Confederate sharpshooters will fire their rifles from the attic window of George and Hettie Shriver’s Baltimore Street home on Saturday, July 2, 2011, from 5 to 9 p.m., just as they did 147 years ago during the Battle of Gettysburg. This time, however, visitors are invited to join the Rebels to learn first-hand what occurred during those three days of terror in July 1863.
This living history re-enactment provides visitors an opportunity to understand what the battle was like for one family who called Gettysburg “home” in 1863. When soldiers appeared in the street in front of her Baltimore Street home, Hettie Shriver took her two girls, Sadie (7) and Mollie (5), and her young neighbor, Tillie Pierce, to seek safety outside town only to find themselves deep within the battle lines. Her abandoned home was taken over by Confederate soldiers who used the attic as a sharpshooters nest.
Visitors will get a chance to speak with Confederate soldiers as they prepare for battle, watch sharpshooters fire muskets from the attic at their adversaries on Cemetery Hill and, in some cases, take their last breath. Doctors will perform surgery on wounded soldiers in a make-shift hospital in the summer kitchen in the cellar.
At the end of the tour, visitors can cool off with a root beer in Shriver’s Saloon while younger visitors have a nurse bandage their wounds or make whirligigs to take along as a memento of their visit.
The Battle of Gettysburg encompassed not only the surrounding countryside but the streets of this historic town as well. This is the only re-enactment to take place in the streets of Gettysburg – in the attic where it happened in July 1863.
The Shrivers’ home was painstakingly restored in 1996 and is now open to the public as a heritage museum. Tours offers special insight into the lives of the people of Gettysburg and how the Civil War, and in particular the Battle of Gettysburg, affected them. The story is told through the eyes of George and Hettie Shriver whose home was merely several months old when the war began. The tour gives a glimpse into the lifestyles, customs, and furnishings of the 1860s.
Shriver House Museum
309 Baltimore Street
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania
717-337-2800
http://www.shriverhouse.org