Around midnight of July 1, 1863, George Meade arrived in Gettysburg.
Not long afterward he rode his lines, which were arranged in the shape of an inverted fish hook. He still had no idea how the next day's battle would shape up. Not so the Confederate commander.
On the morning of July 2, Lee decided to send Longstreet on a movement to turn the Federal left. His troops would swing around the Union army and then push up the Emmitsburg Road. The problem was, Lee had no exact idea where the enemy's left was. It extended much farther south than he had thought. Eventually, the Confederates attacked the Federal III Corps and came perilously close to the main Union line on Cemetery Ridge. There was vicious fighting in the Peach Orchard and Wheatfield, two places, like Antietam's Cornfield, that earned the right of capitalization that day.
Near the Wheatfield was a farm owned by John and Mary Wentz, who lived in a modest one-and-a-half-story log cabin standing at the intersection of the Emmitsburg and (what is now) Wheatfield Roads.
The couple had two children. Susan was from John's previous marriage. Henry, their son, had been disowned by his father after he decided to enlist in the Confederate army in April, 1861. Henry had joined an artillery battery formed in Berkeley County, West Virginia. Residents of Gettysburg lived just 10 miles from the Mason-Dixon line, so it was not unusual for families to be torn apart by conflicting political loyalties.
At the time of the battle of Gettysburg, John Wentz was 73, Mary 74, and Susan 27. When fighting began on July 2, the family decided to flee while John went and hid in the cellar. His decision brought him within a few hundred yards of his son's artillery battery. It is one of the greatest ironies of the Civil War. The incident led to several, ultimately debunked, stories about Henry's supposed reunion with his father the night after Pickett's Charge. Finding his father asleep in the cellar, Henry pinned a note to his father's lapel that read, "Good-by and God bless you!" If only it were true.
Henry was eventually captured on April 6, 1865, near Farmville, Virginia. He was subsequently released after taking his oath of allegiance on June 21. By default, the Wentz homestead passed on to him after the death of his father and mother.
What I've just recounted should remind us of two things: First, falsified representations of war, including the "Wentz Myth," are unfortunately alive and well even today. Second, rifts between family members were quite common, especially for those living on the border between Pennsylvania and Maryland. Do we not see similar things happening in Christianity? The "apocryphal gospels" are a collection of non-biblical early texts that claimed to have apostolic authority but had nothing of the kind.
And as far as households being divided goes, Jesus himself had promised as much (Luke 12:49-53). The division is not created by Jesus. Division is the natural outcome of people making different decisions about whether to follow Christ or not. The cross is the great dividing event of history. The gospel can bring conflict in churches, communities, workplaces, even within the family home. This is all part of discipleship.
P.S. For more myths about the battle of Gettysburg, go here.