National Park After Dark - Medical Monstrosities: Gettysburg National Military Park

Episode Date: February 27, 2023

These days the news is saturated with stories of tragedies from all corners of the world. Because of this, it’s sometimes difficult to have an optimistic attitude about the future. It's easy to forget the leaps and bounds we have already made. Centuries of progress and advancements in science and technology feel insignificant when faced with a mountain of modern day issues. But rest assured, we have made progress, especially when we reflect back on the horrific stories that unfolded within Gettysburg National Military Park.For the latest NPAD updates, group travel details, merch and more, follow us on npadpodcast.com and our socials:Instagram: @‌nationalparkafterdarkTikTok: @‌nationalparkafterdarkSupport the show by becoming an Outsider and receive ad free listening, bonus content and more on Patreon or Apple Podcasts. Want to see our faces? Catch full episodes on our YouTube Page!Thank you to this week’s partners!Miracle Brand: Use our link and code NPAD to save over 40% and get 3 free towels. Alo Moves: Use code NPAD to get a free 30-day trial plus 50% off an annual membership. Mosh: Use our link and save 20% off plus FREE shipping on your first 6-count Trial Pack.For a full list of our sources, visit http://npadpodcast.com/episodes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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It begins innocently enough. You turn on the news or open your preferred social media app with intentions of getting caught up with current events and then bam. More often than not, that smile you had disappears. and that carefree, light attitude you had moments ago feels a little heavier. People today are often inundated with stressful and sad information. Stories of tragedies of all kinds from all corners of the world reach our eyes and ears every day.

Because of this, it's sometimes really difficult to have an optimistic attitude. How can we just forget that there isn't immense suffering happening to countless humans and animals around the world, virtually at every moment? At times like this, it's hard to think of the leaps and bounds we have made as a whole. Acknowledging the progress we have collectively made over the centuries often goes overlooked when faced with a mountain of modern day issues. But let me assure you, progress we have made, especially when it comes to medical treatments, diagnoses, and surgeries. And if you don't understand what I mean, let me go ahead and enlighten you.

Welcome to National Park After Dark. I'm so excited for this episode because the amount of atrocities that have happened in medicine over the years is really scary. And the fact that you're dedicating an entire episode to it about things that I've probably never heard of and will be absolutely horrified by. I'm so ready. The smile that has been on my face. The last couple of days while I've been researching this. And I will say that I wish I could dedicate in a whole episode to the various different types. of atrocities and practices that we have experienced in medical history.

I wish I could touch on all of them, but of course I can't. So I have definitely kind of zeroed into one kind of centralized time and location. And do you have any guess of where that is? Yeah, because you told me. Okay, yeah, that's true. I can't keep my mouth shut when it comes to things I'm excited about. Gettysburg. Gettysburg, here we are.

I guess wait, okay, hold on, we're putting the cart before the horse before we get into all of this fun stuff. We do have one piece of kind of like business stuff to get to. I sure do. And it's exciting for our Apple users, I know a lot of you guys use Spotify, but a good half of you use Apple. And for you guys, we are in the process of launching an outsider's only subscription. So the subscription is obviously only offered through Apple, but it's, It's really exciting because if you are interested in it, we are going to be offering all of our episodes ad-free, our trail-tail episodes with two bonus stories attached to them, and the bonus episode that we do every month. Yes.

And we do do this on Patreon too. Patreon is not going anywhere, but some people like to go straight to the source and do Apple, so we have that on there. Otherwise, our Apple feed will remain the same as it is. but we will now have all of our bonus content on both Patreon and Apple. Yeah. And access to ad free and all that. I know a lot of people are interested in that. So it's just an option and it's in the works.

Hopefully it's coming very soon. So keep your eye out for that. But that's it. I want to keep that business short and sweet because this episode's kind of long. Okay. And also, I will say, I posted this, I think yesterday on our close friends list on Instagram. You should probably eat before this episode or if you have like a weak stomach or you're really sensitive to like blood and gore.

Maybe skip this one. I'm trying to like put this lightly. Try and yeah, just try and get your eating out of the way first or if you're like actively eating maybe just pause this and like come back. I personally do not. I was eating while researching this. Like I was like, oh my God, tell me more. I said, I'm like shoveling cake into my face. But yeah, so some people are not faced by it and others are probably going to like have an upset stomach.

But I just I just wanted to put that warning out there just so you know at the top. But like you did say, we are visiting Gettysburg National Military Park. And this one has also been a pretty long time coming. I feel like people have been asking about this for a long time. And Gettysburg has been one in the back of our brains for so long where we're like, we know we're going here. We just don't know when. There's so much stuff going on here that we have to choose a story. So I think I can speak for everyone when I say that we are so stoked that we're finally

visiting this park. Yeah. And it's not off the table just because we've been usually like, I mean, there's a couple parks we've come to a couple of times for different stories. But generally, we try and like spread the love. This one, obviously we will be coming back to especially during spooky season because when I think of Gettysburg at the top of my mind, I think of the paranormal and like go encounters and spooky season and all that just because there are so many of those types of stories

that come out of this park because this area has seen so, so much death. And while that avenue is really tempting to go down and we probably will do it in the future, I wanted to take this episode in a completely different direction. And if you know me, which of course you do very well. And by now I'm sure a lot of other people do. I like gross things. Yes. We're aware. From being like a hair away from going to school for either forensics or funerary studies to keeping beetles in my parents' basement and feeding them roadkill. What some people think of as kind of grody and grotesque, I think of as pretty fascinating. So if you're on the same page, this episode is for you.

And if not, apologies. So anyway, we're visiting Gettysburg, not for the spirit. but for what many of them experienced before their deaths. Today, we are going to learn more about why Gettysburg is referred to as one of the bloodiest battles in American history. Gettysburg National Military Park was given National Park designation in 1895, so quite a while ago, and it was followed later by an addition to the National Register of Historic Places in 1966. Over the years, the size of this park has steadily grown as more and more sites have. have been added, but as of right now, it stands at roughly 6,000 acres.

It's located about 50 miles northwest of Baltimore. The town of Gettysburg was the site of the largest and deadliest battle of the Civil War, and the park was designated to commemorate and protect that site. There are several monuments and memorials within the park and a museum and visitor center that houses a collection consisting of over a million different artifacts, manuscripts, and works of art that document the Battle of Gettysburg, the American Civil War, and the development of the National Park itself. The park also preserves most of the Gettysburg battlefield, along with many of the battle support areas, such as buildings that were used during the

battle, like hospitals, as well as locations that were not directly used during the battle, but in the aftermath of the battle, such as the Gettysburg National Cemetery, that we will get it into a little bit later. Clearly there's a lot going on within this park, but I did want to make mention that there are so, so many locations associated with the battle that are technically not designated within the National Park itself. Instead, they are part of a larger district, the Gettysburg National Historic District, which is comprised of a ton of different historic properties, structures, and buildings, and there's actually over a thousand of those. Oh, wow, that's a lot so the district was added to the national register of historic places in march of

1975 and it actually comprises an area larger than the national park and the battlefield and everything itself so it's kind of like an extension and do you remember was it last year or the year before when we were going to go to gettysburg i feel like it was the year before yeah i think so too and we were like we were really close to going i i don't know why we were we were going to go other than the fact that i've always really wanted to go. And now I'm just like itching to get there. So maybe I'll have to make a trip back east and drag you along with me. I would be down for that. That'd be fun. You can go for spooky season. I know. I mean, Salem, we've been there. We've done that. Spooky season in Salem. It's time to bring it down south a little more. Yeah, head to Gettysburg. But I will not be

sleeping there at night if that's an option. Okay, good luck. Almost every single building in Gettysburg has a history. God, of course it does. Of course it does. Did you not just hear my spiel? I know, but I just was like, I won't be getting haunted, but I'm definitely getting haunted. You sure are definitely there. And I do want to say, I've watched a lot of different lectures by different historians on YouTube for this episode, and some of them pronounce it Gettysburg, and some pronounce it Gettysburg. And I've always grown up with the latter. If you say Gettysburg, I'm hanging up. I can't listen to it. I have never heard it called that. I just want to cover my bases, okay? I don't know if it's like the actual.

But I will not accept it for the purposes of this episode. Okay, well, perfect. Because my mouth doesn't form that pronunciation well. So anyways, moving on. This episode is brought to you by Prime. Obsession is in session. And this summer, Prime originals have everything you want. steamy romances, irresistible love stories, and the book to screen favorites you've already read twice. Off campus, L. Every year after, the love hypothesis, Sterling Point, and more. Slow burns, second chances, chemistry you can feel through the screen. Your next obsession is waiting. Watch only on Prime. Since most of us haven't seen the inside of a U.S. history classroom in quite some time, I'm going to give a very brief overview of the Civil War since it's necessary for the episode.

And by brief, I mean like really, really brief, so historians don't come after me. The American Civil War was fought between the United States of America and the Confederate States of America, which were a collection of 11 southern states that left the Union. The war was fought for multiple reasons, but began primarily as a result of the longstanding disagreement over slavery. After four years of conflict between April of 1861 to April of 1865, the United States defeated the Confederate states, which then resulted in the southern rebellion states being readmitted into the U.S. And the institution of slavery was abolished nationwide. There it is. There's your overview. Wow, that was one sentence.

It was one really run-on sentence. All right. Well, now we're all cut up to speed. So we get it? Okay. So the Battle of Gettysburg that we are going to be focusing on for this episode took place smack dab in the middle of the Civil War, July 1st through the 3rd of 1863. So three days. Bluttiest war on U.S. grounds. Three days. Bloodyest battle of the Civil War. Yes. And also, I learned, I've learned a lot. I feel like I've learned this before like decades ago, but it's all coming back to me. the bloodiest single day did not happen during Gettysburg.

That was the Battle of Antietam, which was separate. But this was the bloodiest battle overall. So not in a single day, but you'll see. It was crazy. It was crazy. Hot take. This thing that happened hundreds of years ago that everyone knows about was crazy. All right.

The Battle of Gettysburg was actually the result of an attempt by the Confederate General Robert E. Lee. and he was launching an invasion of the north to gather some fresh supplies and hopefully relieve some pressure off of the Confederate Army at a different location because they were feeling a lot of stress from the Union soldiers at a station in Vicksburg, Mississippi. So his invasion of Gettysburg was kind of twofold. He wanted new supplies and he wanted to draw some attention away from an overwhelming situation in Mississippi. So the invasion came to a head in the small town of Gettysburg and why,

Confederate forces were able to gather some supplies. They were kind of successful on that front. They were defeated by the Union General George Mead in the battle. And the day after the conclusion of that battle on July 4th, the garrison at Vicksburg that they were worried about and were like, oh, hopefully we can draw some attention away from this. That station fell to the union. So he kind of lost on both fronts.

And because of this double union victory, many historians mark this double win as a turning point. in the Civil War. So that's why Gettysburg is kind of a big deal, not only because there was a lot of fatalities, but also because of this double victory. Because it was the beginning of winning the Civil War. Yeah, it was a definite turning point.

And while this battle was considered a win on those fronts, there were so, so many losses. Union surgeon Justin Dwindle said of Gettysburg, quote, probably at no other place on this continent was there ever congregated such a vast amount of human suffering. In the three days of the battle, 10,000 were killed, or mortally wounded,

nearly 30,000 were wounded, and almost 10,000 were captured or were missing, resulting in the largest battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere. While nearly 10,000 people perished during, or as a result of this three-day battle in Gettysburg, during the four years of the Civil War as a whole, over 720,000 Americans. died. That's insane. And a lot of this may be relatively familiar with those statistics. Like I said,

we learned about this. It was kind of drilled into our heads in high school or middle school. I think it was high school that I learned about this. It was a combination. We learned about the Civil War, like, throughout different stages of school, I feel like. Yeah, they started us like light in middle school, like very surface level. It's like the PG version. And then they started telling them the truth a little bit more as we got older. Exactly. Yeah. But I think a lot of that information kind of ends in our brains as just that, as statistics and numbers. So I'm going to take us a little bit beyond that and get into the logistics part of the Battle of Gettysburg. With so many dead and dying, that in turn means a lot of devastation left in the wake of battle.

So that's what we're going to talk about. We're going to look at what that wake actually looked like. All right. Let's do it. Gross me out. I you've never said anything more lovely to me. I mentioned there were a lot of properties and structures and things that were not within the National Park boundaries, but were essential to the Battle of Gettysburg and part of the National Historic District.

And this property that we're going to be discussing is one of them. Author Ronald Kirkwood, who penned the book, Too Much for Human Endurance, the George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg argues that this location was the most important farm in the army of the Potomac's victory at Gettysburg. So not to brag or anything, but like, this place is kind of a really big deal. At the time of the battle, George and Elizabeth Spangler were living on their 166 acre property along with their four children who were aged 14 to 21. The couple bought 80 acres back in 1848, but by the time the battle came through, their land was thriving as a successful farming operation. They worked really hard to expand their property, which was first settled and

built upon in the 1700s, so they weren't the first owners. And it was utilized for crop growing, livestock raising, and wood harvesting. It had a barn, a house, a smoke house, a summer kitchen, and more. And do you know what a summer kitchen is, by the way? Just total side note. Is it like an outdoor kitchen? Yeah, it's like a total separate building that was used as a kitchen because their house didn't have one. That was, I stayed at an Airbnb in Costa Rica. And it was like that the house was separate. Like you had your bedrooms and bathrooms and stuff were in one section. And there was an overhang and you would walk to the kitchen and it was all outdoors. But it was a whole separated entity from your actual living space.

Yeah, that's cool. Well, in this case, the summer kitchen was in a lot of like colonial old style homes. Obviously, you had your main house. You had an outhouse because there wasn't indoor plumbing. And then there was a summer kitchen because a lot of times, especially in the south, it gets so hot that you didn't want to cook within your house and make it hotter. So there was outdoor kitchens. Anyways, so this farm, this property had a lot going on.

Many families, especially those who relied on farming as their livelihood struggled during the war, but the Spanglers were doing actually quite well. But on July 1st, that all kind of took a turn when the war arrived right on their front doorstep. The location of their farm was smack dab in the middle of all of the action. It dominated the landscape directly behind and in the... middle of the union line with multiple roads leading right to the battlefront. This meant that the farm's location was perfect for storing infantry and artillery, plus the farm itself provided

provisions for the military. So on the afternoon of July 1st, 1863, the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg, the 11th Corps medical staff rode up to the Spangler family's front door and informed them that they needed to leave, and that their entire property, including their home and barn, would be commandeered for military purposes. Imagine. Especially you have a farm and your whole life there. If you have any farm animals, like just someone knocking on your door and being like, hey, this is ours now. Don't know where you're going to go or why, but we're about to wreak havoc and murder a bunch of people in your front lawn and your house looks like a great resting place. Essentially, that's what happened to not only the Spanglers, but for hundreds of families in Gettysburg. Almost everybody had.

their home property, whatever used in some way. I mean, this is kind of an extreme and we'll get into it. But I mean, I have this book. I mean, I was going to recommend it towards the end. But I have to show you physically. So it's called bullets and bandages, the aid stations and field hospitals at Gettysburg. It has like a brief introduction, but literally the whole entire book is just different properties and their locations throughout Gettysburg and what they were commandeered for. That's interesting. Hundreds of them. That's really cool.

And it's just like, oh, it's like this couple's house and whatever. Sike. Newlyweds just moved into their brand new home. And it's like, psych this happened. To be fair, to be fair on this, if I was living in one of those homes and there was a major battle happening outside, I probably wouldn't have stuck around anyway. Yeah, but where are you going to go? You know what I mean?

I mean, if there's cannons going off and people stampede. and dying and bleeding in your lawn. I'm like, I don't know where I would go, but maybe go to the beach and sleep on the beach for a few days or something. I don't know. It was risky being there, and that's a whole other thing. I mean, there's a house that I didn't even get into during the episode. Obviously, I came across it on my research, but I think her name was Jenny Wade. But her house is part of the National Historic District, and she was, I think, the only civilian shot and killed. She was in her house and a stray ball. It came through the siding of her house and killed her. She was like 20-something years old and the bullet hole is still in the house you can go see it stay there

whatever anyway we're getting sidetracked already and you'll say like this is the house i booked for us to stay in well i can i don't want to tell you too much about that because that's a surprise i already have a whole itinerary oh no anyways back to commandeering the act of appropriation by the military or police whereby they take possession of the property of a member of the public which is commandeering was prolific during this time, kind of like we just went on a rant about. The Battle of Gettysburg unfolded so quickly with such little time to prepare that there was a massive need for resources. So seizure of private homes, churches, hotels, schoolhouses, colleges, pretty much anything you can think of for military purposes was very common throughout

the entirety of the Civil War, not just here in Gettysburg, but pretty much anywhere the battle was running through. And it was done for a variety of reasons, whether it be storage of infantry and supplies, shelter, sharpshooter nests. Sometimes someone was like, oh, your house has a great view of, like, the enemy lines. I'm coming up here and using your bedroom to shoot people out of. Like, very common. It's like, your house is great for snipers. Like, can you leave? Like, oh, yeah, I built that in the design, actually. And thank you for noticing. Yeah, exactly. Well, the spanglers were informed of this seizure, like we mentioned. They're like, okay.

And typically, the owners of the property were basically told to get lost while the military was using their property and utilizing their resources. And it's unclear what happened, like whether they begged to stay, bartered with them, offered them services, or if they just felt bad for them, I have no idea. But essentially, the Spangler family persuaded the military to let them stay. So they did. So the army allowed it, but under the condition that the family,

all six of them. So the mother, father, and the four children who are 14 to early 20s, were to stay in one room of the house. Okay. How big is this room? Not large. Not large. Definitely probably, I would say probably like the standard. I looked up, you can look up the house and the property and everything. And the house right now, if you look on Google, is actually the updated version. So it's extended a little bit. So it's even smaller than what it was when they were there. And the other thing is like there's no bathroom. Obviously there's an outhouse. So there's probably like chamber pots being used because you're about to see this isn't like, oh, we're just going to take over your house and you can like sneak by us and like go do all your business. Like they were kind of just like sequestered up there.

Yeah. It's not like you can be like, hey, I'm just going to get some fresh air. I know there's a battle outside, but I'm just going to take a little jaunt to the outhouse. Yeah. They're essentially like, you can stay here, but you need to stay out of sight. Yeah. Like we don't want. want to know you're here. Within hours, their property was overtaken by thousands of soldiers, hundreds of horses, wagons, cannons, and weaponry. Intiminating. It's going to get worse. While the size of their property was ideal for storage of infantry and their weaponry, it was the large barn that was most needed. Thousands of wounded men were pouring in from the line with unimaginable injuries and they needed medical attention. The Spangler Barn suddenly became

a pop-up hospital. So you may be thinking, 1800s, hospital, barn, war, summer doesn't sound like the picture of cleanliness or cutting age medical advancements or treatment, and you would be correct. At the time of the Civil War, there were about 60 medical schools throughout the entire United States where students were instructed for only two six-month terms, followed by a brief apprenticeship with a local practicing physician. So it was kind of like a, here's a quick and dirty rundown of everything. There were no, like, there were little to no specialties either. Like, you weren't a podiatrist or a heart surgeon or a GP or whatever. Like, you just kind of learned it all in one year. You learned a little bit about everything. In one year. And then they were like,

okay, you can go shadow a local practicing physician. And then after that, it was kind of like, all right, and be free. So the problem. with this is a lot of physicians and surgeons were not familiar with war injuries. Like they're practicing family medicine in the middle of Ohio somewhere and then suddenly people are being blown to bits and your services are needed. Like you're usually fixing a broken bone or appendicitis or something. I don't know if appendicitis if they had, I don't know when they had the fix for that, but you know what I'm trying to get at. Small things, yeah. So, Each regiment typically had one surgeon with one or two assistant surgeons, followed by nurses,

some of which were properly trained, and others were just volunteers to assist the nursing staff when the demand increased. And then followed by them were stewards who were generally just soldiers who had the responsibility of dispensing drugs, obtaining different samples, and preparing food for the wounded. At the Spangler Farm, the barn was hastily converted into a makeshift hospital. It would be helpful to look up a picture of it so you can kind of get more of a visual because it's going to come into play later. But the barn is large and it's technically called a Pennsylvania bank barn for all of our architects out there. The way it was constructed is actually really important to envision for the details of this story. So if you want to pause and look it up, here's your chance.

You'll see it's a big red building and it has a smaller stone foundation. It's a pretty property. It's very pretty. Yeah. Yeah, I see it. So the barn has a stone foundation, which serves as kind of the first floor, while there's a larger wooden top floor that creates a seven foot overhang over that stone first floor foundation, and that overhang is called an overshoot or a forebay. And it's cool because the style of it

allows for accessibility at ground level no matter what level you're on. So at the front, you can just walk straight up into and enter. And then around the back, the ground is usually raised up, or the barn is built into the side of a hill so it naturally kind of goes up into this big bay that allows you to just walk right in and you're technically on the second floor. Depending on the severity of the wounds that the soldiers were presenting with or how dire their condition was, soldiers were either ushered into the barn on the ground level or to the top floor. So the top floor was used as kind of like a waiting room. It was here that up to 500 soldiers were sardined into the space. If there was place to stand, sit or crouch or lay down, it was fully occupied. There were no beds, no hospital

clothing, nada. And just because you were sent to the quote unquote waiting room top floor, it didn't exactly mean your wounds weren't severe like you had a paper cut. It meant that your intestines weren't actively falling out or you didn't have a significant chest or head wound. So this meant you could literally be holding your arm on as it's dangling by a thread and then be shoulder to shoulder with someone who has gaping wounds from an artillery blast. Like, this is horrific. The infections are starting. Here they are. They're brewing. The floorboards, which are still in the barn today, were not flush against one another either, which left large gaps between them. This allowed for blood that was pooling and pouring from

the soldiers to pour down upon the soldiers downstairs. Those men that were located on the lower level were brought there if they were in worse condition and needed immediate medical attention. And by medical attention, I'm talking primarily amputations. It's estimated that three out of every four surgeries at this time required an amputation of some kind, which led to surgeons of the time being referred to as butchers. And I know I've recommended this before. I really have no idea when, but I know for a fact I've recommended it because the book is on our bookshelf on our website. I'm like, when the hell did I talk about this before? But I have a personal favorite book.

I haven't used for any research for any episodes. It's just a personal fave. It's called The Butchering Art, and it's by Lindsay Fitzherris. And it's a really awesome book if you're interested in Victorian medicine practices. But anyway, amputations were common during the Civil War. With no antibiotics, little else could be done when a soldier was hit in the limb or in a digit, so finger or toe, by a gunshot or a blast. or if they suffered a compound fracture, and for non-medical people, compound fractures are when your bones are broken and protruding out of your skin. So because they didn't have any biotics or anything, they were just cutting people's limbs off.

They're like, get it out of there. Yeah, I mean, I guess if an infection goes to your heart, you're dead anyway. But wow. Yeah, because in most cases, amputation was resorted to because if the affected limb wasn't removed, the risk of infection was just too severe. Yeah. And it would develop so quickly and so severely that the. Within like one to two days, people usually died. That leads me to wonder how sterile their surgeries are, though, and if they're going to die anyway.

Oh, honey, I'm so glad you asked. We're getting into that. The answer is not sterile. They're in a barn with a bunch of people right next to each other. I just can't picture a sterile environment here. Nope. And then going back a little bit about the infections. Contagious diseases were also a huge thing.

Typhoid, dysentery, and pneumonia, as well as gangrene, which, now isn't commonly thought of as infectious. When you think of infectious disease, you don't really think of gangrene. But it's passed through contact. So if you're standing there with an open infected gangrenous wound and you're shoved up against somebody that also has an open wound, you can pass that along. Yeah. So these are all huge obstacles to combat. According to a paper I read, it was a 1993 paper called infectious diseases during the Civil War, the triumph of the third quote, unsound hygiene, dietary deficiencies, and battle wounds set the stage for epidemic infection, while inadequate information about disease causation greatly hampered disease prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Altogether, two-thirds of the approximately 660,000 deaths of soldiers in the Civil War were caused by uncontrolled infectious diseases. So in short, more people died of disease than actual combat during this war. Soldiers were packed into small spaces, open wounds were pressed up against one another, doctors weren't washing their hands between patients or operations. So you can just imagine how out of control the battle against disease was. And were they wearing gloves? No. Sorry, that is outlandish. I'm sorry, I asked. I mean, I can't say with 100% confidence that no doctor, out of all the doctors in the Civil War, weren't wearing gloves.

but I would venture to guess the answer is no. Lovely. At the Spangler Barn, now converted to Field Hospital, amputations were done under that overhang of the barn. So if you're looking at a picture and you see that overhang, it's right there where all these amputations were being performed. Just going to say, if it hasn't been graphic yet, I'm not sure. It's about to get, in my mind, what graphic is, just for a warning.

Wow. Tell us. Between four operating tables, aka a plank, often a slugnant, slab of wood or a door that was balanced on two saw horses. That's where all these amputations were being performed. The operations were typically performed by three people, the operator or the surgeon, someone to administer the chloroform by holding a rag over the patient's mouth and nose long enough to hopefully knock them out successfully. It wasn't an exact science if you haven't already noticed. And then the third person was usually someone to physically hold the person down.

Because they were awake. Either because they were awake. They were scared. They were uncomfortable. Like, there was a lot of factors going into it. And amputations were done generally in the following way. I'm ready. Let's dive down this.

Okay. The patient would be given laudanum first, which was a mixture of opium powder and alcohol. It was actually a really prevalent medication that was given not just in Civil War medicine, but like for everything. Like, your baby's crying. Here's some law. You're experiencing female hysterics. Here's some laudanum. Your period.

Give it willy-nilly to people. And I kind of equate it to like a pre-med in our world. So it's not the inhalant anesthetic. It's not siva fluorine or anything. It's the pre-med to kind of zen the patient out first. And then the chloroform was the anesthetic. Great. Things are going well so far.

Continue. Well, if that wasn't available, if the laudanum wasn't available, they would kind of just give you some brandy and be like, hopefully this takes the edge off. Next, the doctor would probe your wound with their fingers. I didn't see anything about gloves here to remove either splinters of bone, bone fragments, bullets, or pieces of clothing that were in the wound itself. Next, anesthesia, using huge air quotes here, anesthesia would be administered. Like I mentioned before, the chloroform was placed either on a rag or a sponge and it was placed over the

patient's nose and mouth until they were hopefully knocked out. The surgeon would stand with their back against the barn. They would utilize a smaller knife first that would be used to cut through the skin layers and muscle tissue down to whatever bone it was, whether it be an arm bone, so your humorous, radius, or ulna, or your leg bones, your femur, tibia, fibula, ptella, etc. Whatever it is that needs to go. From there, a bone saw or a hack saw was used to cut through the bone. If a skilled surgeon was operating, this could be done in as little as two to three swipes. If he wasn't experienced, I'm sorry, I don't know. It was a little more intense.

Took a little longer. Once the limb was removed, it would then be thrown onto a nearby pile of other discarded limbs. Arteries and veins were tied off with cotton thread or horsehair to help control bleeding. And the bone on occasion, if the surgeon remembered, had time. was skilled enough. That bone would be kind of smoothed down around the edges before the wound was covered with a flap of skin that they had previously cut. But if not, then you just have this jagged end of bone in this new stump now. After that, a rag would be placed over that stump with a coat of icing glass, which is a gelatinous material made of fish bladders. Of course. Then,

to just top this whole shabang off, the patient would be placed outside to recover later days. Hope you make it. Just outside? Like, yeah, in the field. Well, you're already being, you're already outside. You're already outside. You're just under a little overhang of a barn. So you're already outdoors.

But now, imagine it, your arm is falling off. Okay, you need an amputation. You're thrown onto a wooden board. You get knocked out by having chloroform over your face. A surgeon does this in like 10 to 15 minutes and you wake up sitting in a field with like dozens of other recovering soldiers. Like talk about a whirlwind. Yeah. Sometimes. Okay. Sorry, this gets a little. I forgot about this part. Sometimes streams of thick, white, yellow, or brown, purulent material known as allotable pus would pour from the wounds where an open spot for drainage would be left.

Due to the limited knowledge of infection at the time, many doctors believe. that this was actually a good sign and that it was needed for the healing process. Remember how I said progress has been made. Okay. Yeah. Progress has been made. It's funny because now they have the drain. They put the drainage tubes in your wounds.

Like you get a small drainage tube and it drains your extra fluid and any blood buildup and things like that. But it's closed off. Which is normal. incision. They suture a tube together around your skin so it's airtight clothes, does not get infected, hopefully. Hopefully. Yeah, and this loudness is not that material that we're talking about. That's normal, like normal drainage during a healing process. The chance of survival decreased the higher up the amputation took place. From around 3% mortality rate for those with like finger amputations,

up to 83% for those amputations done at the hip. And there was an estimated 70 to 80,000 amputations performed over the course of the Civil War. Wow. And 83% of people who had their legs by the hip removed died. Yes. Not good numbers, doctors. Not good numbers. No, it's not looking good.

Skilled surgeons, like I said, could perform amputations between 5 to 15 minutes, depending on which limb or what area they were amputating. And once complete, they would immediately move on to the next patient. So this meant there was no washing of hands or instruments at the operating table. Oh, that was never. No. That's just wood? You're just being thrown onto a bunch of dried blood.

Yeah. That was not even. Hopefully dried blood. No, it was literally, it was so, do you know what it kind of reminds me of, which is like not even close to being equivalent? but high volume spay and neuter clinics where literally like for people who aren't familiar, a lot of low-cost spay and neuter clinics are high volume, meaning that like there's a team of assistants and techs that literally prep like 10,

say there's 10 cat spays, female cat spas to be done. They prep them. They take the time to prep them. They're literally like on the table ready for the doctor. And the doctor literally will do a spay, change, get new instruments, do another spay. It's like boom, boom, boom. Like it's really fast. And skilled veterinarians can do that in the course of like an hour.

But it's like it reminds me of that only with like none of the support, sanitation, sterilization. There's nothing. They're literally using the same table. They're using the same instruments. If they're lucky, they'll have like a bucket of water next to them that they'll just like rinse it off between patients. This is like insane. You're like, I'm going to let it go. I'm just very thankful that I was not alive during this time.

Yeah, maybe in a past. life. But this one, you're safe. So I do have a couple of quotes, just two quotes from a surgeon and a soldier who worked at Spangler Farm and the other one who was treated at Spangler Farm. So the first one was from Dr. Daniel Brinton and he said, the wounded began to pour in, giving us such significant occupation that from the 1st of July till the afternoon of the 5th, I was not absent from the hospital more than once and only then, only for an act. hour or two. Four operating tables were going day and night. Many of them were hurt in the most shocking manner by shells. My experience at Chancellorville was nothing compared to this, and I never wish to

see it another night. For myself, I think I was never more exhausted. And then from one of the soldiers, he was actually 19 years old. His name was private William Sutherton. And he said, at the doorway, I saw a huge stack of amputated arms and legs, a stack as high as as my head. It was the most horrible thing I ever saw in my life, and I wish I had never seen it. So these piles of amputated limbs were removed only once the pile got overwhelmingly large, like I guess over the head of a 19-year-old boy, and were taken to be buried at a location elsewhere on the property. Being in the middle of the summer, the number of surgeries, wounds, and infection attracted lots of flies, which in turn resulted into not only endless

harassment by them to everyone in the area, but also maggots being formed in open wounds and fresh amputated stumps. Hey, maggots eat like dead skin and infection and stuff. They specifically don't like good tissue, so I mean, so that's like a plus. Maybe that was a good thing. Maybe that's like a saving grace. Perfect. At least the maggots are there. And this seems gruesome because it was, But this actually occurred after some other pretty horrific medicinal practices by today's standards that were done during previous wars and even earlier in that war in the Civil War. So mainly the Revolutionary War, for example, anesthetics. Who is what's that? Yeah. Also in 1862, roughly a year before what was unfolding here at the Spangler Farm, Dr. Jonathan Letterman came onto the scene.

And he was a big saving grace. Dr. Letterman was hired as the medical director for the Union Army in June of 1862, and he immediately instituted several improvements to the way that the Union Army operated regarding medical care for their soldiers. He's like, what is happening here? We need to get this back on track. So to start, the most basic of things, he ordered the soldiers to bathe at least once a week. So that's the first thing. And then he increased it to two times a week.

He also reduced the drills that were instituted by officers to decrease exhaustion. He instituted more fresh fruit and vegetables into the soldier's diets. And he had a latrine trench dug and put triage at the forefront of treatment both out in the field and in the hospital environment. So the latrine thing, it's like, yeah, you obviously want to like take care of business separated, but that was not a thing before anybody would just go anywhere. For those unfamiliar with the term, triage is the preliminary assessment of patients or sometimes of casualties in order to determine the urgency of their need for treatment and the nature of the treatment required. So people in the medical field, no triage right away. It's like a patient comes in, you do a once over. It's like, what do you have going on?

How serious is this, et cetera? And then your treatment is determined from there. So they weren't doing that back before Letterman kind of stepped up. So that was obviously a huge problem. It was here in the Civil War where it was the first time it was actually put into practice in United States history, which is just crazy to think about. And I'm sure, like, obviously there were times during wars that people used common sense. Like, okay, your hand is blown up, but this other person has an abdominal wound, like the person with the abdominal wound. needs care now and you can wait. You know what I mean? But it was like the first time it was on paper

instituted after this guy. That you had to react this way. Yes, exactly. And at this time, even though triage was implemented, it was done a little bit differently. No. You don't say. If you had a significant head, abdominal, or chest wound that was considered mortal, meaning that you would likely just die either way, whether or not someone intervened. If you're lucky, you'd be given morphine for pain and just set off to the side to just die alone. Or maybe recover on your own. Who knows? If the odds were in your favor and you recovered, great.

But no one's helping. No one's helping. Or if you had a less significant wound, like maybe your hand was just partially injured or you were missing a finger or two, you'd be set off to the side to be dealt with. at a later time or maybe even just sent right back into your regiment. Like, you can do it. Slap on the butt. Get on back in there. There's a bandaid. You're good. You can handle it. But if you hit that sweet spot in the middle, if your injury was severe, but they thought that they could save you with an amputation or something similar, you'd be prioritized and take into the hospital first. And then from there, you would be sorted kind of like we went over earlier with the

two floors at the Spangler Farm. But the glaring problem with this. system was that there was a lack of properly trained physicians that we kind of talked about earlier too. Yeah, you did mention that now that you say that. Yeah, many of the physicians at Gettysburg had never seen a gunshot wound, let alone were trained enough to determine who needed what type of care and how urgently. There's an example of this, and I had to pull it because it's just like totally exemplifies what I'm talking about. And this comes from a different book. It's called bullets and bandages, the aid stations and field hospitals at Gettysburg. And I, used that a lot for this episode. Wait, did I already talk about it? Yeah, you talked about it at the beginning.

Oh yeah, remember? I was like, I'm going to talk about it later, but I'm jumping to it. Okay. In this book, a man named John Chase was wounded, severely wounded, actually. So a case shot prematurely exploded when he was loading a cannon. And he was totally just like obliterated. He got injured, like the specific injuries in total numbered over 40 different wounds all over his body. His right arm was completely obliterated and his right eye was totally blown out just to give a couple examples. So he was taken to a nearby triage set up at a farm, not the Spangler farm, a different pupap hospital. And he wasn't expected to survive. So he was set outside of the barn in the open with no protection to kind of just like die on his own. After it was discovered a whole three days later

that he was still alive, he was given minimal treatment and moved inside. Like, oh shit, he's still alive. He's probably not going to make it much longer. We'll bring him inside at least. But he still wasn't expected to recover. So they just kind of kept him there for several more days until they were like, oh my God, he's still alive. I guess we should bring him into the house. So they brought him now into the house.

And he was still not expected to live. So he just sat there without treatment for several more days until finally someone somehow paid attention to his condition, realized he was still alive despite his traumatic injuries. and he was transported to a sanitarium for actual treatment, and he ended up living. But it's like that's a perfect example of like untrained. They had no idea what they were looking at and no idea that these weren't fatal wounds. Right. Like they were completely treatable.

And this guy just suffered for however many days being not treated. Weeks. Yeah. Letterman also introduced a plan for trained attendants to work the horse-drawn wagon ambulances and actually dispatched them during battles while men were actively being wounded. Instead of just whoever could man the wagons go out there. And before, they weren't being actively dispatched as people were actively being wounded. They would only be sent out hours or even days after a battle ended.

So, like, if you were lucky enough to survive the battle, but you were unlucky enough to be significantly wounded and still alive, you may have to wait days for anyone to come. So he changed that, thankfully. So back to the Spangler Farm. On July 3rd, the farm came under fire from artillery associated with Pickett's Charge that was happening nearby. Because remember, this property is located just beyond this like stand of trees that was pretty much the only thing separating that property from the front lines where all the action was happening. Shells were exploding as close to 20 feet from the entrance of the barn where all of these wounded men were being treated.

where a lot of them were just set out, like just set outside to recover. And they had, they couldn't do anything. Like, if you're a leg amputee, you can't do anything. You can't run away. So a lot of them just had to kind of just sit there and hope that they didn't get hit. And luckily, none of them did in that particular attack, crossfire, whatever you want to call it. But a lot of horses weren't so lucky. There was a lot of horses that died during that.

July 4th and 5th were the busiest days not only for the Spangler Farm, but other hospitals in the area as well. On July 4th, the Confederate Army started retreating. Remember, the Gettysburg battle was the first through the third. So on the 4th, they're starting to retreat. And it was only at this time that the union men that were trapped behind Confederate lines could be rescued by those ambulance wagons. Because at that time, they weren't allowed to scour the area in search for the dead or dying because the generals, the Union generals, meet in Hancock, banned hospital wagons to keep the roads clear to get troops. moving faster. So they're like, all right, well, we need to prioritize and the dead and dying can receive help after this is all said and done. This banning of hospital wagons also meant

that after surgeries, most of the men were sent outside into the open fields to be exposed to the mercy of weather and insects. And while nurses and support staff did all that they could to attend to the recovering soldiers on the fourth, the area experienced really bad weather. There was tons of thunderstorms, torrential downpours. So this giant field that they were sitting out in that was already being overrun with days worth of thousands of soldiers and wagons and ruts being created in the ground, started filling up with all this water. And there's also thousands of horses.

So there's this muddy, manure mixed conglomeration of stuff that they literally just had to sit and wait in because there's nowhere else for them to go. With their open amputee hole. for the drainage. Literally, yeah. Yes, yes. I know. I will mention, though, that shortly after this, so the night of the fourth and into the fifth and onwards, tents and supplies started arriving to the area after that ban of the no ambulance wagon

situation was lifted. And the most famous of the tent camps was probably Camp Letterman, obviously named after Dr. Letterman. It was constructed at a different area on a different farm. And it was constructed on the 10th of 10th of 10th. July, so it took some time, but it was absolutely massive. It was complete with a dead house, embalming tent, cemetery, cookhouse, warehouse tents, and hundreds and hundreds of hospital tents. So that's how great of a need there was for these wounded soldiers. Well, with your statistics at the beginning of this episode, I imagine. Yeah. At this time, the number of patients, specifically at Spangler

farm, peaked at about 1,900 men. And in total, in all of Gettysburg, there was roughly 21,000 men at field hospitals during this time. It's just so hard to imagine. Like in three days. In three days. This is like the devastation, yeah. And the influx of patients would have already been a problem either way. But there was also the additional fact that the majority of the Union Army surgeons, nurses, stewards, and ambulance personnel were leaving with the rest of the Army. They were moving on. So that left this huge surge of patients and so little surgeons and doctors and support staff. There was only about 100 surgeons left in Gettysburg, to be exact. For 21,000 people.

All of those people. Holy, holy. And it didn't matter if you were from the union or confederate side. You were treated at field hospitals. I think that, like, that's a valid question to ask. I was actually thinking that earlier. Okay, so they didn't care what side of the battle you were on. Yeah, there was sometimes that they would.

maybe separate you after the fact, like after you received your medical treatment or before, you weren't mixed. So you guys were, so there were like guys who were just shooting each other, they shot each other and now they're standing wound to wound bump and uglies in the. Yeah, like, oh, what's up? Yeah. So, but they were treated, uh, equally as far as medically wise, but afterwards, they were like, all right, you can go stand over there away from us. You can't sit with us. I'm sure tensions were high considering what the war was about. And then you're all sitting there in the hospital sick. Well, and you don't know if that person just shot your friend.

Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I think that's the- And you're actively killing these people and now you're standing next to one. I mean, right. Or whatever side you're on, I imagine that it's going to be. Yeah, and obviously I'm just using this example kind of centered on the union side just because of the location. But, I mean, this was the case all over the place, no matter where you were.

And there's an example of this at the Spangler Farm. Brigadier General Lewis Armstead, who was a really well-renowned Confederate leader, was treated at the Spangler Farm, which was union run. And although he eventually died from his wounds, he was one of the five known Confederates to be buried at the Spangler Farm. But there was about 50 or so Confederates that were treated during that time there as well. To help with this huge influx of patients and decrease of hospital personnel, nearly 100 civilian volunteer doctors and nurses, stepped up. They worked around the clock to do everything they could for the wounded. Nurses in particular, so often the unsung heroes, did the most compassionate work in my eyes. Not only did they medically tend to soldiers, they tended to their spirits. They often would write letters home to the families

of the wounded, dying, or dead soldiers on their behalf. They read to them or saying to them. They'd asked them about their lives back home, trying to get their attention off of the atrocities and the pain that they were experiencing or they would talk to them about their own lives if they weren't willing to share anything about themselves. And they would hold their hands while they took their last breaths. So they did a lot for the soldiers. There was one man. His name was Captain Augustus Vignos. And he was shot in the arm and needed his arm amputated from the elbow down. And the nurse who cared for him was a nurse that was really well known. Her name was Rebecca Lane Penny Packer price. And she had actually hopped aboard a cattle car on a train when she heard that there was a need

for additional support. In the middle of the night, she just didn't question it, got on the train, went and offered her support, totally unpaid. Brave. Very brave. And Augustus was one of the patients that she tended for. And he ended up surviving his wounds. He went on to marry, have nine kids, and was a successful business owner, all thanks to Rebecca's work. I mean, a lot of these things also, like there is a lot of cases I read about about people who had amputations, survived the surgery, and then just ended up dying a couple days later because they didn't have medical support. But in Augustus's case, Rebecca was like on it and he attributes his survival to her. So because of that, he carried her picture with him for the next four decades of his life.

And any time he ran into a veteran of the Civil War, he would be like, do you know the woman trying to track her down and he was unsuccessful until 43 years later he received a letter from her she had somehow found him tracked him down and they ended up being reunited and he got to thank her in person for saving his life wow that's so nice and while the vast majority of men to die at spangler field hospital no matter what age it's sad of course but a lot of the men were teenagers or in their early 20s. For those who were not so lucky and did not survive, recovery efforts began almost immediately following the battle. While relief for the wounded began to come in, the dead were collected by groups of men called burial parties. As it was July in the middle of the

summer, the task was particularly difficult but necessary. An unnamed soldier from New Jersey was quoted in that bullets and bandages book that I described what these parties were encountering. Quote, burial parties were sent out, the scene of carnage, a scene never to be forgotten. Upon the fields like sheaves bound by the Reaper in crevices of the rocks, behind fences, trees and buildings, in thickets, where they had crept for safety only to die in agony, by stream or wall or hedge, wherever the battle had raged or their walking steps could carry them, lay the dead. Some, with faces bloated and blackened beyond recognition, lay with glassy eyes staring up at the blazing sun. Others, with faces downwards and clenched hands filled with grass or earth,

which told of the agony of their last moments. Here, a headless trunk. There, a severed limb. In all the grotesque positions that unbearable pain and intense suffering contorts the human form, they lay. Upon the faces of some, death had frozen a smile. Some showed the truth. trembling shadow of fear, while others were indelibly set the grim stamp of determination, bloated horses, torn and ragged equipment, and all the sorrowful wreck that the waves of battle leave at their ebb, and all over, hugging the earth like a fog, poisoning every breath, the stench of decaying humanity. So these burial parties went out with orders to bury both Union and Confederate soldiers. However, Union soldiers often were buried first in this

area, as was probably the case more south with Confederates bearing their own before Union soldiers. The Confederate soldiers here were buried second, sometimes in mass graves, and sometimes their bodies or parts of their bodies were thrown down wells. And that was only discovered when people were complaining of getting sick after drinking the water. Ew, why would you put body parts in a well? I don't know. That's disgusting. What do you think would be the outcome for that. Imagine you're drinking your water and suddenly you're getting sick and you find out it's because there's a decaying body part in your wall water. Yeah. That's disgusting. I know. That's like the hotel. Yeah, the hotel. There's the documentary. Seasole Hotel. Yeah. Oh, like I get maybe not being

as respectful to the Confederate soldiers considering what they were fighting for, but to put it in other people's well water is just, you know. I know. Temporary graves were. hastily dug for people, no matter if you were a union or confederate, to be interred with intentions for later disinterring the bodies to be given a more permanent burial. It's because it was, first of all, there were so, so many of them to get to. And number two was the middle of the summer. So they were like the heat and the decomp that was going on. They just wanted to get them underground as quickly as possible. And then they would go back and give a more permanent and respectful burial. That was the thought process. So this resulted in,

extremely shallow graves denoted with just simple wooden boards, often with just the soldier's name written in pencil. So it's no surprise that the weather and other elements destroyed that marking, making it really difficult to later identify the bodies, which was usually done either through friends, personal effects or letters that were found on the bodies. Like, oh, that's Jimmy's pocket watch. Like it must be him, type of thing. Exhumations were done in the following weeks to years by the military and private contractors who were paid by the body. Like it was just so overwhelming that people, I mean, people of all kinds were stepping up and being like, are you going to pay me per body? Yeah, I'll go dig up some soldiers for you.

And the recovery efforts began almost immediately following the battle, like as soon as possible. And this effort, this big effort to give the union soldiers proper and permanent burials eventually led to the creation of the Gettysburg National Cemetery. And this cemetery is located within the National Park, Gettysburg National Military Park. And it's pretty famous for one historical event. And that was the site of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address. So he gave that famous speech at the dedication of the cemetery, which I somehow didn't know. Like I knew the Gettysburg Address, but I didn't know it was because it was dedicated to the opening of this.

cemetery. Interesting. Yeah. Did you know that? Um, no, I mean, I knew that it took place in Gettysburg, obviously just in the title, but I didn't know all that much about it, no. I know. I actually listened to it, like someone who's reading it. Yeah, I'm like, okay, this makes a lot of sense now. This cemetery contains the remains of more than 7,000 people, American soldiers and their dependents from the Civil War through the Vietnam War. And while it was officially closed for burials in the 1970s, it does remain open for dependents of veterans that are already buried there. So if you have a loved one, a spouse that is buried there and you are to be buried alongside them, it's open for that, but no more as far as like new additions.

And if you notice me saying proper burial for union soldiers, that is kind of the catch here. So after the attempts at identification, each union soldier received a proper reburial with their remains, being placed in a pine coffin, a more permanent identification marker, and they were buried like, you know, four to six feet under, not a couple inches under the surface. The reburials were not completed until nearly five months after the work began, but that was just for the union soldiers. Despite best efforts, a few Confederate soldiers were mistakenly interred in the cemetery alongside their union counterparts, but the remainder of the Confederate dead remained buried on the battlefield in their original temporary graves for a really long time.

What's a really long time? I'm talking like seven to ten years. Wow. After the battle. They start popping out from under the ground if they're super shallowly buried or being eaten by animals. I'm sure at times I didn't get super into that because I think it's that can be kind of assumed. But the ones that were eventually, you know, years after, disinterred, they're,

remains were recovered along with some of their personal effects if they were still there of over 3,000 people. And they were returned to four different primary locations. And that was Richmond, Virginia, Raleigh, North Carolina, Savannah, Georgia, and Charleston, South Carolina. Well, that's what happens when you literally fight a war to keep people enslaved. You get not priority burials. Well, and I'm sure, like I said again, like, I didn't do the flip side of this as far as, like, like the way that union soldiers were treated down further south as far as how the Confederics did. But I'm sure it went like both ways. Yeah.

Because, you know, people had different points of view. And like, it's just that's how they treated their enemy at the time. And it's just so crazy because it's like we're fighting each other. Fighting each other for basic human rights. Doesn't that sound familiar? Oh, let's not get into that. Okay. All right.

I'm almost done anyway with torturing everyone with Getty Sparks. So let's wrap it up. So the Spangler Farm was used as a hospital for a total of five weeks after all was set and done. At the end of which the property was utterly destroyed. I mean, the fields were completely ruined and rutted by wagons. Crops were now non-existent. Like, say goodbye to that. They were either eaten.

Like, you can go home. Welcome home. Like, welcome home. They were either eaten or trampled over or just totally destroyed. There were thousands of soldiers obviously tramping through them and everything else. that ruined the landscape. The barn was totally blood-soaked. Their home was a complete mess.

Supplies were depleted and livestock were killed and eaten by the soldiers. It's like, oh, great, you have a couple of cows. Like, that's dinner. They were there for three days. No, they were there for five weeks. Oh, yeah, because they were there, like, after with all the hospital stuff. Okay. But still.

Yeah, I know. It does get worse. That's their livelihood, probably, if they have cows. It's their entire livelihood. Yeah. Like I said, like it was used for. livestock raising, crop growing, and wood harvesting. So I'm sure the wood harvesting was still pretty intact. Like they weren't cutting down large swaths of trees. But then again, sometimes they were. You need

wood for literally everything, fires, cooking. And everything was being like cannoned and destroyed. Obliterated. Yeah, everything's being obliterated. So I'm sure things got destroyed in that aspect too. Yeah. So as a result of this, George Spangler filed three damage claims between the state and federal governments claiming losses of over $5,000, which is obviously a ton back then. But he received $90 in compensation. Yeah, almost. Almost got it all. Pretty close. Close. And according to the author of Too Much for Human Endurance, his name is Ronald Kirkwood, he says that based on his research, and he spent like years researching this book going through all the archives, like doing a lot of groundwork, that $90, a lot of that compensation money was used to pay his attorney. He's

attorney that helped him file those compensation claims. So he didn't even get to use it to get his life back together. Right. And to add insult to injury, the U.S. quartermaster's agent actually said about this particular property, quote, the audacity. Let me just preface it with that. Okay. He says, quote, the government of the United States is no more responsible for the bringing on the battle fought there than it would have been if a tornado passed over that country. causing as widespread destruction as did that engagement. That battle and hospital damage was his misfortune. Yeah, because a natural disaster and a war are totally the same, preventably the same. Like, I do, it's, I don't know if this is the right time to say this,

but I do understand, like, kind of where that's coming from as far as, like, wouldn't, okay, well, listen, what, like, it was just the way it was back then. Like, yes. your country is fighting a war and this is how they need to do it. Do I? But take some responsibility for it. It's like, sure, maybe this wasn't totally preventable right here, but we trashed your home. We used all your shit.

And now we're not going to pay you back. It's like, okay, maybe you could argue that it wasn't preventable because the other side invaded this area and you had to be here. But you are the one who destroyed their home. So you got to, and you're the government, you have millions of dollars, just throw in some money. Yeah. I mean, that's true. And there is something to be said about the government just not wanting to cough up money.

Well, I'm sure it was a slippery slope. You give him his money. You got however other many buildings you were talking about where the exact same thing was happening, where they were overtaken, destroyed everything. Yeah. Like, okay, so how much money are we going to give out to all these people? Yeah, it is a slippery slope. Indeed. So the Spanglers rebuilt their farm and fixed up their property in the years following the war,

but over the centuries, it fell into disrepair. In 2008, the Gettysburg Foundation purchased the property and worked really hard to restore it because it was a complete mess. The property in its buildings were in pretty, pretty bad shape, and they did everything that they could to restore it to its former glory. They utilized a lot of original pieces wherever possible. For example, the Barnes Foundation is not original. However, during the rebuild, they utilized horsehair in the mortar, as was done when it was originally constructed.

So they utilized a lot of period ways of construction. And the floorboards and wood within the barn, that was the hospital, other than that red siding you see, you know, like when you first Google image, it obviously that's new. But the floorboards, a lot of the wood planks in there, the beams, all of that is original.

So it's haunted. That's seen a lot of shit. And it's even, it's really interesting because they did a lot of testing on the wood to see like when it dated back to just to determine like what was new, what was original, etc. And they actually found a lot of pieces in the barn that dated back to the 1700s, which indicated that the Spanglers repurposed some of the original portion of the log house, which was the first building on that property when they bought it. Okay. So it is, it's really cool. The way that the barn has kind of survived over the years. The George Spangler Farm and Field Hospital is now open for visitors, tours, and educational

programs, and you can take a shuttle bus right from the visitor center of the National Park to the property if you want to go see it, get a tour of it, hear from the real professionals about what happened there, and that's it. After an hour and a half. Well, it was really interesting. Like you said at the beginning this episode, whenever I hear of Gettysburg, I hear of all the hauntings and paranormal stuff that happens there because of how it was the deadliest, bloodiest battle on U.S. grounds.

And I never, I guess, really thought about what the aftermath and during for trying to help soldiers that were dying looked like. Yeah. I mean, like, I love a good ghost story as much as the next person. And like a huge draw to go to Gettysburg is for that kind of vibe that the park gives. But I think what's even more fascinating is this stuff. Like what actually happened to real people. It's not questionable.

Like people can go there and have a spooky experience, but like who's to say that's real or not? Like this is real. And this is horrific. And it's just like a glimpse. I mean, the Spangler Farm is just one of hundreds of places that this exact thing happened throughout the war. You know what I mean? It's just like just one little glimpse into just how terrible. the Civil War was in regards to casualties and people who were wounded and the medical treatment

at the time. And I hope I didn't bore everyone. I know it was really history-based. And it was also kind of grody as far as the details. But I could have gotten, let me just tell you, I could have done way, I could have done you way dirtier, okay? And I didn't. I think we all liked it. I think we're all, I think we have a very large community of people who love history and who love really skisks. scary and grotesque stuff. And I do know, I will say, I do know. I forget his name, so don't kill me. I'm sorry if you still listen to this podcast.

But do you remember the gentleman? Like, I'm talking like first or second month of the podcast that reached out to us and was giving us all these tips about visiting Gettysburg when we first mentioned it because he's like a tour guide there or. William Bennett was that a saying? Oh, my God. You're right. How do you remember?

I don't know. Hi, William Bennett. Yeah, well, he and others who know way more about Gettysburg and the history there, I hope I did it justice. I really tried. But if you want to learn more and you're super interested, there are, I do have three book wrecks. I mentioned them briefly throughout, but just now, so they're a little more like concise. The first one, bullets and bandages by James Gindlesberger. The second one, too much for human endurance by Ronald Kirkwood.

And the third one, which I didn't directly quote, but used, and it's actually really cool. It's called Healing a Divided Nation, how the American Civil War revolutionized Western medicine. And that book focuses a lot about how the Civil War marked this huge revolution in the U.S. healthcare system and how there was so much advancement done in the field of medicine during this time. And it's really cool. And, oh, I guess I should tell you the author. The author of that one is Carol Adrian. So if you want them, they're there.

And I'll add them to the show description as well if you want to take a look at them. But otherwise, sweet dreams, I guess. Yeah, let us know what you all have nightmares about tonight. Yeah. All right. Well, my throat is sore. I need a drink. So I guess we'll see you next time.

In the meantime, enjoy the view. But watch you're back. Bye. Bye. Thank you for joining us again this week. If you have a trail tale, you'd like to show you. send us an email at NPAD Stories at gmail.com. Follow us on Instagram and Facebook at National Park After Dark and on Twitter at NPAD podcast.

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