Tillie Pierce (also known as Matilda Alleman) was the author of At Gettysburg, or What A Girl Saw and Heard of the Battle: A True Narrative.

Published more than a quarter of a century after the Battle of Gettysburg, the book recounted her experiences during the American Civil War.

[1] Born in Gettysburg, Adams County, Pennsylvania on March 11, 1848, Matilda Jane ("Tillie") Pierce was a daughter of Margaret A.

[7][8] As her brothers and other Union soldiers battled Confederate States south of Pennsylvania, Tillie Pierce and her parents and sister "often heard that the rebels were about to make a raid, but had always found it a false alarm."

Their calm was shattered in June 1863, however, when they received word that CSA troops had reached Chambersburg in neighboring Franklin County.

A week later, while working on literary exercises at the Young Ladies Seminary, a private finishing school for girls at 66–68 West High Street which she attended with her sister, Maggie,[9][10] she was directed by her teacher to run to her home when CSA troops appeared on the outskirts of Gettysburg.

She arrived there just as CSA infantrymen began their removal of horses, food and other supplies throughout the town in order to sustain their march before departing later that night.

Desiring to encourage them, who, as we were told, would before long be in battle, my sister started to sing the old war song "Our Union Forever.

[13] Later that night, her parents made plans to send her to what they believed would be a safer place – a farm owned by Jacob Weikert, the father of one of the family's neighbors.

The Weikert farm, she was told, was located near the foot of a rocky hill south of Gettysburg known as "Round Top."

What her parents could not have known was that, as the Battle of Gettysburg raged over the next three days, their daughter would not only be in a position to witness the intense fighting which occurred nearby, but would also be called upon to help army surgeons care for the fallen men.

"The only preparation I made for the departure," she later wrote, "was to carry my best clothes down to the cellar, so that they might be safe when I returned; never thinking of taking any along, nor how long I would stay.

Troops moving hither and thither; the smoke of the conflict arising from the fields; shells bursting in the air, together with the din, rising and falling in mighty undulations.

Those who are familiar with this battle now know what havoc and destruction were accomplished on this afternoon, on the west side of the Round Tops, at Devil's Den, Sherby's Peach Orchard and the Wheat-field.

[22]As the smoke began to clear over the surrounding countryside, Tillie Pierce remained at the Weikert farm waiting for word that it was safe enough to head home.

It was sometime around this time that she learned that one of the women she knew – Mary Virginia ("Jennie") Wade – had been killed by a stray bullet on the third day of the battle.

As he was leaving the house he could hardly express fully, his thanks and appreciation for all our kindness; and on parting kissed us all, as though he were bidding farewell to his own kith and kin.

He ran up the front porch, rang the bell, and on meeting the rest of the family, heartily shook hands, and greeted mother and sister with a kiss....

The officer of whom I have just written, was Colonel William Colvill, of the First Minnesota Regiment.During August 1863, Tillie Pierce also reportedly assisted with nursing duties at Gettysburg's Camp Letterman General Hospital.

"[27][28] On September 28, 1871, Tillie Pierce then also left the nest when she wed Horace P. Alleman (1847–1908) at the Christ Lutheran Church in Gettysburg.

[31][32][33] After their marriage, Tillie and Horace Alleman moved into the Selinsgrove mansion formerly owned by Pennsylvania Governor Simon Snyder.

Located at 121 Market Street, their home became a de facto firebreak during the Great Fire of 1874, its sturdy stonework preventing the flames devouring other parts of Selinsgrove from sweeping northward.

Afterward, the Allemans played a major role in fundraising efforts to help residents and business owners rebuild.

[36] In 1880, Tillie and Horace Alleman were documented by a federal census taker as residing in Selingsgrove with their children, Henry and Anna.

[37] This decade proved to be memorable because this was the time when Tillie (Pierce) Alleman completed her memoir, At Gettysburg, or What a Girl Saw and Heard of the Battle: A True Narrative.

She did so, she wrote, because "incidents connected with the Battle of Gettysburg, [were] daily becoming more appreciated, and believing that the recital of those occurrences [would also] awaken new interest as time [rolled] on."

[38] It was also during this decade that she was awarded the deed to the home where she grew up (an historic building located at the corner of Baltimore and Breckenridge streets in Gettysburg that would also later bear her name).

[40] On April 8, 1911, the Harrisburg Telegraph announced that "Miss Alleman [who] lives in the old stone house built by Governor Simon Snyder, Pennsylvania's war Governor of 1812," had invited the members of her Daughters of 1812 chapter to hold their meeting at her home in June, and then reported on April 22 that Tillie Alleman and her daughter, Anna, had traveled to Harrisburg in Dauphin County to visit "Mr. and Mrs. Edwin Brown.

"[41] Preceded in death, respectively, by her older sister (1867), mother (1881), father (1896), husband (1908), and older brothers William and James (1908 and 1909), Tillie (Pierce) Alleman succumbed to complications from cancer at the age of 66 on March 15, 1914, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and was laid to rest at the Trinity Lutheran Church Cemetery in Selinsgrove, Snyder County.