Liberty Hollinger

In the course of studying the Civil War, one must always take into account what happened to the civilians. Now, some battles took place far away from towns....only the local farmers were inconvienced by the battle (for the most part), and some took place in and around towns. One in particular that I can think of is Fredericksburg. But what happened in Gettysburg, is that the battle started outside of town, ended outside of town, and trampled the town in the process. So, studying the civilian accounts of the battle is almost (if not more) as important as the participants themselves. Liberty Hollinger was a teenaged girl who happened to live on the eastern side of Gettysburg and her account has always fascinated me.

Liberty lived near the intersection of York Road and Hanover Road. Today a Sunoco gas station sits where her house sat in 1863. The battle didn't really come to her home because the battle stayed on the western, southern and center of town but it did effect her is a way that I have always found interesting.

The fighting for the first day of the battle of Gettysburg was fought hard. The Union troops fought to hold the Confederates from gaining access to the town, but were unable to do that. First the 11th Corps and then the 1st Corps started a frenzied retreat through the town...ending on Cemetery Hill where Winfield Scott Hancock and Oliver Otis Howard were able to regain their footing. During the course of that retreat, men got separated from their regiments, regiments got separated from their brigades, and sometimes, brigades couldn't find their divisions. It was chaos all through the town.

Somehow, some men from the 6th Wisconsin found themselves on the eastern edge of town. These men found themselves at the Hollinger home. Liberty and her sister Julia and their mother were home trying to figure out what to do. The battle had come way too close to their home and they were, understandably, scared. So they called out to these men from the 6th Wisconsin, asking them what they should do. The men suggested that they stay where they were, but told them to go to their cellar. In the meantime, their mother was completely stressed and scared and ended up fainting. So these soldiers carried their mother to the cellar and then headed back upstairs for her rocking chair for her to sit in. After getting Mrs. Hollinger settled in the cellar, the men told Liberty and her sister that they needed to leave because they were afraid that they might be captured.

The girls were horrified when they realized that they had put these men's lives in danger. They thanked the soldiers as the men ran for East Cemetery Hill. “We could not help thinking with fear of the two kind officers who had delayed their departure in order to give us help and advice," Liberty said years later. They were thrilled when they found out after the battle that the two men had survived the battle. The names of these two brave soldiers who helped the Hollinger family were: Captain Lloyd Harris and Lieutenant John Beely.

Despite all the confusion, all the danger of the day, these two men took time out of their retreat to help a family who had no idea what to do or how to do it. They put their lives on the line to help. In my mind, these two men are true heroes.