Matilda (Tillie) J. Pierce

Born:  March 11, 1848, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania

Died:  March 15, 1914, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Resting Place:  Trinity Lutheran Cemetery, Selinsgrove, Pennsylvania

Brief History:  Matilda (Tillie) Pierce was born in Gettysburg in 1848. She was 15 at the time of the battle, and had lived her entire life in Gettysburg, a village of 2400 persons. As June came to a close and the armies moved to a collision the aura was one of excitement as invasion rumors preceded the arrival of Jubal Early's Confederates passing through town on their way to York and Columbia. On the 30th Buford's Cavalry passed through town to take up positions on the Chambersburg Pike. Tille, her older sister and a number of other girls serenaded the Union troops with the chorus of "The Battle Cry of Freedom" repeated over and over because they didn't know the rest of the song. Her older brothers, James and William, had enlisted as privates with the Union Army in 1861 and 1862, respectively.

As her friends baked bread with her neighbor on the second day of battle, Tillie Pierce helped distribute that bread to hungry Union troops, but even that seemingly simple task was not without risk. As the smoke began to clear over the surrounding countryside, Tillie Pierce remained at the Weikert farm waiting for word that it was safe enough to head home. It was sometime around this time that she learned that one of the women she knew – Mary Virginia ("Jennie") Wade – had been killed by a stray bullet on the third day of the battle. After the Civil War ended, the Pierces were made whole again, their family reunited in Gettysburg following the honorable discharge of sons, James Shaw and William H. Pierce, but their harmony was disrupted again by the death, in 1867, of the family's oldest daughter, Maggie.