of sunlight floods it for a moment, and hallows the ghastly upturned face of the girl soldier as she holds aloft the silken emblem. A sword pierces her, and she falls beside her husband. Both surrender life in this wonderful charge.
The world has heard of Gettysburg and its slaughter, but it has never been told the thrilling but sad story of the young wife who fell beside her husband that day when Pickett's immortal division attempted the impossible.
Many months have passed since then. Burning suns and purple skies have kept their silent watch over the spot where the girl-soldier fell.
Again it is sunset. An old man and his little boy walk over the field where once was fought the great battle. The old man had fought in that battle. He shows his child the area over which Pickett's old brigade had charged. He tells the boy of the sweet-faced flag-bearer, and searching for the place where the young hero fell they find an old flag. Tattered it is and dropping to pieces. It had been embroidered by the fair hands of Virginia women with their own hair. As the young boy raised it he saw underneath two skulls. Through long silent days and the solemn hush of nights it had been their winding sheet; under burning suns and golden stars it had been their blood- drenched and battle-rent shroud. Digging a hole in the hillside, the Federal veteran wrapped the skulls in the flag and buried them in the calm, sweet hour of the sunset stillness. He had lost two sons in that battle. They had fallen repulsing Pickett's division, but this evening the bitterness dies in the breast of the old Federal soldier. He stands, and watching the sunset his thoughts drift back to that day when he saw the young girl-hero, calm and serene, with her large blue eyes fixed upon the silken banner, unflinching in the shriek and storm of battle. His sword had pierced her. There was no bitterness in his heart now.
Europe has her Joan of Arc, her Charlotte Corday, America her Mollie Pitcher, but the Confederacy has her sweet girl-hero who fell in the charge of Pickett's men at Gettysburg.

THE GETTYSBURG TIMES COMMEMORATIVE EDITION, JUNE 24, 1988

Wife is buried on a hillside with Confederate husband A Southern girl, wife of a confederate soldier who participated in Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg, paid the supreme sacrifice with her gallant husband and was buried on the hillside at the High Water Mark of the Rebellion, both bodies draped with a Confederate flag embroidered with the hair of Virginia women. These few facts tell one of the most pathetic and tragic stories emanating from the three-days' engagement at Gettysburg. It is a story so filled with pathos and tragedy as to move even the most stoic. It illustrates the splendid faith of the southern confederacy at the peak of its bloom and typifies all that is good together with the untarnished love of a united pair. There is a story of a woman Confederate soldier who was killed and buried at Gettysburg. On the third day, after General Hancock was wounded, the command of the Second Corps was given to Brigadier General William Hays. On July 17, 1863, official reports show that General Hays made a report to his superior officer in which he stated that the number of dead buried at Gettysburg by his command from July 2 to July 5, was Union, 387; Southern, 1242. He also reported the burial of one female private in Confederate uniform. The second story advances the theory that two women were killed at Gettysburg. It is only natural to presume that Union soldiers would have prized Confederate flag too highly to use it for burial purposes. The second story is given as authentic. She is unknown, yet her heroic deeds are recounted by many. She has also been remembered because of her young and innocent face, as seen in the ranks. Captain A.R. Fitzhugh who told the incident first noticed the girl about dusk of the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The soldiers, worn out with the day's fighting, lay on the ground sleeping. Among them was the pale face of a boy, light-haired and innocent, pillowed on one arm. Beside the boy, a man sat, apparently guarding his companion. The two had been noticed before, but it was thought that they were father and son. The soldier slept on, unconscious with the exhaustion of battle. When a gray strip of light showed in the east, they stirred. Later in the day the cannons boomed between Seminary Hill and High Water Mark. Pickett’s famous charge was on, and so the advance is made, nearing General Meade's army on the hilltop, until the remnant of Pickett's force climbs the enemy's breastworks. At the moment a Confederate flag bearer is shot down. The next moment the flag is raised by the youth with the childish face. It floats for the barest possible instant and then comes down with it bearer, and husband and wife lay dead on the blood soaked ground. But for the sentiment of a few soldiers who found the bodies later and discovered the relationship, this story would never have come to light. The bodies were buried on the hillside.[/img]

[Hollywood]

Interesting. I found this thread on a search because yesterday I came across the O.R. where General Hays reports his men buried a dead female Confederate private. I wonder how much of the rest of this story is fact and how much is fanciful fiction. It seems unlikely to me that Union soldiers would have buried a Confederate battle flag rather than keeping it. Does anyone know of primary source material that corroborates the story of the girl soldier picking up the colors or the man sitting with his sleeping "son" (wife) through the night of 2/3 July? Was she a Virginian? Although it would seem so, did she fall a little farther north than the angle itself and was she from North Carolina? I expect that definitive answers are lost to time, but I still wonder... And I wonder where her remains are now? I'd have to guess she's buried among the Gettysburg Unknown in Hollywood Cemetery. Can anyone shed more light? Thanks!
_________________
Stories of young men written in stone
Laying there together far away from home...
Hollywood ~~Hugo Duarte

Jen