Tillie continued to try to be positive as she woke on July 2nd in the Jacob Weikert’s Farmhouse. She had breakfast and saw even more troops to the horizon marching northward past the house. I wondered how the house was, my parents, my friends, but I had to think elsewhere and help the soldiers around me. I gathered up my things, a bucket and a ladle, and got some water from the well. I witnessed soldiers passing out due to sunstroke in the heat, and officers brutally hitting them to unconsciousness.
Shortly after this brutality among the soldiers, I saw three soldiers on horseback arriving from the north heading south towards the Farm. The high ranking soldier requested me to give him a drink, which I did so forthcoming. He was very pleasant and thanked me for the cold drink. The soldiers around the Farm gave cheers to the three soldiers on horseback as they departed. I asked a soldier around me who that was, and he said, Tillie, that was General George Gordon Meade, commander of the entire Federal Army.
Towards the middle of the afternoon, the sound of cannons were increasing on the rear side of the house. Soldiers around us were suggesting us to head east to another farm for safety. Prior to the cannonade, I saw bodies of soldiers behind the house, and I saw the wounded and now the dead on the farm. I could only briefly pause and saw a prayer for them before taking my bucket to the next wounded soldier for their drink of water in the heat and humidity.
The cannonballs from the devasting booms of cannons around the Round Tops were flying over the barn and the house from time to time. The battle was occurring on the other side of the mountain around what is now Devil’s Den, the Slaughter Pen, the Wheatfield, and the Peach Orchard. According to the wounded, thousands of soldiers were in battle with the Confederates and were being pushed back to the heights behind the house. I sat with a soldier through the evening on July 2nd and kept him company since he was badly hurt. He asked if I could come by and check on him on the morning of the 3rd. I wished him goodnight, and went back into the farmhouse for bed.
In the morning of July 3rd, I found him dead. His attendant was at his side as he was wounded as well. I asked him what his name was. The attendant said he was a New York soldier by the name of General Stephen H. Weed. I learned from the attendant that he had been mortally injured from cannon blasts and musket fire on the crest of Little Round Top. Confederate soldiers were near and around Devil’s Den, the Peach Orchard, and the Wheatfield. The battle on the 3rd day was so loud and scary that we moved to another farm for the afternoon. We returned in the evening to find the farm full of wounded, screaming soldiers that were mortally wounded. To bite the bullet was an understatement: Soldiers would take a musket ball and bite onto it as surgeons cut into them and cut off their legs or arms. Piles of the amputations were around the house and ghastly to see and smell. I got sick a few times!
The fight was over, said a few soldiers, and we had won the battle. I thought to myself: How can we have won with so many killed and wounded? What would Independence Day bring to the Farm and to Gettysburg. I fell asleep in the house with the screaming and the dying outside trying to survive the night.