Rose Farm

The Battle for the Wheatfield at the Rose Farm

Rose Farm was at the center of some of the fiercest fighting on the second day of the battle, July 2, 1863. Its features include Stony Hill, Rose Woods, and a twenty acre field that has come to be known simply as the Wheatfield. There, over 20,000 men engaged in brutal and often hand-to-hand combat leaving over six thousand killed or wounded.

The Pride of Erin by Dale Gallon
At less than fifty yards, the men of Colonel Pat Kelly's famed Irish Brigade prepare to fire their first volley into General Joseph Kershaw's South Carolinians in the Wheatfield at Gettysburg.

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Civil War Women Soldiers

Soldier Women of the Civil War

They were determined to fight, no matter the cost. They dressed in men's clothing and assumed masculine names; bound their breasts; rubbed dirt on their faces to simulate whiskers; learned to talk, walk, chew and smoke like men; and hid in every conceivable way that they were female. They were soldiers in the Civil War.

Image: Drawing of Michigan Bridget courageously carrying the Union flag amidst a violent battle.

Bridget Devens
Joining the First Michigan Calvary along with her husband, Bridget Devens (Divers or Deavers) - often called Michigan Bridget - spent much of her time behind the front lines tending the wounded. However, author Mary Livermore wrote: "Sometimes when a soldier fell, she [Devens] took his place, fighting in his stead with unquailing [determined] courage. Sometimes she rallied the troops - sometimes she brought off the wounded from the field - always fearless and daring, always doing good service as a soldier."

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Lillie Devereux Blake

19th Century Author and Women's Rights Activist

Lillie Devereux Blake was a leading feminist and reformer, as well as a prominent fiction writer, journalist, essayist and lecturer, who worked with Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for women's suffrage (the right to vote).

She was born Elizabeth Johnson Devereux on August 12, 1833 to planters George Pollock Devereux and Sarah Elizabeth Johnson Devereux in Raleigh, North Carolina, but spent much of her early childhood on a plantation in Roanoke, Virginia. It was George Devereux who called his daughter Lily because of her fair complexion, and she continued through life as Lillie.

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Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad

Savior of Hundreds of Slaves

Harriet Tubman is probably the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's conductors. During a ten-year span Harriet Tubman made nineteen trips into the South and escorted hundreds of slaves to freedom. And as she proudly pointed out, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

Image: Harriet Tubman Leading The Way
By artist Janice Huse

Backstory
She was born Araminta Ross around 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland, on the plantation where her parents were enslaved. She later took her mother's name as her own: Harriet. At age five or six, she was "hired out" by her master as a nursemaid for a small baby. She had to stay awake all night so that the baby would not cry and wake the mother. If Harriet fell asleep, the baby's mother whipped her. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields.

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