Jennie Wade was born on Baltimore Street on May 21, 1843. This would be the house the Wade family lived for some of her childhood. However, her childhood was riddled with heartache and sadness because of her father’s actions around town. Her father, Mr. James “Captain” Wade served within the 80th Pennsylvania local militia company during the middle 1840s. In early 1850, he was charged with assault and battery and larceny, and caused him to be committed to Eastern State Penitentiary, outside Philadelphia, for two years. When he was allowed to leave after his sentence, his wife Mary Ann Filby Wade committed him to the Alms House, north of Gettysburg in 1852, and lived here during the battle of Gettysburg.
The Alms house consisted of three buildings named the Almshouse proper house, the infirmary, and the insane hospital. Each one was quite large and the proper house and infirmary had basements. All three buildings were made of brick and two stories tall. Jennie’s mother and sister Georgia would live in the Alms House for four months at the start of the 1846. In April 1846, they moved to 51 Breckenridge Street. All of the children lived in this house during the Civil War. However, goodness came to Jennie during the teenage years. Her older sister, Georgia, married her husband John Louis McClellan on April 15th, 1862. They would move to a duplex south of town near the foot of East Cemetery Hill. Jennie Wade and her mother lived about four to five blocks north along Baltimore Street. In April 1861, here is all the Wade family:
- Capt. James Wade Sr. – 47 years old
- Mary Ann Filby Wade – 41 years old
- Georgeanna Wade – 20 years old
- Jennie Wade – 18 years old
- John James Wade – 15 years old
- Samuel Swan Wade – 11 years old
- Harry Marion Wade – 6 years old
At the start of the battle of Gettysburg, her mother was helping Georgia at the duplex at 548 Baltimore Street. Five days earlier, on June 26th, 1863, Georgia gave birth to her first son, Kenneth Lewis McClellan. On June 30th, soldiers from Federal Cavalry under Buford rode through town and set up for the potential for battle west of town on Seminary Ridge. Sure enough, Confederates and Union soldiers fought along Seminary Ridge and Oak Hill on the morning of July 1st. Thousands of federal troops walked and double-quick step up through the north of town on the morning and mid-afternoon to attack the incoming enemy. However, by the evening, the federal troops had taken up the land and the higher elevation south of the house. During this time-frame of mid-afternoon attack north of town, Jennie Wade and her brothers at the house on Breckenridge Street would walk/run down Baltimore Street to her sister’s house. By the evening of July 1st, the enemy is on the north side of the house, and the Union is on the south side of the house.
The locations are the following on the map to the left:
- Pink Star – Jennie Wade’s birth house on Baltimore Street
- Purple Heart – Jennie Wade’s house at 51 Breckenridge Street
- Orange Sun – Tillie Pierce House
- Red Circle – Welty House
- Green Heart – Georgianna Wade McClellan duplex / Jennie Wade Museum
From the evening of July 1st through the morning of July 3rd, Jennie and her mother would be making and kneading dough to make bread and biscuits for the family, and the soldiers that were outside around the house. They would try to get to the well on the side of the house away from the road to get water for themselves and their counterparts. Confederate soldiers were near the Welty House (red circle) trying to shot at the Union soldiers surrounding the McClellan House (green heart). Bullets were hitting the northern wall of the duplex, with some striking the window and making their way into the parlor room.
Union and Confederate regiments were transferred in and out around the duplex at the northern edge of Cemetery Hill. As soldiers ran in front and around the house, their actions were drawing fire from Confederate skirmishers. On July 3rd morning, Jennie is preparing and kneading bed, and her sister Georgianna is on the bed, with bullets hitting the mantle and crashing into the window. With bullets still smashing through the house, Georgianna holding her newborn and bullets hitting the windows and bedposts. Jennie utters the words: “If someone is going to die today, let it be me, since Georgia has this newborn baby.”
Minutes later, around 8:30 a.m., there was a shot that pierced the doors of the kitchen. The shot continue and hit Jennie in the back and fell into her corset and killed her instantly. Jennie would fall onto the floor and bleed some onto the wooden floors. Georgia and her mother would cry out weeping for the death of Jennie Wade, and multiple soldiers would come into the house. They would see the scene and help the family move from the north side to the south side of the house within the duplex second floor as soldiers pick up Jennie’s body and carry her too. They would take the body outside of the house on the southern side and they would walk downstairs by way of the bilco doors. For the next few hours, Jennie Wade would lie in a blanket on a table in the basement as Georgia, her newborn, and the children would stay and weep. However, her mother, would stay in the kitchen and make bread with the remaining dough that Jennie was using. That remaining dough made 15 loaves for the soldiers that were outside. Possible soldiers that helped the removal of Jennie’s body from the southern side of the duplex to the basement were from the 73rd Pennsylvania, 17th Connecticut, or soldiers part of the Col. Leopold Von Gilas Brigade.