Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg - Tillie Pierce

 3-day battle, July 1, 1983 - July 3, 1863

Gettysburg was a small town in Pennsylvania, with rolling hills of corn and wheat fields and only 2,400 inhabitants.  The residents seemed unaware that two huge armies, about 170,000 men, were converging on their sleepy little town.  The fiercest battle of the war was about to ignite.

Tillie Pierce:

Tilllie Pierce had lived all her life in the village of Gettysburg and was 16 years old at the time of the Battle.  Her father was a butcher and the family lived above his shop in the heart of town.  Tillie witnessed the entire battle.  She was attending the Young Ladies Seminary school when the cry "the Rebels are coming!"

"Rushing to the door, and standing on the front portico we beheld a dark, dense mass, moving toward town.  Our teacher, Mrs. Eyster, at once said:  'Children, run home as quickly as you can.'

"It did not require repeating. ...  I had scarcely reached the front door, when, on looking up the street, I saw some of the men on horseback.  

What a horrible sight!  There they were, human beings!  Clad almost in rags, covered with dust, riding wildly, pell-mell down the hill toward our home!  Shouting, yelling most unearthly, cursing, brandishing their revolvers, and firing right and left.

Yankees plunder
Soon ...ransacking began in earnest.  They wanted horses, clothing, anything and almost everything they could conveniently carry away.  Nor were they particular about asking. Whatever suited them they took.  They did, however, make a formal demand of the town authorities, for a large supply of flour, meat, groceries, shoes, hats, ... ten barrels of whisky; or, in lieu of this, five thousand dollars.

But our merchants and bankers had too often heard of their coming, and had already shipped their wealth to places of safety.  Thus it was, that a few days after, the citizens of York were compelled to make up our proportion of the Rebel requisition."

At the urging of her family, Tillie and some friends left the town and went to what they thought would be a safe farmhouse, Jacob Weikert's farmhouse.  Over 700 wounded and dying soldiers found shelter in the farmhouse and barn during the battle.  Tillie provided water and food to the soldiers and assisted the surgeons and nurses caring for the wounded. On July 7, she went back to her home saying: "The whole landscape had been changed and I felt as though we were in a strange and blighted land."

To learn more Civil War food recipes and learn the history of survival of women in the south...
  
Click here:
Brave southern women tell how they survived the desperate last days of the Confederacy in eyewitness accounts.  They outwitted the plundering Yankees and fed starving children. Includes accounts of slave women. Civil War food recipes:  cabbage stew, hoppin' John, oatmeal pie, Johnny cakes, molasses cookies etc.  Amazon Best Seller.

Civil War Sweetener - Sorghum

The blockade of southern ports, initiated by President Abraham Lincoln in 1861 causes many food shortages.   Among the scarce items was sugar.

Southerners were resourceful and began to use "sorghum" in place of cane sugar.  Sorghum was cheap and plentiful in the south, and often went by the name of “sorghum molasses”.  

Sorghum is a grain that grows tall like corn, and is used for sweetening and also as livestock feed. From a distance it looks like corn. 


However, you’ll find no ears and there is a reddish tinge to the leaves, stalk and ripe seed head.  Stalks stand up to 10 feet tall.

Sorghum holds a sweet juice extracted by crushing the cane. That sweet juice is then reduced until it runs slow as molasses, but boasts a deeper, more complex flavor. 

Sorghum  is known as “the camel of crops” because it doesn’t need much water and grows in soils other grains won’t.