During the Battle of Gettysburg, fought just north of here on July 1st–3rd, 1863, some 27,000 wounded men suffered amid scenes of terrible carnage witnessed by army surgeons. After the battle, nearly 10,000 injured Union and Confederate soldiers were concentrated in a vast network of military field hospitals established by the U.S. Army of the Potomac nearby. For six to eight weeks in July and August, these field medical stations provided basic care in extreme weather while facing shortages of proper food and medicine. The Old Aaron Sheely farm held overflow patients from adjacent hospitals, several thousand Southern prisoners of war, and the headquarters of General Marsena Patrick, the Union Army’s provost marshal.
