Existing comment:
A Gettysburg Timeline:
Aftermath of the Battle:
Summer & Fall, 1863:
The departing armies left Gettysburg overwhelmed with wounded soldiers, thousands of visitors soon followed.
Both armies departed, leaving insufficient food and medical supplies to care for 21,000 wounded soldiers. Within days, a second invasion of thousands arrived to help with the wounded, seek loved ones, or to tour the great battlefield. The cumulative effect was to overwhelm a town already burned by chaos and destruction.
The situation was made worse by the condition of the battlefield. Poorly prepared graves for the fallen solders and untended dead horses drew swarms of "bottle" flies that increased the risk of contagious diseases. The smothering stench from the fields, not life-threatening but generally nauseating, did not disappear until the first frosts of autumn.
By August, some degree of normalcy returned. The number of wounded remained in the Gettysburg area had fallen to 5,000, with most of those sent to a consolidated field hospital named Camp Letterman, a mile east of town along the York Pike.
The railroad provided a lifeline of food and supplies for the wounded and local citizens, coffins for the dead, and transportation for thousands of wounded to be moved to city hospitals.
A major problem requiring immediate attention were the thousands of Union soldiers lying in scattered and inadequate graves. A meeting of state representatives was held at the home of local attorney David Wills. The group recommended a common burial ground on the battlefield, leading to the creation of the Soldiers' National Cemetery, and to President Lincoln's Gettysburg Address.
David Wills:
Local lawyer David Wills was a pivotal part of the plan to create a cemetery on the battlefield to inter, honor and memorialize the fallen Union soldiers. Governor Andrew Curtain of Pennsylvania appointed Wills to implement the concept. Wills acquired the site, arranged for the cemetery design, planned the dedication ceremony, and invited President Abraham Lincoln to set aside the grounds with a "few appropriate remarks."
US Sanitary Commission Supply Depot:
The Sanitary Commission took over the Fahnestock Brothers store at Baltimore and West Middle Streets for a relief supply warehouse. Dr HH Douglas noted that their mass of supplies piled up "... till the sidewalk was monopolized and even the street encroached upon." The goods... sustained thousands of wounded and helped feed the local population whose food stores were exhausted by the demands of soldiers of both armies. |