Camp Letterman

Camp Letterman was one of the largest field hospitals of the Civil War, established on about 80 acres of the George Wolf farm a half mile west of this location after the Battle of Gettysburg. On July 3, 1863, as the battle ended and the armies withdrew, thousands of wounded Union and Confederate soldiers were left behind in numerous temporary field hospitals. On July 5, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, Medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, was ordered to establish a general hospital at Gettysburg for wounded men who could not be moved, and he selected the Wolf farm for its high ground, abundant spring water, and proximity to the York Road and Gettysburg Railroad. Rows of tents were erected, drainage ditches dug, cooking, supply, and sanitary facilities installed, and surgeons and nurses brought in, and the hospital soon received the first of more than 4,000 patients. On August 17, 1863, Gettysburg's newspaper reported that everything possible was being done to relieve suffering, though deaths occurred daily because of the severity of many wounds. Camp Letterman closed on November 20, 1863, the day after President Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery, and nurse Sophronia Buklin later recalled the removal of the tents and the grief of leaving a place where so many wounded men had suffered and died.

Pennsylvania · United States