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Young Heroes of
Gettysburg is based on the lives of real people who met at
the Battle of Gettysburg. There were three Indiana teenage
soldiers and two teenage cousins who really lived in Gettysburg,
Annie Taylor and Rachel Kendall.
The book opens
with the Union soldiers marching into Gettysburg. Three friends,
Johnny Baker, Ben Ellis, and Sam Bradshaw, find themselves
in one of the bloodiest battles of the war. Johnny is wounded
in the leg in a skirmish, which fulfills a dream that Ben
had the night before. He is removed from the battlefield.
Since his injury leaves him crippled, the army sends him
back to Indiana.
Ben and Sam continue
to fight. Ben's right hand is badly wounded in an assault
by the Confederates. He has to seek refuge among local citizens
of Gettysburg because he is told that his injuries are not
serious enough to be treated at the makeshift military hospitals.
Annie Taylor and
Rachel Kendall take Ben Ellis into their home to nurse him
back to health. They have to sneak him in past Confederate
soldiers. The book shows how the girls experience the war
taking care of the wounded and also caring for their younger
siblings.
A Confederate soldier
then comes to the house asking if they saw any Union soldiers.
The girls say no. The Confederate soldier has his teenage
son with him who is sick from malnutrition. The cousins take
them and some other Confederate soldiers into the house and
feed them. The cousins talk to the Confederates. Among other
things, they learn that only a few Southern soldiers owned
slaves. The others are fighting because they want a nonfederal
government, or they feel strong loyalty to their state. This
is one way the writer of the book explains the complexities
of the war.
Sam Bradshaw and
the rest of the 19th Indiana dig trenches in preparation
for possible artillery bombardments by the Confederates.
By this point in the book, after losing his two friends to
injuries, Sam feels anxious and scared. At the same time,
Ben is still at the cousins' house. He talks to the girls
about his war experiences. He tries to comfort them during
the bombardment that was taking place nearby.
The book was a
very good account of the war from the experiences of these
brave young heroes. Both young men and young women are given
credit for their contributions, patriotic spirit, and brave
hearts.
I think this book
shows an excellent picture of the lives and roles of the
people who fought so hard for what they believed in. I recommend
this book to all young readers. You will learn more about
the human perspective of the Gettysburg battle, and more
about the daily struggles and actions that shaped the young
heroes.
Young Heroes
of Gettysburg, by William Thomas Venner, White Mane
Publishing, Shippensburg, Pa, 2000.
Our thanks to Sean
for volunteering to write this book review. We give him an
A++, and lots of extra credit for this excellent report.
We hope this is just the start of a continued interest in
the Civil War for Sean. There may be an opening on our E-Mail
newsletter staff very soon!
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