(June 25) – The Pennsylvania House of Representatives voted unanimously Thursday to adopt a resolution
(H.R. 998) honoring the Camp Letterman General Hospital established in the weeks following the massive Civil War battle in Gettysburg.
At Letterman, thousands of wounded Confederate and Union troops were gathered from area homes, barns,
churches and other buildings throughout the area (including the nearby Daniel Lady Farm) and provided the best care available at the time. The massive tent hospital named for Dr. Jonathan Letterman, medical Director of the Army of the Potomac, was the first to consolidate care for wounded and dying of both sides following a battle.
The House resolution comes at a time when the Gettysburg Battlefield Preservation Association is attempting to preserve the remaining property where Camp Letterman was located south of York Road.
The resolution was sponsored by Rep. Dan Moul, R-Adams, and co-sponsored by Rep. Harry Readshaw, D- Allegheny.
The remaining 17-acres of Camp Letterman property is threatened by a planned 191-acre townhouse development by S & A Homes of State College, Pennsylvania.
The GBPA has been supported in asking S & A Homes to set-aside the 17-acres by a letter-writing campaign by people from at least 35 states, 3 foreign countries, preservation organizations, individual living historians and authors, civil war round tables, civil war organizations and other living history groups.
The State of Vermont made its support of the GBPA effort official. In May, the Vermont Senate and House of
Representatives adopted a resolution that states “the General Assembly supports the Gettysburg Battlefield
Preservation Association‘s effort to preserve the Camp Letterman hospital site and requests that S & A Homes Set aside these 17 acres of historic ground.”
Camp Letterman was administered by Dr. Henry Janes, a Waterbury, Vermont, physician and U.S. Army
surgeon.
The GBPA is not trying to stop the entire commercially zoned area along Rt 30 but is appealing to the Township and developers to preserve important portions of Camp Letterman and other troop and artillery placements in danger of destruction.
-updated July 21,2022
Click here to view the resolution.