Photographs Copyright 2003 Curtis-Fulton
"Jennie" Wade was born in Gettysburg on May 21, 1843. Her birth name is Mary Virginia Wade, and she preferred being called Ginny, a nick-name of her middle name. After her death, a newspaper account, reporting on the circumstances of her death during the three-day battle, mispelled Ginny as "Jennie," and the error (like so many others) became a part of recorded history.
The building known as the Jennie Wade House was actually a duplex-type home during the battle. Jennie's sister lived in the left half, and the McClain family lived in the right half, in the photo above.
Jennie Wade Entry Page
~ History ~ Jennie Wade was the only civilian killed during the Battle of Gettysburg, and was killed in the kitchen on July 3, 1863, while making bread at her sister's Baltimore Street house, which was literally located in "no man's land" on the North-Western flank of Cemetery Ridge. The "Jennie Wade House," as it is known today, was actually the Georgia McClellan (Jennie Wade's sister) and Susan McClain house. It was essentially a duplex, McClellan living in one half and McClain living in the other. The residences were later combined into a museum and referred to as the "Jennie Wade House." On the afternoon of July 1, the first day of battle at Gettysburg, after a long and seemingly stalemated and confusing stand-off on McPherson's Ridge, Confederate General Gordon's Georgians slammed into the Union's exposed right, manned by the men of Union General Barlow's brigade, resulting in the fatal collapse of the Union line.
By the time the Union Army present at McPherson's Ridge had been soundly defeated and turned back on the town, Jennie had already made her way to her sister's house, feeling the place would serve as a safer refuge than her own home on Breckenridge Street. Jennie and her family (sister and mother) began handing out water and food to the defeated soldiers passing by. ~ History ~ Gettysburg Trivia: So many horses were killed during the Battle of Gettysburg that it took the Union Army and residents six months to burn all of their remains.
To date, the graves of about 1,500 soldiers from both sides known to have been buried on the Gettysburg Battlefield or in the immediate vicinity have never been relocated. Some Union soldiers assigned to dig graves for the Confederates simply paid farmers to dump the Southern dead down dry or abandoned wells and seal them over. Some historians believe CS General Longstreet's lackluster performance at Gettysburg may have been due, in part, to his being refused his own army by Confederate President Jefferson Davis.
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