THE HEROINE OF GETTYSBURG.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XIX, Issue 29, 17 April 1891, Page 20

THE HEROINE OF GETTYSBURG.

Gbn. Slocum in the course of an article in the North American Review on tbe ba tie of Gettysburg, says :

" We called at the house which had always besn an objpet of interest to all who visit this field. Near the line occupied by brigade under command of General J. B. Carr, of Troy, N. V., stands a little one-storey house, which at the time of the battle was occupied by a Mm. Bogers and her daughter. On the morning of July 2 General Oarr stopped at the house and found the girl about eighteen years of age, alone, busily engaged in baking brewl. He informed her that a great battle was inevitable, and advised her to ssek a place of safety at ooce. She said she had a batch of bread baking ia thu oven, and ■he would remain until it was baked and then leave. When her bread was baked, it was given to our soldiers, and was devoured so eagerly tbat the concluded to remain and bake another batch. And ■o she continued to the end of the battle, baking and giving her bread to all who came. The great artillery duel which shook the earth foi miles around did not drive her from her oveo. Pickett's men, who charged past her house, found her quietly baking her bread and distributing it to the hungry. When the bat le was over, her house was fouud ta be riddled with shot and shell, and seventeen dead bodies were taken from tbe house and cellar ; the bodies of wounded men who had crawled to the little dwelling for shelter.

" Twenty years after tbe close of the war, General Carr's men and others held a grand reunion at Gettyt-burg ; and learning that Josephine Rogers was still living, but had married and taken up her residence in Ohio, they sent for her, paid her passage from her home to Gettysburg and back, and had her go to her old home and tell them the story which th^y all knew so well. They decorated her with a score of army badges, and sent her back a happy woman. Why should not the poet immortalise Josephine Roger?, as he did Barbara Frietchie?"