"Too Much for Human Endurance": The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg
The bloodstains are gone, but the worn floorboards remain. The doctors, nurses, and patients who toiled and suffered and ached for home at the Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps hospital at the George Spangler farm in Gettysburg have long since departed. Fortunately, what they experienced there, and the critical importance of the property to the battle, has not been lost to history. Noted journalist and George Spangler farm expert Ronald D. Kirkwood brings these people and their experiences to life in “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.

Using a large array of firsthand accounts, Kirkwood re-creates the sprawling XI Corps hospital complex and the people who labored and suffered there—especially George and Elizabeth Spangler and their four children, who built a thriving 166-acre farm only to witness it nearly destroyed when war paid a bloody visit in the summer of 1863. Stories rarely if ever told about the wounded, dying, nurses, surgeons, ambulance workers, musicians, and others are weaved seamlessly through gripping and smooth-flowing prose.

A host of notables spent time at the Spangler farm, including Union officers George G. Meade, Henry J. Hunt, Edward E. Cross, Francis Barlow, Francis Mahler, Freeman McGilvery, and Samuel K. Zook. Pvt. George Nixon III, great-grandfather of President Richard M. Nixon, would die there, as would Confederate Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, who fell mortally wounded at the height of Pickett’s Charge. In addition to including the most complete lists ever published of the dead, wounded, and surgeons at the Spanglers’ XI Corps hospital, this study breaks new ground with stories of the First Division, II Corps hospital at the Spanglers’ Granite Schoolhouse.

Kirkwood also establishes the often-overlooked strategic importance of the property and its key role in the Union victory. Army of the Potomac generals took advantage of the farm’s size, access to roads, and central location to use it as a staging area to get artillery and infantry to the embattled front line from Little Round to Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill, often just in time to prevent a collapse and Confederate breakthrough.

“Too Much for Human Endurance" - now in paperback, introduces readers to heretofore untold stories of the Spanglers, their farm, those who labored to save lives, and those who suffered and died there. They have finally received the recognition that their place in history deserves.
1129473913
"Too Much for Human Endurance": The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg
The bloodstains are gone, but the worn floorboards remain. The doctors, nurses, and patients who toiled and suffered and ached for home at the Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps hospital at the George Spangler farm in Gettysburg have long since departed. Fortunately, what they experienced there, and the critical importance of the property to the battle, has not been lost to history. Noted journalist and George Spangler farm expert Ronald D. Kirkwood brings these people and their experiences to life in “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.

Using a large array of firsthand accounts, Kirkwood re-creates the sprawling XI Corps hospital complex and the people who labored and suffered there—especially George and Elizabeth Spangler and their four children, who built a thriving 166-acre farm only to witness it nearly destroyed when war paid a bloody visit in the summer of 1863. Stories rarely if ever told about the wounded, dying, nurses, surgeons, ambulance workers, musicians, and others are weaved seamlessly through gripping and smooth-flowing prose.

A host of notables spent time at the Spangler farm, including Union officers George G. Meade, Henry J. Hunt, Edward E. Cross, Francis Barlow, Francis Mahler, Freeman McGilvery, and Samuel K. Zook. Pvt. George Nixon III, great-grandfather of President Richard M. Nixon, would die there, as would Confederate Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, who fell mortally wounded at the height of Pickett’s Charge. In addition to including the most complete lists ever published of the dead, wounded, and surgeons at the Spanglers’ XI Corps hospital, this study breaks new ground with stories of the First Division, II Corps hospital at the Spanglers’ Granite Schoolhouse.

Kirkwood also establishes the often-overlooked strategic importance of the property and its key role in the Union victory. Army of the Potomac generals took advantage of the farm’s size, access to roads, and central location to use it as a staging area to get artillery and infantry to the embattled front line from Little Round to Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill, often just in time to prevent a collapse and Confederate breakthrough.

“Too Much for Human Endurance" - now in paperback, introduces readers to heretofore untold stories of the Spanglers, their farm, those who labored to save lives, and those who suffered and died there. They have finally received the recognition that their place in history deserves.
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"Too Much for Human Endurance": The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg

by Ronald D. Kirkwood

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

by Ronald D. Kirkwood

Paperback

$24.95 
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Overview

The bloodstains are gone, but the worn floorboards remain. The doctors, nurses, and patients who toiled and suffered and ached for home at the Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps hospital at the George Spangler farm in Gettysburg have long since departed. Fortunately, what they experienced there, and the critical importance of the property to the battle, has not been lost to history. Noted journalist and George Spangler farm expert Ronald D. Kirkwood brings these people and their experiences to life in “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.

Using a large array of firsthand accounts, Kirkwood re-creates the sprawling XI Corps hospital complex and the people who labored and suffered there—especially George and Elizabeth Spangler and their four children, who built a thriving 166-acre farm only to witness it nearly destroyed when war paid a bloody visit in the summer of 1863. Stories rarely if ever told about the wounded, dying, nurses, surgeons, ambulance workers, musicians, and others are weaved seamlessly through gripping and smooth-flowing prose.

A host of notables spent time at the Spangler farm, including Union officers George G. Meade, Henry J. Hunt, Edward E. Cross, Francis Barlow, Francis Mahler, Freeman McGilvery, and Samuel K. Zook. Pvt. George Nixon III, great-grandfather of President Richard M. Nixon, would die there, as would Confederate Gen. Lewis A. Armistead, who fell mortally wounded at the height of Pickett’s Charge. In addition to including the most complete lists ever published of the dead, wounded, and surgeons at the Spanglers’ XI Corps hospital, this study breaks new ground with stories of the First Division, II Corps hospital at the Spanglers’ Granite Schoolhouse.

Kirkwood also establishes the often-overlooked strategic importance of the property and its key role in the Union victory. Army of the Potomac generals took advantage of the farm’s size, access to roads, and central location to use it as a staging area to get artillery and infantry to the embattled front line from Little Round to Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill, often just in time to prevent a collapse and Confederate breakthrough.

“Too Much for Human Endurance" - now in paperback, introduces readers to heretofore untold stories of the Spanglers, their farm, those who labored to save lives, and those who suffered and died there. They have finally received the recognition that their place in history deserves.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781611215311
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Publication date: 01/15/2021
Pages: 408
Product dimensions: 8.90(w) x 5.90(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Ronald D. Kirkwood is retired after a 40-year career as an editor and writer in newspapers and magazines, including USA TODAY, the Baltimore Sun, Harrisburg (PA) Patriot-News, York (PA) Daily Record, and Midland (MI) Daily News. Ron edited national magazines for USA TODAY Sports and was NFL editor for USA TODAY Sports Weekly. He won state, regional, and national awards and managed the copy desk in Harrisburg when the newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize in 2012. Ron has been a Gettysburg Foundation docent at the George Spangler Farm Civil War Field Hospital Site since it opened in 2013. He is a native of Dowagiac/Sister Lakes, MI, and a graduate of Central Michigan University, where he has returned as guest speaker for journalism classes as part of the school’s Hearst Visiting Professionals series. Ron and his wife of almost 50 years, Barbara, live in the deer-filled countryside near Murrysville, PA, just outside of Pittsburgh.

Table of Contents

Foreword vii

Introduction ix

Chapter 1 Our Land, Our Home: The Spanglers 1

Chapter 2 An Early Start on the Suffering 12

Chapter 3 In the Middle of It All: The Spangler Farm Hospital 28

Chapter 4 Restless Nights 43

Chapter 5 Love and Madness: The Hovey Family 51

Chapter 6 Medicine, Sanitation, and Survival 62

Chapter 7 A Sunrise Walk 75

Chapter 8 The Artillery Reserve to the Rescue 86

Chapter 9 For Family and Country: Pvt. George Nixon III 106

Chapter 10 Flood Tide: Day Two at the XI Corps Hospital 114

Chapter 11 The Granite Schoolhouse Hospital 125

Chapter 12 Danger from Every Direction: Day Three at the XI Corps Hospital 143

Chapter 13 The Death of Brig. Gen. Lewis A. Armistead 159

Chapter 14 July 4, 1863 183

Chapter 15 The Barlows: A Wounded General and his Wife at the Spangler Farm 201

Chapter 16 A lingering Agony: Nurse Rebecca Price's Spangler Experience 209

Chapter 17 Gerrit Smith, Joseph Heeney, and Nurse Price 223

Chapter 18 Charity Pours In 228

Chapter 19 The Spangler Surgeons 247

Chapter 20 After the Fight 257

Chapter 21 The Other Spanglers 271

Chapter 22 What Happened to the Spanglers? 283

Chapter 23 A Tour of the Modern Spangler Farm 296

Appendix 1 Biographies of the Spangier Surgeons 313

Appendix 2 The XI Corps at Gettysburg 325

Appendix 3 The Artillery Reserve at Gettysburg 326

Appendix 4 Where was the 2nd Connecticut Light Battery? 327

Appendix 5 The XI Corps Hospital Wounded 331

Appendix 6 The XI Corps Hospital Dead 366

Bibliography 373

Index 383

Acknowledgments 392

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