Shriver House Reenactment July 2, 2011

CONFEDERATES TAKE THE SHRIVER HOUSE - TWO KILLED!

Witness the only reenactment to take place in the streets of Gettysburg!

Gettysburg, PA – Confederate sharpshooters will fire their rifles from the attic window of George and Hettie Shriver’s Baltimore Street home on Saturday, July 2, 2011, from 5 to 9 pm, just as they did 147 years ago during the Battle of Gettysburg. This time, however, visitors are invited to join the Rebels to learn “first-hand” what occurred during those three days of terror in July, 1863.

This living history reenactment provides visitors an opportunity to understand what the battle was like for one family who called Gettysburg ‘home’ in 1863. When soldiers appeared in the street in front of her home, Hettie Shriver took her two girls, Sadie (7) and Mollie (5), and her young neighbor, Tillie Pierce, to seek safety outside town only to find themselves deep within the battle lines. Her abandoned home was taken over by Confederate sharpshooters who used the attic as a sharpshooters nest. Visitors will get a chance to speak with Confederate soldiers as they prepare for battle, watch sharpshooters fire muskets from the attic at their adversaries on Cemetery Hill and, in some cases, take their last breath before meeting their maker. Doctors will perform surgery on wounded soldiers in a make-shift hospital in the summer kitchen in the cellar.

At the end of the tour cool off with a root beer in Shriver’s Saloon while younger visitors have a nurse bandage their wounds (a small spurt of blood on the bandage helps make the injury look more realistic) or make whirligigs to take along as a memento of your visit.

The Battle of Gettysburg encompassed not only the surrounding countryside but the streets of this historic town as well. This is the only reenactment to take place in the streets of Gettysburg – in the attic where it truly happened in July, 1863!

The Shrivers’ home was painstakingly restored in 1996 and is now open to the public as a heritage museum. Tours offers special insight into the lives of the people of Gettysburg and how the Civil War, and in particular the Battle of Gettysburg, affected them. The story is told through the eyes of George and Hettie Shriver whose home was merely several months old when the war began. The tour gives a glimpse into the lifestyles, customs, and furnishings of the 1860s.

For additional information on the Shriver House Museum, please call 717-337-2800 or visit www.shriverhouse.org.

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Event: Confederates Take the Shriver House! Contact: Nancie W. Gudmestad,

Address: Shriver House Museum Director

309 Baltimore Street, Gettysburg, PA 17325 Phone #: 717-337-2800

Date: Saturday, July 2, 2011 Web site: www.shriverhouse.org

Time: 5 - 9 pm Email: mail@shriverhouse.org

Admission: $10/adult; $7 children 12/under Video:

http://youtu.be/yzabTbM0G0o

A Civil War museum dedicated to the civilian experience at Gettysburg

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