No matter where you're from, and no matter whether you refer to it as The Great Unpleasantness or the War of Northern Aggression or The War Between the States or The Civil War, if you were born in the United States, you grew up knowing about the war and knowing about Gettysburg. And I did. However, in spite of having had to memorize The Gettysburg Address in grammar school, I knew precious little about Gettysburg, and what I did know was probably inaccurate. Perhaps that was because the heart-breaking aspects of that battle are of such enormity as to be beyond my comprehension, having all the characteristics of sensational fiction.
But that battle, in that rural Pennsylvania town, did, indeed, take place. And "Summer Storm in Gettysburg", by Ann Brophy, took me by the hand to that country town ten years before it became noteworthy, then later, to those three tragic days that made its name synonymous with the best and the most horrific of the Civil War. I walked its streets, saw its neighborhoods, met its families and listened to the day-to-day concerns exchanged by its townspeople. and I joined some of its children, one of them a young Jennie Wade, off on a night-time adventure that would prove to be a painful tie that bound.
Ten years hence, Gettysburg, in the oppressive heat and humidity of early July, is the hapless site of trials beyond measure for both the town and the troops. Jennie Wade and her family experience the all-too familiar sadness of neighbor against neighbor and brother fighting brother. That said, it is the coping with the ordinary under extraordinary circumstances that shows the true mettle of Jennie and her family; the birth of Jennie's sister's baby, the care of her two younger brothers as well as the handicapped child of a neighbor, the finding and preparing of food from meal to meal, and the ignoring of her own safety to extend kindness to soldiers posted nearby.
In a fierce skirmish surrounding the Wade house, Jennie is killed by a stray bullet that enters her home. She is the only civilian killed during those terrible three days.
"Summer Storm in Gettysburg" is a novel, but it is a story that is historically sound, and is bound to give you new insight on the grief behind The Gettysburg Address.

This book seems to be part of a set for younger readers, say around ten to twelve. Good for what it is but not as comprehensive as I would have liked.