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Familyulite Jfreberitk Jscuia-JpOBtLINDA GREGORY EditorFREDERICK MD WEDNESDAY NOVEMBER 3. 1993 C-9Book recalls women’s roles at GettysburgBy KAREN GARDNER•'i**/A tkkAAAAJEileen Conklin thinks people who see the current movie “Gettysburg,” W read “Killer Angels,” the book from which the movie is drawn, should |teep one thing in mind, and that’s that the story is a blur of fact and fiction.A Civil War buff since the fifth grade, Ms. Conklin said, “I finally realized about 20 years ago I should read only primary sources,” she said. iTThat way you don’t get someone else’s point of view.” k Her newly published book, ‘ ‘Women at Gettysburg 1863” is told through a series of letters, diary entries, public record entries, as many primary sources as she could get her hands on.The 430-page hardcover book, which sells for 129.95, features the roles of 40 women, mostly unknown, before, during and after the three-day battle that became the turning point for the war.- Ms. Conklin, 47, of Wctfsville, began researching the book seven years ago. The project started out as a study guide to accompany a series of lectures and slide presentation on women’s roles in the Civil War. At the tone, Ms. Conklin was working as a licensed guide at the Gettysburg Battlefield,C “I was so interested in the project it took me seven years,” she said.Z But she was dismayed to learn that little was available. “It’s very hard to find information on women,” she said. “It's a completely open field. I jhope other people will jump on the bandwagon.”It angered her to learn that women’s roles were barely a footnote in most historical accounts, including the acclaimed PBS series “The Civil War.”~ * »* f I_~ «►*,--------uk v atttk ^ L’ a Wat w* »lt;■] UliL- uiaiu. A. it* inv UliaJ u •a'- L f | Villa’llUt Gettysburg.” “My main purpose is to educate people about the important role women tfdayed in history, and recognize those who served.”» She sifted through pension records and pestered the people at the ^Congressional Records Office. “It got to the point where I could get verbal OKs to get information,” she said.S' Her research led her to some fascinating people. “1 had the honor and privilege of meeting three granddaughters and one grand nephew of the akomen,” she said.~ She met two of Elizabeth Thorn’s granddaughters, who are now 86 and *6, and the granddaughter of Effie Goldsborough, now 86. She also met the ^rand nephew of Cornelia Hancock, a Quaker nurse from New Jersey, k Elizabeth Thorn lived in Gettysburg and was forced to give up her home SJuring the battle. Six months pregnant and with three little boys in tow, She lived in a gatehouse, and was expected to surrender it to the Union troops. After the battle, she was expected to dig graves. “She dug 13 one day,” Ms. Conklin said. As thanks for using her house, the Union troops took all her furnishings, Reaving only a clock. Unlike their Union counterparts, the Confederates {Weren't known for pilfering the belongings of civilians.* “It was called the civilized invasion,” Ms. Conklin said.I Euphemia Goldsborough’s granddaughter introduced Ms. Conklin to her grandmother’s diaries, and showed off her glasses and her passes. Mrs. ^Goldsborough, of Baltimore, was a Confederate sympathizer. She acted as *« nurse to soldiers of both sides, but smuggled documents for the South.X The first night of the battle, Effie Goldsborough tied to her back a man ho had been shot through the lungs so she could carry him. After the Rattle, she tended the wounded in Frederick.JT Eventually she was arrested for smuggling documents and exiled south. 3kr house alter the war, in Summit Point, W.Va., still stands.* Also from Maryland were a raother-daughter team, Jane Moore, and herTirhn wbc simnlv Vfintim ac Mtc Mnnro Thoir wore FTfiiArv^Sympathizers who nursed soldiers during and after the battle.* Charlotte McKay, of Massachusetts, became a nurse after her husband -*nd daughter died. She worked in the Hessian Barracks hospital in #redenck, and described the barracks in her narrative.Staff photo by Sam YuAuthor Eileen Conklin wants people to know that women were a key part of Gettysburg.She later won the Kearny Cross, the forerunner to the Medal of Honor. Other Medal winners at Gettysburg were Mary Tepe and Annie Etheridge.Mary Tepe did much of her nursing with a bullet lodged in her ankle. Eventually, she committed suicide. Buried around Pittsburgh, there was no headstone until the Sons of Union Veterans erected one.Almost all the women who took part in the war’s nursing effort nursed wounded soldiers on both sides, even though they might have had strong sympathies with one side or the other.The only woman of any renown among the 40 in “Women at Gettysburg” is Jennie Wade, who died from a stray bullet during the battle. “I think she’s been treated poorly by history,” Ms. Conklin said. “She was maligned because she wasn’t nursing. Unknown to her, her fiance had been mortally wounded during the campaign to Gettysburg.Ttllin 1 5 mhqn tko harTori • cho liubfl hrtffh fif IlfhflfOthe action started, and her mother sent her to stay with people who lived south of town. There, her mother thought, she’d be safe. But Til lie was right in the thick of the worst of the battle, and Ms Conklin includes her eyewitness account of what happenedThere was also Helen Gilson She’s fascinating I think my husband was in love with her. She had this tragic story ”■ VI L# _/VIBA llKMC lUdl) 1V1U1 i litwuuinu, £,* ^of Revolutionary War fame. Her second son, who frequently deserted, was court-martialed and sentenced to hang, but eventually pardoned by Lincoln Mrs. Husband, wbo nursed during the war and bemoaned the lack of food and drugs, became an expert on condemned menEllen Orbison Harris, a member of the Philadelphia Ladies Aid Suueiy, was described as aeid-tongued, “The reason she had that reputation was that she’d take anybody on Her letters are so moving.“Neither the government nor the military had any idea how horrible this was going to be Even though the Union Army had a better quartermaster, they suffered from hunger, too. She’d write these scathing letters about their conditions ”Her reputation suffered, but she succeeded in getting money and donations. “If your husband or son was in that battle and you read of the conditions,” a donation would probably follow, she said.Slowly, a picture of the war, and its horrible legacy, emerges from these accounts “All these women did stuff,” Ms Conklin said Sure there was Harriet Tubman and Clara Barton, but there were thousands more.”At least 200 women, and probably many more, served in nursing and relief roles at Gettysburg, where 10,000 soldiers were killed on the battlefield, and where 50,000 casualties were recorded There may have been four women who disguised their sex and served as soldiers, but Ms. Conklin only included in her book the one she verified.“Everything in here is verified,” she said. This woman died duringPickett’s Charce. the ill-fated Confederate stampede toward the Union line during the battle’s third and final day.The Sisters of Chanty, 39 nuns altogether, of Emmitsburg, are also featured, through the eyes of Sister Camilla. These nuns gave their reactions to not being allowed to nurse the Confederates in Frederick hospitals. From her research, Ms Conklin said, Frederick seemed to be dominated by Union sympathizers, with a few Confederate sympathizers scattered about.There is a little-known monument to the nuns in Washington. D C. While Ms. Conklin was photographing it for her book, a man who ate lunch nearby every day said she was the first visitor he’d ever seen to the monument.Period photos of the battle and of the women illustrate the book.It’s easy to get Ms. Conklin to talk about the project she has lived and breathed for much of the past seven years. When not working on the book, she helps her husband, Artie Rosati, a leather craftsman, in his business. They have a son, Brennan Conklin-Rosati, who attends Middletown Middle School, and he’s one reason she wants to bring women’s history to light.“It’s just as important for my son and other boys to see women doing important things,” she saidAs a child, she was interested m the textbook angie of history. “I didn’t realize how much women were ignored until I got involved in the women’s movement in the ’60s,” she said.She will be available to discuss her book at a book signing later this month, On Saturday, Nov. 27, she will be at Waldenbooks in the Frederick Towne Mall from 1 to 3 p.m. The book is at other local bookstores, and is also for sale at all national military parks in the East.The Civil War was a watershed for American women, Ms. Conklin said. “This is when women started nursing, when this became an accepted profession,” she said.Like World War II in this century, the Civil War put women to work, in the munitions factories as well as the hospitals. And after the war, with620.000 men dead there was a shortage of men to marrv Manv women therefore, lived out their lives as single women, and they were not considered outcasts. They had done honorable work during the war.“Most of these women were working for mankind,” Ms Conklin saida lie* wac uicic Ociauc uicy rtauuttu uj uciy
Newspaper Details
News
Frederick, Maryland, US
Wed, Nov 03, 1993
Page 130
Full Page
Clipped by
Bob V.
USA 29 May 2020
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