A Tale of Three Friends
No one in the small, Pennsylvania farming community of Gettysburg was surprised to learn of the betrothal of Dinah Seward and Jarret Wood. They, along with Chandler Mills, had been inseparable friends throughout most of their young lives. Furthermore, no one doubted that the couple would have found true happiness together, had it not been for the threat of civil war that hung over the entire country like a dark harbinger of doom.
One chilly autumn evening Jarret called on his betrothed, and the two young lovers took a leisurely stroll along Taneytown Road, walking hand-in-hand. Although the air was cool, the sky was clear and alive with hundreds of stars. A full moon illuminated the road as they walked.
"I visited my sister today," Dinah told her fiancé, determined not to talk about either the upcoming election or the growing tensions between the North and South.
Mary Louise, Dinah's older sister, had recently married and moved into a brick house on nearby Baltimore Street.
"Is she all settled into her new home yet?" Jarret asked.
"Yes. I helped her unpack the last of her things today."
"Perhaps someday soon we'll be able to buy a house of our own."
"Maybe," Dinah replied with a mournful look on her face as she gazed out over the rolling hills toward the cupola of the Lutheran Theological Seminary that stood atop Seminary Ridge.
Jarret knew she was thinking about the uncertainty of their future and the likelihood of war should Mr. Lincoln be elected.
"War or not," he announced, hoping to comfort her, "we're going to get married. In fact, I think we should set the date right now."
Dinah's mood brightened instantly.
"Why don't we get married this coming summer?" she suggested.
They chose the first Sunday in June—roughly eight months away.
Eight months is not too long a time to wait, the future bride thought optimistically.
Little did the two of them realize that within a month's time, their hope for a June wedding would be dashed along with the dreams and plans of many of their fellow Americans on both sides of the Mason-Dixon Line. On November 6, Abraham Lincoln became the sixteenth president of the United States; and on December 20, South Carolina seceded from the Union, followed shortly by Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana and Texas.
The previous year the couple's close friend, Chandler Mills, had left Gettysburg when his employer, a harnessmaker, relocated his business to Shepherdstown, Virginia. There, the Pennsylvania native met an attractive Southern girl with whom he fell in love. Consequently, when Virginia seceded and joined her fellow Southern states in the Confederacy, Chandler enlisted in the 2nd Virginia Infantry and served under Stonewall Jackson.
When shots were fired at Fort Sumter and war became a grim reality rather than a threat on the horizon, Dinah and Jarret decided to postpone their wedding.
"It will only be until after the fighting ends," the young man optimistically predicted. "That shouldn't take too long. Most people agree that the war won't last more than a few weeks."
Jarret had wanted to enlist immediately. Like most idealistic young men, he actually looked forward to going into battle. He wanted to see firsthand the glorious, heroic events that would be passed down through generations of men who valued bravery above peace. At first, Dinah was able to persuade him to stay out of harm's way.
"After all," she pointed out on several occasions, "there is so much you can do to help the war effort right here in Gettysburg. The army needs uniforms, arms, food and other supplies just as much as it needs men."
The early battles of the war did not go well for the North. The Army of Northern Virginia, under the command of first Joseph E. Johnston and then Robert E. Lee, proved to be a formidable opponent. The Union would not have the easy victory it had once imagined. Thus, despite Dinah's objections, at the end of August 1862, Jarret journeyed to Camp Scott in York, Pennsylvania, and joined the 87th Pennsylvania Regiment.
* * *
As twenty-year-old Dinah Seward sat hemming a pair of pants in her father's tailoring shop, she thought wistfully of a time when the war would be over and she and Jarret could at last become man and wife. Earlier that day her sister had given birth to her first child, and Dinah wanted more than ever to have a family of her own. But the war, which had started more than two years earlier, showed no signs of coming to an end. Just as she had feared back in 1861, the conflict between North and South shattered the world as she once knew it.
The candle on the table beside her sputtered out, and Dinah's thoughts returned to the present. She put aside her sewing for the evening and headed upstairs to bed. The following morning she was to go to her sister's house for an extended visit to help care for both the mother and the newborn baby. But before she closed her eyes in sleep, she prayed for Jarret's safe return.
On the morning of July 1, 1863, Dinah had just finished cleaning the house and was about to take a cup of tea to her sister when she heard the sound of gunfire.
Earlier that morning, Major General Henry Heth of A.P. Hill's Corps had marched along Chambersburg Pike intent on occupying Gettysburg. Unbeknownst to the Confederate troops entering the town, Union Brigadier General John Buford's cavalry already held Gettysburg with two brigades. When the foes met, a skirmish broke out. Buford was able to hold his position for over an hour but was then forced to retreat. The Union Army was quick to send in reinforcements, and soon the bloodiest battle ever fought on American soil began.
Dinah and Mary Louise remained indoors despite the heat, fearful of venturing outside the brick house, where they might be injured by a stray bullet. The baby slept fitfully, awakened several times by the sounds of the battle raging outside.
"Come away from the window," Mary Louise ordered when her younger sister tried to see what was happening.
"I can't just sit here and sew while all that fighting is going on around us," Dinah protested. "I wish I knew if Jarret was out there."
"There's nothing you can do if he is," Mary Louise told her quite sensibly. "Don't worry. If he's anywhere near Gettysburg, I'm sure he'll get word to you somehow."
* * *
Neither Dinah nor her sister could have known that a little more than two weeks earlier the 87th Pennsylvania Regiment, which occupied fortifications around the town of Winchester, Virginia, had been attacked by General Jubal Early. Outnumbered and low on ammunition, the 87th withdrew under cover of darkness. Fewer than five miles from Windsor, however, the retreating Pennsylvanians encountered the enemy army near the railroad tracks at Carter's Woods.
Meanwhile, Lee was headed north, and Chandler Mills, as part of the Stonewall Brigade, marched toward his home state. As the young soldier drew closer to Pennsylvania, he reminisced about his family and friends. He had not heard from anyone from Gettysburg since Fort Sumter was fired upon. He wondered if Dinah and Jarret were married and if Jarret was in the army.
Many of Chandler's fellow Confederate soldiers had friends and, in some cases, relatives wearing Yankee blue. Some even faced friends and family members across a battlefield. Chandler prayed it would never happen to him. He seriously doubted he could raise his gun to Jarret, despite his oath to fight for the Confederacy. As each mile he marched brought him closer to his boyhood home, the likelihood of his having to face his friend became greater and the harder he prayed.
"Looks like there was some recent action up ahead," a man to Chandler's right announced.
The young soldier craned his neck to see over the men marching in front. There were corpses on the road ahead—most of them Yankees.
What unknown force placed Chandler Mills at that spot on that day one can only imagine, but when he looked at the dead and dying that lined the road outside Winchester, he saw, to his astonishment, the familiar face of Jarret Wood. Private Mills ran to the fallen Yankee to ascertain if his friend was still alive. He was but just barely.
"Chandler, is it really you?" the wounded soldier asked.
"Yes. Try to hold on to me," the gray-clad young man advised, carefully lifting his injured friend. "I'm going to take you to the field hospital where you can get medical help."
There was nothing the doctor could do for the mortally injured man; however, there was something his fellow Pennsylvania native could do for him.
"I want you to take a letter to Dinah," Jarret asked.
Chandler took the envelope and placed it inside his uniform.
"We're headed north now," the Confederate soldier confided to his dying friend even though he wore the uniform of the enemy. "I'll try to get word to her."
"If you do get to see her, don't tell her what happened to me; just tell her I love her and that I miss her."
Chandler nodded his head, too choked with emotion for words.
"Maybe someday we'll meet again, old friend," Jarret said, unable to bring himself to say goodbye. "Someday all three of us may again stand on the green fields of Gettysburg."
Private Mills did not answer. He only squeezed his friend's hand, waited until Jarret's eyes closed in sleep and then returned to duty.
* * *
For the past two days, fierce fighting had raged in the fields that surrounded the little brick house on Baltimore Street. During that time, Dinah and Mary Louise had gotten somewhat used to the sound of exploding artillery and gunfire. Although they still did not leave the safety of their home, neither did they huddle together fearfully whenever the floor beneath them shook with the explosions of the cannons.
The two women went to bed on the evening of July 2, hoping normality would return the following day; but on the morning of July 3, the battle continued. Dinah went about her business, making breakfast, changing the baby's diapers and cleaning her sister's house.
"You don't have to work so hard," Mary Louise told her sibling with a grateful smile. "You're not a slave, you know."
"Hadn't you heard?" Dinah joked. "Mr. Lincoln freed the slaves."
"Sit down and relax awhile."
"I can't. I have to keep busy. It takes my mind off—things."
"Working day and night isn't going to bring Jarret home any sooner."
"I know," she said with a heavy sigh. "But it helps. If my working too much bothers you, I promise I'll relax for a bit once I have a loaf of bread in the oven."
Dinah then walked into the kitchen, took the ingredients for the bread out of the cabinets and placed them in the mixing bowl. As she stirred the batter for the dough, a stray musket ball went through the outside kitchen door and lodged in her back. The twenty-year-old girl was killed instantly. Thus, young Dinah Seward would later be remembered and honored as the only civilian casualty during the three days of fighting at Gettysburg.
* * *
Not far away at Widow Thompson's house—now General Lee's headquarters—the Confederate general was planning a direct assault on the enemy line. General George Pickett would lead his men on a charge up Little Round Top. The proposed plan would eventually prove to be a grave error on Lee's part. Pickett's division would be nearly annihilated, and the South would never recover from its defeat at Gettysburg. But as Generals Lee and Longstreet debated the advisability of the charge, several skirmishes continued to be waged around them.
On Culp's Hill, fighting that began the previous evening continued. This was a crucial battle since several Confederate officers believed that the hill was the best position from which to attack the Union's right flank. During the fierce fighting, Chandler Mills was shot and killed, ironically, on land owned by his uncle, land on which he had played with his friends as a child. Sadly, Chandler never had the chance to see Dinah or to deliver the letter to her from her dying fiancé.
Meanwhile, in a Confederate field hospital in Winchester, Virginia, Jarret Wood lingered on, unaware that Dinah and Chandler had both been killed that same morning. Finally, nine days later, on July 12, 1863, Jarret himself died from his wounds.
* * *
Today, the former battlefield at Gettysburg is a National Military Park run by the National Park Service and one of the most popular tourist sites in Pennsylvania. The town's rolling green hills are dotted with over fourteen hundred monuments and memorials honoring the brave men who fought and died there. The Soldier's National Cemetery, dedicated by President Abraham Lincoln in November 1863, is the resting place of seven thousand servicemen, half of whom were killed during the Civil War.
A popular attraction in Gettysburg is the growing number of ghost tours that take curious tourists on night-time walks around the town. In addition to the guided tours, there have been many books and several television specials about paranormal sightings in Gettysburg. As proof of these sightings, researchers offer photographs of orbs and supercharged energy hovering over the stone wall at Little Round Top or drifting among the rocks at Devil's Den.
Few people, however, have ever reported seeing the ghostly figures of three friends walking down Taneytown Road or wandering through Evergreen Cemetery where a monument marks the grave of Dinah Seward. Whether you see them with your own eyes or not, rest assured that the spirits of Dinah Seward, Jarret Wood and Chandler Mills have returned to Gettysburg and continue to share a close friendship that has survived the grave for more than one hundred and forty years.
This story was inspired by events in the lives of Mary Virginia (Jennie) Wade, Jack Skelly and Wesley Culp, three friends whose lives have become interwoven with the history of Gettysburg.
Salem makes a lot of friends—all female!
