Towards the end of the school year I was visiting with a fellow teacher when I noticed a book on her book rack. The cover was so intriguing that I had to borrow the book and take it home to read.
The book was entitled Thunder at Gettysburg, and it was written by Patricia Lee Gauch in the 1970's. Ms. Gauch went on to become a prominent and very influential editor. During her career she edited three Caldecott books: Owl Moon by Jane Yolen, illustrated by John Schoenherr, Lon Po Po by Ed Young and So You Want to Be President by Judith St. George, illustrated by David Small. She authored 39 book of her own. And although I'm sure she doesn't remember it, she rejected my manuscript for The Bent Reed, my Gettysburg novel intended for a slightly older readership, back in 2004.
Thunder at Gettysburg is a simple little chapter book written for elementary-age students who have mastered easy readers. It is tells the story of one girl's experience and is based on the memoir of Tillie Pierce, who witnessed the Battle of Gettysburg when she was a young girl. More than 20 years after the battle, she wrote her memoir, which I read as part of my research. Tillie actually shows up in a crowd scene in my book: she is named in a group of girls who went to the ladies seminary,which was a finishing school, and are waving flags during a Union parade through town. I got the description of the parade from her memoir.
It's fun to read two works based on the same primary source. When you do so, if you come across a scene or turn of phrase that is common to both, it's a safe bet that the words or the scene came from the original material. Ms. Gauch's main character is Tillie, and her book is not a work of fiction but a retelling of the biography on a very simple level. My book is a work of fiction. The McCombs family doesn't exist, although most of their neighbors did. I set the fictitious family's farm right in the thick of the action, between two real farms that took a beating with actual artillery. Almost everything that happened in The Bent Reed actually did happen, but to other, real people. One of those people was Tillie Pierce.
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