HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena, as catalogued
Jennie Wade, 20, was the only civilian killed during the Battle of Gettysburg — a rifle bullet pierced two doors and struck her while she baked bread on July 3, 1863. The house preserves her bloodstained floor and the two bullet-pierced doors.
548 Baltimore Street, Gettysburg, PA 17325
Research updated September 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Admission charged for museum tours; ghost tours are separately ticketed through Ghostly Images of Gettysburg.
Access
Limited Access
1863 brick townhouse on two floors; steep staircase, period furnishings, original low doorways
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1863 · Site of the Only Civilian Death During the Battle of Gettysburg · July 3, 1863 — Jennie Wade, 20, Killed by Rifle Bullet Through Two Doors · Original Bloodstained Floorboard and Two Bullet-Pierced Doors Preserved · More Than 150 Bullets Struck the Building During the Three-Day Battle
The house at 548 Baltimore Street had been occupied by Jennie Wade's sister, Georgia McClellan, and her newborn son, when fighting spread through the southern portion of Gettysburg on July 1, 1863. Jennie Wade, 20 years old and engaged to Corporal Johnston Hastings Skelly of the 87th Pennsylvania Infantry, had come to help her sister with the new baby.
For three days the house sat in the no-man's-land between Confederate and Union lines on the Baltimore Pike. More than 150 bullets struck the building during the battle. On the morning of July 3 — the same morning that would bring Pickett's Charge — Jennie Wade was in the first-floor kitchen, kneading dough to bake bread for Union soldiers stationed nearby. A rifle bullet, fired from the direction of Confederate positions, penetrated the wooden back door, then pierced an interior door, and struck Jennie Wade in the back. She died instantly. She was the only civilian killed during the three-day battle.
Her fiancé, Corporal Johnston Skelly, had been wounded at the Battle of Carter's Woods in Virginia in mid-June and died of his wounds on July 12, 1863 — nine days after Jennie. Neither learned of the other's fate.
Jennie Wade was initially buried in the garden of her mother's house before being reinterred at Evergreen Cemetery. Her grave is still visited regularly. The house at 548 Baltimore Street was purchased and preserved as a museum; the two bullet-pierced doors and the original bloodstained floorboard are among the primary artifacts on display. Guided tours have operated at the site for decades.
Sources
The Jennie Wade House sits within the broader paranormal landscape of Gettysburg — a battlefield town where decades of ghost-tour culture have produced layered and well-documented popular accounts of reported activity. The house's specific claim rests on the clarity of the documented tragedy: a 20-year-old woman killed in a domestic space by a bullet that passed through two ordinary wooden doors.
Ghostly Images of Gettysburg, which has operated tours on the Baltimore Street route since 2003, documents EVP (electronic voice phenomenon) recordings captured near the spot where Wade fell in the first-floor kitchen. Video orbs have been reported in photographs and video taken in the same area. The apparition associated with the house is consistently described as a young woman near the kitchen, not a battlefield soldier — the specificity of the reported entity matches the documented biography rather than generic Civil War ghost convention.
The two bullet-pierced doors and the bloodstained floorboard are the physical anchors of the tour narrative. History.com's coverage of Gettysburg battlefield ghosts includes the Jennie Wade House among the documented paranormal sites in the borough, connecting the house's reported activity to the broader concentration of claimed phenomena in the area.
Visitors who encounter the house without the ghost-tour framing often report the kitchen as having a heavier atmosphere than the rest of the building — an observation that predates the current tour operation and is consistent across visitor accounts spanning multiple decades.
Notable Entities
Media Appearances
Where this legend is told
Tour the two-story 1863 brick house where Jennie Wade was killed on July 3, 1863 — the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg. The tour covers the two bullet-pierced doors through which the fatal shot passed, the original bloodstained floorboard, period furnishings, and the documented account of Wade's death. More than 150 bullets struck the house during the three-day battle.
Ghostly Images of Gettysburg has offered ghost tours on the Baltimore Street route including the Jennie Wade House since 2003. The tour documents EVP recordings and video orbs reported near the spot where Wade fell.
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This Gettysburg tour includes Jennie Wade House on its route.
This Gettysburg tour includes Jennie Wade House on its route.
This Gettysburg tour includes Jennie Wade House on its route.
This Gettysburg tour includes Jennie Wade House on its route.
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