Why the civilian accounts are important

Quite often I hear people say that they don't understand why we read the civilian accounts of the war. Why read an account by someone who doesn't know or understand military strategy? Whay read an account by someone who wasn't actually involved in the fighting? What do these people know??? I'm here to tell you that it IS important and they know a whole lot more than most people give them credit for.

Without the civilian accounts, we wouldn't know which roads the soldiers were on or whose property they crossed. The soldiers didn't know the names of the folks who owned the property that they crossed....they just knew that they crossed a field with rocks, or whatever....but they didn't know it was Mr. Jones' field. They didn't know that when they ran down a street that it happened to be Main Street....all they knew is that they ran down a dirt road. Now, it doesn't seem like much, but today, we need to know the names in order to understand the movements of the troops. We need to have an idea of their starting points and their ending points to understand why events took place. Would we understand that the soldiers were slowed down because of mud from a previous rain if the soldiers never actually mentioned it, but the civilians talked about how they destroyed their road systems? Its the details that make the story.

Gettysburg has so many civilian accounts that its almost overwhelming. It seems like just about everybody who was in town (or out of town) during the battle left some sort of an account. Last I heard, the Adams County Historical Society in Gettysburg had 15 binders of civilian accounts. Some accounts were published in book form, some as a newspaper column, some were just diaries that wound their way into someones attic. No matter how we get their account, it plays an important role in our understanding of the battle.

I picked up a little gem of a book at a local bookstore a couple of months ago that I have found to be invaluable. This little book only cost $3.00 and I have never spent a better $3.00. Its called "We Never Expected a Battle, The Civilians at Gettysburg, 1863" by Robert L. Bloom. I highly recommend this as a good source of the civilians here in Gettysburg. What he did was take the accounts of about 20 or more citizens and merge them into an account of the battle of Gettysburg. I think he did a great job. The civilians may not have been 100% accurate in what they said, but they KNEW this ground unlike anyone in either army. Due to this, I found what they had to say about the battle very interesting. The book is only about 30 pages long....but well worth the 1/2-hour to read it.

When reading the OR's and all the other postwar correspondance and accounts from the soldiers, its always a good idea to integrate some of the civilian accounts....to get a better feel for what was taking place in the homes and the land on and around the battlefield. There are so many good civilian accounts (not just Gettysburg....but any battle) that to not read their accounts is just destroying the true story for all.