On a windy but beautiful Saturday May 1st, more than two dozen members and friends of the Civil War Round Table of Eastern PA gathered in Gettysburg for two tours led by Round Table presenters.
In the morning, we met at the Spangler Farm, recently restored by the Gettysburg Foundation, to hear Ron Kirkwood, the author of “Too Much for Human Endurance: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.”
Beginning outside the beautifully restored bank barn, Kirkwood discussed why logistically the George Spangler farm was the most important farm in the Battle of Gettysburg. He vividly told the stories of the Spanglers and the surgeons, nurses, wounded and mortally wounded at the hospitals on the Spanglers’ land during and after the battle.
Leading inside, first to the ground floor, then to the upper levels, he spoke of the misery, crowded conditions, efforts by local citizens to provide relief, and he thoughts on the space where the dead might have been housed until burial.
Back outside we walked around the back of the barn, and over to the house, where the family was allowed to stay in one room while the battle raged nearby and the dead and dying were brought for surgeries or to die. He spoke of the last days of Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead’s life, which he spent at Spangler.
A wonderful beginning to a delightful day in Gettysburg.
