If you read Dear Departed, thank you. I hope you enjoyed reading it. I most certainly enjoyed researching and writing it.
At the end of each of my published novels, I write an Author’s Note to tell the factual history behind the fictional story. Dear Departed is fiction, and now I’ll give you the facts.
If you have not read Dear Departed, there may be spoilers below. Dear Departed will remain on my site, for free, until July 15th.
Behind the Novel
Ginnie Lee Kent, her family, and the people she meets in Gettysburg are fiction, but the historical elements in the story are true.
Grandpa’s tales about Stonewall Jackson and the Stonewall Brigade are part of history, as is Robert E. Lee and his connection to George Washington’s family. The details about Maine’s Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain (Mr. Redmond’s commander), who planned to attend the reunion, but whose doctors kept him home due to illness, are fact.
Rebecca’s Branch, Skitter Falls, and Rockbridge are fiction, but they are based on a mixture of places in the hills of West Virginia. All other places mentioned in the story (Gettysburg, Morgantown, Marietta, Lexington) are real places. I visited all of them, and was fascinated by their rich history.
Researching the Facts
I spoke with an archivist at today’s Marietta College (in Marietta, Ohio) about Ginnie Lee’s chances of attending that institution in 1917. She gave me a copy of the 1917-1918 Student Handbook, which told me, not only that Ginnie Lee could have taken an exam for acceptance, but what subjects she would have to know and on what date the test would be given. It also gave the date her classes would have started.
Haints is a word used frequently in Appalachian areas, and means “ghosts” or “haunts.” Grandpa’s haints are what would now be called PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder).
The battle in Gettysburg was quite real. It took place in July, 1863, and was the bloodiest battle of the American Civil War with 51,000 casualties in three days of fighting.
Real women like the fictional Mrs. Grome hid Union soldiers in their homes when the Confederate Army occupied the town on July first and second. They also tended wounded from both armies as the town overflowed with more injured soldiers than army surgeons could care for.
This battle is often called “the high tide of the Confederacy,” because when it ended, the Confederates retreated and never again occupied Northern territory or held the same victorious position they had held in the early half of the war.
The Real Reunion
Five years before the fiftieth anniversary of the battle, as more and more Civil War veterans reached the end of their lives, General H.S. Huidekoper of Philadelphia got the idea for a reunion. Huidekoper, who lost his right arm in the first day’s battle at Gettysburg, took his idea to Pennsylvania Governor Edwin S. Stuart. Plans took shape for the state of Pennsylvania to host a reunion for Civil War veterans, a chance to reunite the last survivors of the war that changed a nation.
Plans for this reunion were extensive. The War Department leased the land where the Camp was to be set up. Different Departments of the Army cooperated to build the Camp and carry out its needs. The Army Quartermaster Corps dug wells and laid water lines, constructed “comfort stations” (restrooms), and built 173 kitchens with 425 field ranges to cook and bake for the veterans. The Medical Department of the Army, with assistance from the Red Cross, set up and staffed hospital tents and aid stations. The Pennsylvania Health Department analyzed water purity, and oversaw changes to assure public safety. The county even built a new water purification plant to prepare for the reunion.
An ice house was built, as well as places to dispose of both liquid and solid kitchen waste and burn other trash. A temporary Post Office was built. Thirty-two cooled-water drinking fountains were installed at various places around the Camp.
A Long Journey
Veterans came from all over the country at a time when airplanes were in their infancy, and even automobile travel was primitive. It took up to six days by train for these men to reach their destination, and again to return home. Most, but not all, of the states appropriated money for their veterans’ travel expenses. (West Virginia did.) Some railroads gave discounts.
Because seventy-two was the average age of the veterans, twelve mule-drawn ambulances and two automobile ambulances were on site. The Telephone Company ran lines to connect the Camp with outside hospitals. During the reunion, 741 ambulance calls were responded to and 1,100 patients were transported.
A temporary morgue was also made ready. Nine attendees (eight Union and one Confederate) died during the reunion, which was considered a small number because of the age of the men and the hot weather. The heat and storms were as I described.
A Large Camp and Over 50,000 People
The Camp, consisting of the Great Tent and smaller tents to house the veterans, covered 280 acres. It had over 47 miles of roads, 835 feet of board sidewalks, and was lit by 500 electric lights. It was designed to hold 40,000 veterans, but in the end, 53,407 attended. The last-minute shipment of supplies Ginnie Lee and Chance witnessed was made to accommodate this increase.
The Camp also housed 124 Army officers and 1,342 enlisted men to police and protect the area, 155 newspaper reporters from the United States and abroad, and 2,170 cooks, bakers, kitchen helpers, and laborers.
This total of 57,198 people quartered in the Camp required 6,592 tents, filed with cots, mattresses, blankets, lanterns, and wash basins. Each veteran was issued a mess kit for his use and to keep as a souvenir.
A total of 385 Boy Scouts from a 150-mile radius were recruited to assist the veterans.
Tourism Boom
Gettysburg also saw an influx of guests outside the Camp. Families traveled along with many of the veterans, just as Ginnie Lee traveled with Grandpa. They stayed in houses and hotels around Gettysburg. In preparation for them, several public comfort stations were built in town.
And the food! From supper on Sunday, June 29 to breakfast on Sunday, July 6, there were 688,000 meals served. Groceries included 171,132 pounds of meat and fowl, 216,777 pounds of fresh vegetables, as well as canned and dried vegetables, and nearly 25,000 eggs. Even 9,300 pounds of salt and 59, 976 pounds of sugar were used.
Remembering & Learning from the Past
What happened at the reunion? Mostly visiting and remembering. Veterans who had fought at Gettysburg went to places they had been during the battle, and talked about what they remembered. They reminisced with old Army friends they hadn’t seen in nearly half a century. They visited the Soldiers’ Cemetery, where their fellow soldiers had been laid to rest.
Curtains inside the Great Tent divided it into separate rooms where different small groups could gather. They were taken down for large assemblies, where a variety of speakers addressed the veterans. U.S. Secretary of War, Lindley M. Garrison, and Pennsylvania Governor John K. Tener both spoke. Even President Woodrow Wilson addressed the veterans on July Fourth.
Special guests were brought in, like James Longstreet Welchel and George Edward Pickett, both descendants of famous Confederate generals. Many speakers gave a special welcome to Confederate veterans, reminding everyone that all veterans were Americans who served valiantly and deserved to be treated as brother soldiers, even though fifty years earlier they had been enemies.
Most of the reporters who covered the reunion mentioned how these men, who had met in this place in battle in 1863, came together in 1913 without grudges, enmity, or anger over the past. The Civil War divided our nation, but eventually, we united again in peace and became a stronger union because of what these men had done. That is what they wanted to remember.
