Upon meeting Culp at the Winchester hospital, Jack wrote a letter to Jennie and gave it to Culp. Jack then asked Culp if he would hand-deliver it to Jennie if he ever got close enough to Gettysburg and was able to. Culp took the letter, put it in his pocket, and told Jack that he would do so if he could. Of course, at the time, neither Jack or Culp knew that there would be a collision at Gettysburg, exactly where Jennie and her family were living.
It was only a couple weeks after seeing Jack when Culp got back to the Gettysburg area. Even though the regiment Culp was a part of was preparing for what would become the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, Culp was able to escape for a while. He immediately snuck over to see his sisters and make sure his family was okay. During their conversation, Culp mentioned that he had a letter he needed to give to someone. However, Culp did not specify to whom or what the letter explained.
Battle of Gettysburg
Culp had told his good friend Jack, that he would hand-deliver the letter to Jennie and that is what Culp was bound and determined to do. No one is sure whether he was able to deliver the message to Jennie. What we do know that is that just days later, Culp would be in the middle of the Gettysburg Battle. The town of Gettysburg heard the first shots of the Battle of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. On July 3, Culp was around his Uncle Henry’s farm trying to fight off Confederate forces from an area known as Culp’s Hill.
While trying to secure his family’s land from the Confederate soldiers, Culp was wounded and quickly died from his wounds. No one identified Culp’s body as chances are, like so many other soldiers, he or she threw Culp’s body in a large grave made for dozens of soldiers who also died in battle on that day. Not too far from where Culp was killed, on that same day, Confederate forces made their way to where the Wade and McClellan families were staying, which was at Georgia’s house.
Jennie, her mother, and her three brothers left their family home on Breckenridge Street to go to the McClellan’s house on Baltimore Street. However, the Wades did not leave their home because they thought it would be safer from the fighting going on around them. They went to the McClellan home because they wanted to be there when Georgia gave birth to her first child, a boy named Lewis Kenneth McClellan, who was born right before the Battle of Gettysburg started. The family stayed with Georgia to help with baby Lewis.