{Spangler Farm}

We got the unique opportunity to visit the Spangler Farm while we were in Gettysburg.  Memorial Day weekend was the first time this farm was open to the public.  This particular farm is historically important because it was turned into a field hospital for mostly Union and a few Confederate soldiers.  It is also believed to be where Confederate General Lewis A. Armistead died from the injuries he received on the third and final day of the Battle of Gettysburg.  The little building in the foreground (the rock one) is the summer kitchen where the General was taken and where he died.  We got to see inside the barn (below) which was turned into the actual hospital and we tried to imagine the conditions for those poor men.  There were hundreds of men treated inside the building at a time.  Those that were waiting to be treated or had been seen but were waiting to go to the actual hospital, waited outside under the eaves if there was room.  If not they waited outside in the heat and the elements.

These fields were most certainly filled with injured and dying men.  The history books say that at least 1800 Union and 100 Confederate soldiers were treated at the Spangler farm during the three day battle and even after it was over.  There were only 7 surgeons stationed at the farm to take care of that many men.  The fighting was happening not a mile away, on the other side of that tree line.

One of the Spangler boys wrote his name on the rail of this wall in the barn well after the war.

  

My little history buff was asking questions left and right.  He loves himself some history!!

This is the smoke house that was there in 1863.  Everything but the tin roof is original.

 This is the field that they buried the men in that died at the field hospital.  Most of the Union soldiers that were buried there were later retrieved and reburied after family came to claim their bodies.  The soldiers that are still buried there today are Confederate.  Their families didn't have the means to travel and retrieve their bodies.  So they remain there to this day.  The goal of the Gettysburg Foundation is to put a name and a face to all those still buried here.

The kids got a real in depth lesson on battlefield medicine circa 1863.  This gentlemen had them standing in rapt attention as he went through each and every step that would be taken in the event of an amputation or a bullet wound.  He gave us survival rates depending on injuries.  It made me so happy to be living today.

It was such a neat opportunity to see the battlefield in an up close/personal way.  After leaving the Spangler farm we headed out to do a audio driving tour of the battlefields.  It took us through all three days of the battle and all over the country side.  Be prepared for a "few" pictures!!