When looking back on significant historical events, there is no greater resource for us to learn what truly happened than the writings of those who lived through said events.Those who survive tragedy and witness war firsthand possess an authenticity that no later historian or novelist can fully replicate. The most poignant of those voices belong to the children who witness these events.

Tillie Pierce was a fifteen year old local of Gettysburg, PA when the fighting broke out in her own hometown in the first week of July 1863. In an effort to shelter Tillie from the bulk of the fighting, her parents sent her along with her neighbor Mrs. Schriver to a farm owned by Mrs. Schriver’s father, Jacob Weikert. Little did they realize, the farm’s location was by the two Round Tops, which would become the epicenter of the war zone.

A quarter of a century after the famous battle, Tillie wrote down her eyewitness account of what she experienced during those first three days of July, as well as the events leading up to the battle and the days that followed it. Her account is heart-wrenching at times, yet hopeful and determined. It serves as a vital historical document detailing what it’s like for a teenage local to take on responsibility to care for the wounded in a war zone, and I believe it should be required reading for American high school history classes. 

For anyone looking for a great historical nonfiction read that you can blow through in a day, this short but powerful book is a great option for Civil War history enthusiasts everywhere. My copy I got from the Schriver House includes historical notes, photos and maps, as well as a beautiful foreward written by an anonymous Civil War veteran who reminds us why it’s important to read accounts like this one. I can never fully understand what Tillie was going through in those days, but thanks to her own account, I can have an idea of what she saw and how it affected her, and for that reason her words still hold so much power over a century after she died.