After the Battle of Gettysburg, fought just north of here on July 1st–3rd, 1863, nearly 10,000 injured Union and Confederate soldiers were concentrated in a vast network of military field hospitals established nearby by the U.S. Army of the Potomac. An army surgeon who operated on some of the 27,000 wounded recalled scenes of blood, shattered bones, mangled bodies, and the relentless sounds of suffering during weeks of exhausting work. For six to eight weeks in July and August, these field medical stations provided basic care in extreme weather while facing shortages of food and medicine. The Old Aaron Sheely farm held overflow patients from nearby hospitals, several thousand Southern prisoners of war, and the headquarters of General Marsena Patrick, the Union Army’s provost marshal.
