“Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg 

“Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg
On the afternoon of July 1, 1863, on the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, medical officers of the XI Corps of the Army of the Potomac rode up George and Elizabeth Spangler’s lane and announced they were taking possession of the Spanglers’ farm for use as a hospital. So for the next five weeks and two days, the Spanglers and their four children lived amid a nightmare of cries, smells, blood, agony and death. Kirkwood will discuss the suffering and heroism of the doctors, nurses, wounded and dying at this hospital and reveal new information about a second hospital on the Spanglers’ farm that has long been ignored by history that hosted the wounded men of the famous Wheatfield fight.
Also, Kirkwood’s presentation will include newly found information about Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead’s time as a patient at Spangler. In addition, he reveals important information about the thousands of artillery and infantry reserves that staged for battle directly next to the hospitals on the Spanglers’ land, making Spangler in his opinion the most important farm in the Battle of Gettysburg because of its critical role in the Union victory.