In this episode of ‘Talk with History’, hosts Scott and Jenn explore the critical yet often overlooked roles women played during the Battle of Gettysburg and the broader Civil War. Focusing on exceptional individuals such as Elizabeth Thorn and Jenny Wade, the hosts delve into stories of courage and determination where women, beyond being caretakers, acted as soldiers, spies, and more.
Elizabeth Thorn, highlighted for her bravery in burying over a hundred soldiers while six months pregnant, and Jenny Wade, known as the only civilian casualty of the battle, are showcased for their extraordinary contributions. This podcast episode recounts their sacrifices and sheds light on the countless other women whose resilience and contributions have shaped historical narratives.
0:00 Women of Gettysburg
00:20 Introduction
01:39 Journey to Gettysburg: The Unsung Heroines
03:01 Elizabeth Thorne: The Caretaker’s Courage
13:32 Jenny Wade: The Tragic Tale of a Civilian
20:50 Women Warriors: Hidden Soldiers of Gettysburg
23:28 Reflecting on the Bravery of Women in the Civil War
Transcript
102 Women of Gettysburg
[00:00:00] Scott: Welcome to talk with history. I am your host, Scott, here with my wife and historian,
[00:00:19] Jen.
[00:00:19] Jenn: Hello.
[00:00:20] Introduction
[00:00:20] Scott: On this podcast, we give you insights to our history inspired world travels, YouTube channel journey, history through deeper conversations with the curious, the explorers, and the Now, Jen, before we get into our main topic I want to put in a plug for some podcast reviews. We have, I haven’t asked for any podcast reviews for a while, and My, my Spotify five star count for the podcast is slowly increasing. So for my Spotify listeners and my Apple podcast listeners, you can’t let the other one catch up.
[00:00:51] So if you’re listening on Apple, don’t let the Spotify folks catch up. But if you’re listening on Spotify, try to catch up to the Apple podcast, reviews. You’ve got 30 plus,
[00:01:02] you know, so we’re doing well on the Apple podcast side. We are only about, let me see I
[00:01:09] think we’re only about 3, 650 reviews away from catching the History
[00:01:18] Jenn: Oh, they have a podcast? Oh,
[00:01:20] Scott: got like a history this week. They’ve got about 3, 700 reviews. So we’re only, you know, Not too far behind, only a couple
[00:01:27] thousand. Do
[00:01:28] Jenn: they actually talk about history? I have no idea. I just
[00:01:31] Scott: I have no clue. I just looked it up because I think they have about 3, 700.
[00:01:35] If you’re listening, even if you’re listening , for the first leave us a review.
[00:01:39] Journey to Gettysburg: The Unsung Heroines
[00:01:39] Scott: It really helps us Today, we’re venturing to the hallowed grounds of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania in July of 1863, the heart of the brutal battle But we’re not focusing on the generals and the grand maneuvers. In this episode, we delve into the lives of remarkable women who were caught in the maelstrom of the Battle of Gettysburg. We’ll meet Elizabeth Thorne, a local resident who housed generals, buried many dead and all while six months pregnant. And there was Jenny Wade, the only civilian casualty at Gettysburg. Yes, the only one. Her story serving as a stark reminder of the war’s human cost. But these are just two names. Many women played Crucial yet often overlooked roles during the Civil War from tending to the injured to gathering intelligence They shouldered enormous burdens and displayed immense courage So join us as we explore the experience of these extraordinary women and discovered how they shaped The course of history at Gettysburg and All right,
[00:03:00] Jen So
[00:03:01] Elizabeth Thorne: The Caretaker’s Courage
[00:03:01] Scott: we did a trip up to
[00:03:03] Gettysburg in a gorgeous time of the year in
[00:03:05] October. It was beautiful
[00:03:08] Group best time to go is like right around
[00:03:10] Halloween is packed ton of people there But we focus on something a little different this time
[00:03:15] Jenn: Yeah, I wanted to talk about the women of Gettysburg. So I want people to, for me I like to kind of, how do I remember things? Gettysburg, always think of the middle of the Civil War. It happens 1863. So smack in the middle between 1861 and 1865 and happens in July. So it’s the middle of the year. So middle, it’s really like the middle battle.
[00:03:39] Scott: So everybody kind of knows what’s going on. Nobody really knows where the end, if the end is in sight.
[00:03:44] Jenn: Yeah. So this is really, really, the South has a lot of momentum. They’re pushing North, right? No one, realizes that this is going to be the turning point, but it will be because this is the South is coming really into Northern Territory now, getting close to DC, getting close to coming into the Northern Territory.
[00:04:05] And Elizabeth Thorne is an immigrant. She, she was born in December of 1832 in, I’m sure I’m saying this wrong, but it’s kind of funny. Grand Duchy of Hesse, Germany. And so her parents are both immigrants.
[00:04:25] She’s, she’s immigrated. Little is known about her early life, but they settle in Gettysburg, and she marries another German immigrant, Peter Thorn. In, her husband becomes caretaker of Evergreen Cemetery. Evergreen Cemetery has just started. It’s established in 1855. This is February of 1856
[00:04:47] that he becomes caretaker.
[00:04:48] Scott: And we know Evergreen Cemetery today because it’s near the National Cemetery out
[00:04:53] Jenn: It’s right beside it. It shares, it shares a What is that? Like a wall? Not even. It’s just a
[00:04:58] Scott: I got, like a fence line, but it’s, it’s right there across from battlegrounds, it’s right smack in the middle of
[00:05:03] Jenn: Yeah, Cemetery Hill. When you hear Cemetery Hill at Gettysburg, they’re talking about Evergreen Cemetery.
[00:05:09] Scott: we show actually on our video, we’re standing at the sign for Evergreen Cemetery. We look across the street and. Literally across the street is Cemetery
[00:05:19] Jenn: Yes, and Significantly, we’ll talk about it, but this is where Lincoln will actually stand in Evergreen Cemetery when he delivers the Gettysburg Address. So because he’s dedicating that National Cemetery, which they share a fence, they border each other. That was not there then. So you can imagine that was just all.
[00:05:37] She marries Peter Thorne, 1855, 1856 he becomes caretaker of Evergreen Cemetery, what’s a caretaker? It’s a grave digger, basically, it’s a person who you bring the body to, they, they find the plot, you know, they take care of the graves there, they’re basically, it’s just like a, a maintenance person.
[00:05:54] person for the cemetery. But he lives there with Elizabeth, her parents who speak German, and they have three boys, they’re young boys, and she’s pregnant with her fourth. When Peter joins the 138th Pennsylvania Infantry Regiment, and he leaves her in charge of the cemetery. And so when the Union troops start to come into Gettysburg, that’s when she gets the knock on the door from General Howard asking her What roads lead into or he has to talk to the man of the house because this is 1863 and he figures a man’s gonna know the roads and a woman won’t know much at all But the man of the house doesn’t speak
[00:06:40] Scott: right, because you said her, her father
[00:06:42] lived there and he only speaks German. Only speaks
[00:06:44] Jenn: only speaks German So she takes him out six months pregnant up on the hill And shows him the three main roads coming into Gettysburg.
[00:06:53] And if he wants to get troops, these are the main roads that come into this little town. It’s a little town of people. And he says, okay, thank you. You should probably leave. There, we know that there’s a lot of southern troops here. We’re bringing in a lot of northern troops here. And there’s going to be a fight.
[00:07:09] And because I see you have elderly parents, three young boys, and you’re pregnant, you should probably leave. And they have a farm on the outskirts of town. So they, they leave. And. They don’t come back until July
[00:07:23] Scott: 7th
[00:07:24] After the
[00:07:25] Jenn: the battle, I would say four days after the battle. And by the time they get back to their house, the caretaker house, which we show in the video, it’s ransacked.
[00:07:35] Because you can imagine these men are looking for food, looking for anything they can use. And it was used as a makeshift hospital because it’s right there. It’s a, it’s a brick and mortar home right there by where a lot of fighting took
[00:07:45] Scott: It’s a brick and mortar home right there by where a lot of fighting took place.
[00:07:52] Jenn: Yeah, it’s right between the city and the visitor center. So it’s very easy to find. And so by the time she gets back, it’s okay, now what do I do? I have to You know take care of these young boys. I have to get my parents settled I have to kind of find food and oh, by the way, she gets another knock at the door.
[00:08:13] There’s thousands of dead men out in fields just laying there and we need to bury these men. So the statue depicted of her in Evergreen Cemetery is her kind of wiping her brow six months pregnant with a shovel. She digs over a hundred graves by herself. And you’d think graves, I’m talking six feet graves.
[00:08:40] Like she’s digging graves.
[00:08:41] Scott: it was interesting being there, right? One being in Gettysburg in the fall, the leaves changing. It was, it was just gorgeous. Weather was amazing, but the statue itself is so unique because she is pregnant, right?
[00:08:52] They show her like they’re displaying her, you know, six months pregnant. So she looks like she’s ready to give birth and here she is wiping her brow, holding a shovel in her hand. It was just. It’s such a unique statue. It was really neat to just go there and be in this beautiful location and see what this amazing woman did.
[00:09:12] Jenn: Yeah, and there’s no true number. Estimates are as low as 91 to 100, as high as 105. So I would say about a hundred graves she, she dug on her own and I’m sure she helped
[00:09:29] Scott: More
[00:09:30] Jenn: and planned. I’m sure she helped plan. I’m hope she, I’m sure she helped this is where we should put these people. These boys, we should put these people.
[00:09:35] This is, and then with the national cemetery starting at first, they buried men out on the battlefield. Where they lay. And then when they started to start the National Cemetery, they dug them up and started to bring them into the National Cemetery. And then they also repatriated Confederates back to where they should
[00:09:52] Scott: Yeah. And I think you, you would even mention that even in Evergreen Cemetery, there was families that would come
[00:09:57] Jenn: Mm hmm.
[00:09:59] Scott: the buried bodies, you know, of their family member and bring it
[00:10:01] Jenn: And I think there’s still some Confederates in the National Cemetery. Because they they weren’t sure if they got everybody but when we went to Hollywood
[00:10:12] Cemetery in Richmond, that’s where I think most of the Gettysburg Confederates
[00:10:18] Scott: Because there’s that big kind of
[00:10:19] monument
[00:10:20] Jenn: hmm. And so She helped plan all of that, right? And so you really think this woman is Again, knowing the language, big battle, dead men, and what she did too was she gave each man dignity and respect in their burial.
[00:10:43] She helped, you know, lay them to rest in a peaceful manner, knowing that they were someone’s husband or brother or son or uncle. Like she was just very respectful of them as a caretaker’s wife. She already understands the process, helping to identify these men. Most of them are traveling with pictures or something on them.
[00:11:04] Pulling those items from them and then probably serializing them, identifying
[00:11:10] Scott: Well, and she’s doing this in the heat of
[00:11:12] Jenn: July in
[00:11:14] Scott: know, it’s so depending on the kind of summer it was, I mean, she’s sweating her, her, her butt off.
[00:11:20] And I think you even mentioned in the video, and again, the, the link to this video, if you guys want to see the location, we’ll, we’ll be in the show notes of this podcast. But you mentioned that she wore the same dress for was it six weeks or something? It was, it was quite a
[00:11:32] while,
[00:11:32] Jenn: a while. We’ll go,
[00:11:33] Scott: maybe not six have probably been be giving that time, but
[00:11:38] Jenn: Yeah, she wore the same dress the entire time because she just didn’t have the time to a probably make a bigger dress.
[00:11:45] Scott: she didn’t want Use other dresses for all this dirty work.
[00:11:48] Jenn: you probably wear your pregnancy dress when you think about it. On November 1st, she’ll give birth to a daughter. So after having three sons, she has a daughter named Rose Mead Thorne in honor of General George Mead, who commanded.
[00:12:01] the army of the Potomac there at Gettysburg. She remained caretaker until her husband returned safely from war in 1865. So it’s not like he came right back either. She was doing this for another year and a half until he came home giving birth. It’s just amazing to me. They remain on and he resigns as caretaker in 1874.
[00:12:24] So nine years later. So you can imagine she gives birth in November. Lincoln comes out. Mid November to give the Gettysburg Address.
[00:12:34] Scott: it that
[00:12:35] Jenn: Same year, 1863. So she’s probably helping, she’s caretaker of the cemetery, set up the stage, set up the podium in my cemetery.
[00:12:44] Scott: setting all that
[00:12:45] Jenn: Because it, he stood in Evergreen Cemetery and looked over into what was now the new National Cemetery.
[00:12:50] And so she’s caretaker, so she knows all of these logistics, so she’s probably with a newborn planning all of this. So this woman is just she’s the unsung hero of Gettysburg. I just wanted to give her some credit
[00:13:06] She’ll die October 17th 1907 at age 74 her her and her husband are both buried at Evergreen
[00:13:14] Scott: Yeah,
[00:13:14] Jenn: So we visit their graves in the video as well
[00:13:18] Scott: And then from there so she’s kind of, She’s a, she’s kind of a I’ll say a historical character at the beginning, the very, before the battle ever starts. And then obviously afterwards, right? The, the, the death afterwards, kind of what I put on the thumbnail.
[00:13:32] Jenny Wade: The Tragic Tale of a Civilian
[00:13:32] Scott: But Jenny Wade is someone who, who’s significant kind of for what happened during the battle.
[00:13:38] Jenn: so Jenny Wade is, most people will know that name. The Jenny Wade house is a very tourist location for
[00:13:55] Scott: And if I remember right, her, her real, her full name is Virginia Wade.
[00:13:59] Jenn: Mary Virginia Wade. She’s born May 21st, 1843. She’s 20 years old. But she is the only direct civilian casualty of the battle.
[00:14:10] So there are people who will die. battle from injuries they sustained during the battle who were civilians, but she’s the only direct civilian casualty during the battle.
[00:14:22] Scott: of mind boggling when, you know, Gettysburg is famous for a reason, right? Turning point of the Civil War, but also There’s a lot that happened
[00:14:31] Jenn: Yeah. All the men that died. It’s a lot. I think it’s 40, 000 men died.
[00:14:36] Scott: and only one, to think that only one civilian died during the battle and it was
[00:14:41] Jenn: Yeah, 50, 000 men died, 23, 000 Union, 28, 000 Confederates, and only one civilian died and it was a woman. That’s insane. And especially if you go to Gettysburg and you like, but you should go, it’s fantastic and go in the fall cause it’s so much fun. In the center of the city where the Jenny Wade house is, is really where there’s crossroads of battle was taking place as again, you’re kind of cemetery hills behind you, what we just talked about.
[00:15:07] Elizabeth. Thorn is behind you and in front of you would be the Confederates in Jenny Wade’s house. which is really her sister’s
[00:15:13] Scott: right smack in the
[00:15:14] Jenn: It’s right in the back of the middle. So they’re taking gunfire at home as they’re, as they’re going about their business in the house. And this is happening to a lot of families in the area because the battle doesn’t happen there.
[00:15:28] That’s the first day. But as you move around the next two days, it moves around the city of Gettysburg. And other houses Get in the crossfire and other barns and other people. So this there’s bullet holes even today in the buildings of Gettysburg. There’s cannonballs in the buildings of Gettysburg. So for her to be the only casualty is really crazy.
[00:15:53] Scott: the only casualty is really crazy.
[00:15:58] Yeah, and so they
[00:16:02] Jenn: Yeah. And So they say 150 bullets hit that house. So what’s going on is Jenny Wade, again, is 20 years old. Her sister lives at that house. It’s 548 Baltimore Street. And her sister, George Anna, known as Georgie, had became engaged before the war, married her sweetheart in 1862. They moved into that two story brick house 548 Baltimore Street.
[00:16:28] And her husband had joined the Union Army in was not in Gettysburg during the battle. And he was also absent of the birth of their firstborn. And the boy was born June 26th, 1863. And so four days after the birth is when people are riding into Gettysburg and the war is starting. And so Jenny’s mother, Wade’s mother decides we should go and stay with your sister to help her out since she just had a baby because they lived in the center of Gettysburg, which they probably would have been behind the fire
[00:17:01] Scott: further away from the battle.
[00:17:02] Further
[00:17:02] Jenn: away from the battle.
[00:17:03] So they go to the house and they help. And at the time she’s making bread, she’s kneading dough for loaves of bread. And that’s. Again, why people think of the chivalry
[00:17:15] of what she’s
[00:17:15] Scott: it for the soldiers
[00:17:16] Jenn: doing that for the soldiers, which is what women in their capacity really did at the time. Because again, these soldiers are traveling bare bones, what they can carry on them and food is scarce and they really scavenger for food.
[00:17:28] And so when they are able to find a place where people are providing sustenance for them, women, really take it as their duty to perform that.
[00:17:38] Scott: Yeah, and you hear about the rare occasions, the Clara Barton’s, you know, that started the Red Cross and was kind of one of the first kind of nurses on the battlefield, you this kind of setting.
[00:17:49] But like you said, the vast majority of what women did and knew how to do and actively did throughout the war was provide whatever sustenance they could for the men who were fighting.
[00:18:00] Jenn: And she, from what I read, that doe that she was needing when the bullet went through the door, went through another door, hit her through shoulder into her heart and killed her instantly. Her mother, 14 loaves of bread with that dough and still made that dough for the soldiers because that’s what she would have wanted.
[00:18:25] Scott: would have
[00:18:26] Jenn: A
[00:18:26] bullet flew through the window of the house and hit a bedpost while Georgiana was in bed lying with her baby. And that’s why they moved into the basement. She woke early that day. This happened the morning of July
[00:18:38] Scott: 3rd.
[00:18:38] Kind of like towards the end of the
[00:18:40] Jenn: Yes.
[00:18:40] So 8am, July 3rd, the first day it was when 150 bullets hit the house, 8am, July 3rd, she was kneading the bread. And that’s when.
[00:18:48] A bullet through the two closed doors hit her in the shoulder, lodged itself in her heart, and got trapped in her body by the corset she was wearing, and she died instantly. And the dough that she was kneading at the time of her death was baked into bread by her mother and made 15 loaves.
[00:19:04] Union soldiers helped wrapped her body in a quilt and either brought her to the cellar or buried her in the backyard immediately. So we show the backyard in the video. She was moved to the town’s German church in November of 1865. Her body was eventually moved to Evergreen cemetery, the same cemetery that Elizabeth Thorne is the caretaker for.
[00:19:24] Scott: and that was one of the ones that had, you know, quite a unique kind of distinction at her, her little monument memorial that
[00:19:33] Jenn: Yeah. In 1900 with tireless efforts from her family and the women in the area, they were able to get a large. Gravestone and they have the perpetual American flag and I talk about it’s one of the only two sites in America besides the Betty Ross, Betsy Ross house that perpetually flies an American flag in honor of a woman.
[00:19:56] Scott: I thought that was really neat because
[00:19:58] We see the American flag flying grave sites, but when you have that kind of distinction recognized for something, is doing couldn’t and didn’t really serve in battle, but they did serve in whatever capacity they could, seeing that recognized
[00:20:17] Jenn: Yeah, and she had a sweetheart at the time who was also fighting in the, in the cause for the union. She was carrying his picture. His name was Jack Skelly, and he dies from wounds. He’s sustained in the battle. In june of 1863 and he dies nine days after she dies They’re buried close to each other in evergreen cemetery so you can find jack shelley’s grave as well And if you go to the jenny wade house There’s artifacts of the letters.
[00:20:46] They wrote each other and stuff and things along that nature with their courtship.
[00:20:50] Women Warriors: Hidden Soldiers of Gettysburg
[00:20:50] there’s other women at the time who are doing, who are making bread and being very brave. I want to recognize like Elizabeth Thorne and Jenny Wade are the two big stories that we know of women at Gettysburg, but know that there were fighters.
[00:21:12] Jenn: There were seven women who were wounded in Gettysburg as, as soldiers.
[00:21:18] And
[00:21:18] they were only found out later that their sex was revealed later. And when they were given treatment, there were seven
[00:21:26] POWs who were women. And again, only found out later Nine died on the battlefield as soldiers. So when you think about it, there’s about 20 women who are disguising themselves as soldiers fighting.
[00:21:43] And people will ask, well, why did women do that at the time? And I’m not sure of all, you know, what each individual was thinking, but really it was a really
[00:21:54] duty and money.
[00:21:55] Scott: and money. Yes. Sometimes you needed
[00:22:09] Jenn: And sometimes you needed the money for your family. Sometimes there were no boys, and your family needed something to survive. And we always talk about when immigrants came off the boats to America, they were signing them up for the Civil War right there. Yeah. Come sign up. Go fight for your country.
[00:22:25] And they were handing them uniforms and rifles right then and guaranteeing them a paycheck, which was huge coming to America with no understanding of even maybe the language or how the commerce is working. So that is huge. So as a woman to be able to pay make that money disguised as a man, that’s one of the reasons why women did it.
[00:22:49] Again, duty was another and some were fighting beside their husbands. Some took up arms when their husbands, you know, got hurt or but it’s just interesting to know that there, there are women who are participating in the Battle of Gettysburg in pretty much every capacity. We just want to honor Elizabeth Thorne and Jenny Wade in all of those women’s memory.
[00:23:11] Scott: Yeah. And women who were kind of playing, playing that, that It was, it was really incredible. And if you can ever go to Gettysburg in October, do it because it is, it’s beautiful.
[00:23:28] Reflecting on the Bravery of Women in the Civil War
[00:23:28] Scott: Well, that brings us to the end of this episode of talk with We’ve explored the remarkable stories of women like Elizabeth Thorne and Jenny Wade, but their experiences represent countless others who played vital roles during the civil war. These women served as nurses, cooks, spies, and so much more. Their bravery, resilience, and unwavering determination in the face of wartime hardship deserve our Thank you for listening to Talk With History podcast, and please reach out to us at our website, talkwithhistory. com. But more importantly, if you know someone else that might enjoy this Podcasts. Please share it with shoot them a text and tell them to look us up. We rely on you, our community to grow, and we appreciate you all every day.
[00:24:13] We’ll talk to you next time.
[00:24:14] Jenn: Thank you.