Personal Narrative: A Day Before The Civil War

I was sitting outside my beautiful-golden-yellow, color-of-a-biscuit, house. When I saw a ocean of blue, walking up the hill. My dad yelled at me to come inside, but I watched in amazement of seeing this big ocean just rising up like bread in the oven. I knew something would happen in the next few days, just not like it happened. It happened fast, too fast. In just 3 days it was over. I didn’t have time to process what was happening, I just knew they needed helped. My father explained it to me before the battle took place. He told me all about Robert E. Lee and George Mead and the Confederate and Union army. Along with how we were for the Union and against slavery. I asked what that was. He told me it was when people are forced to work

My mother opened our house up as a field hospital. She started by cooking food for the Union army, then cleaning wounds, and lastly giving them a place to sleep at. That night I asked “Mamma can I please help you with the men?” Her reply was “Honey, you need to be careful around them. They have been through a ton lately. But yes, you may.” I wanted to run to Ginnie Wade, and Olivia Anne to tell them that I wasn’t to little to help, but I felt like it would be too rude and disrespectful. The next day I was then taking the men water and food. I liked to tell a little joke, or story to make the men smile. They were not happy to be there. When I told them a joke, they smiled and possibly had more hope for good to come. More and more men came in every day, it got way too full in our little house. So we told some of our friends to open up little hospitals, but they just ignored us. Like we weren’t taking care of a lot of injured

But that wasn’t the news of the day, the news was that the town’s beloved 20 year old civilian Ginnie was shot by a stray bullet and died. We were all distraught. She was very helpful, kind, sweet, and generous. She was a respected young lady in our town. She was very missed. But good came the next day. It was when it all ended, no more pain, no more suffering and all could go back to normal. At least we thought so. Over 51,000 men died. 51,000 dead men were lying in our town. On November 14, 1863 President Lincoln gave The Gettysburg Address, “ Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation conceived in liberty... Now we are engaged in a great Civil War... Field as a final resting place... Poor power to add or detract... The world will little note nor long remember what we say here... God shall have a new birth of freedom and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the Earth.”, I listened to Abe speak. I was never the same. I learned to never give up, hope in the midst of the bad, and always look for the good. The battle was the bloodiest battle in the Civil War, and I helped save the lives of several good warriors. The men who died, if I saw them they looked into my eyes with a sense of pride. One asked me to write a letter home for him, he only got to the first sentence. His eyes rolled up, and he died. I was only ten then and it scared me