Phoenixville woman’s role in Battle of Gettysburg

While the soldiers who fought at Gettysburg in July 1863 will be commemorated forever, there were others at that field working just as hard to help our country. Rebecca “Beckie” (Pennypacker) Price from Phoenixville was one woman who donated her time and energy to nursing soldiers and tending to the sick.

Nursing was not considered a suitable woman’s job at this time, but Price, along with many other women, raised funds and supplies for the soldiers and brought many of the supplies to hospitals near the front.

After the Battle of Gettysburg, Price and other many women arrived in Gettysburg and were told there were “no ladies there and you are needed.” These women then set about handing out food and supplies to the sick and injured and nursing the troops back to health–no matter which side of the battle they had been on. 

“Those who wore the gray were cared for with our own boys in blue as they lay side by side in the same tents,” she wrote in her letters. Going on to say except maybe “to give (the Confederates) the smallest oranges or apples.”

More of Rebecca Price’s story can be read at the Phoenixville Historical Society’s website.