The Youngest Veterans
by Tom Gladwell
On a cold Lincoln's birthday in February 1941, many, miles west of Gettysburg, an old man died. This passing may have gone notice, except for the folks in Billings, Montana; they considered him to be a celebrity of sorts.
The seventy-seven-year old gentleman was Lewis Kenneth McClellan, and people there about considered him to be a famous veteran; in fact at one time he was known as the "the youngest veteran of the battle of Gettysburg.'' McClellan's claim to fame happened this way:
He was the son of Joseph Lewis McClellan and Georgia Wade McClean who lived on Baltimore Street in Gettysburg. Their Lewis was born on June 26, 1863, the day Confederate troops first occupied the village and a few days prior to the famous battle.
It was in the McClellan house, that baby Lewis spent his first few days of life. This would not have been an unusual situation, except that, during his fifth, sixth, and seventh days he was surrounded by the terrible sounds of combat as the battle raged over, around and even through the brick walls of his new environment.
Since his father was a Union soldier, and was many miles away during his birth, in the days following, the care of Lewis was split between the mother Georgia and an aunt, Mary Virginia "Jenny" Wade. Jennie had made the dangerous decision to stay with her sister McClellan to aid her in running the household. The knowledge that the house stood between the Federal and Confederate fighting lines did not seem to deter Jenny or Georgia. It should have, however, because on July 3rd, a bullet possibly fired by Sharpshooter in the John Rupert Tanner office on Baltimore Street, entered the small house where it struck and killed Mary Virginia Wade.
Infant Lewis knew none of this of course, until many years later. He grew up with his history, and about 1906 move to Montana. He had been a resident of Billings for about 16 years when he died. McClellan was survived by a wife, two sons, a sister and a brother, none of whom, incidentally, resided within a thousand miles of Gettysburg.
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