11/01/2026
Gettysburg, July 1863. In the chaos of the fighting, the soldiers of the 11th Pennsylvania Infantry lost track of their dog. They feared she was dead. 💔
Her name was Sallie Ann Jarrett. The regiment had raised her from a puppy since 1861. The National Park Service describes her as an American Staffordshire Terrier.
Days later, the soldiers found her back on the field where they had fought, still guarding the regiment's wounded and dead. 🐾
Sallie marched with the 11th through the war, paraded twice before President Lincoln, and survived a bullet wound at Spotsylvania. She was killed at Hatcher's Run in February 1865, and soldiers under fire stopped to bury her where she fell.
When the veterans built their monument at Gettysburg, they made sure she was part of it. She is still there in bronze, keeping watch. 🇺🇸
Sources: National Park Service and Wikipedia (citing regimental histories).
📷 Sallie's statue on the 11th Pennsylvania monument. Photo: StripedDaisy, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
