THUNDER AT GETTYSBURG

Tillie begins and ends as a Union supporter, helping to nurse and feed the wounded soldiers at the Weikert Farm. But in between, when she's caught in the crossfire of the fighting at Little Round Top and Cemetery Hill, all she knows is the trauma of danger and death (""Two more Rebs leaped over. CAK! CAK! They crumpled like puppets"") and the shock of seeing her men in blue behaving as badly as the Rebs she has come to hate. Tillie Pierce really did see the battle and wrote her own account of what went on At Gettysburg. Abandoning the tongue-in-cheek manner of This Time, Tempe Wick and Aaron and the Green Mountain Boys, Gauch transcribes Tillie's experiences into breathless, free verse drama. But the result is never heavy-handed; one can believe in Tillie, and Gammell's framed charcoal sketches combine disturbing violence with a certain emotional distance. Some might not care to get this close to the carnage (and might have to read the appended note to understand why Tillie decides she doesn't ""want to forget"") but the scenes of bloodshed are handled with restraint and a minimum of sentimentality.