page_title: Camp Letterman
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Camp Letterman / History
caption_attribution_description: Photograph; Photographs
context_page_description: Camp Letterman was an American Civil War military hospital, which was erected near the Gettysburg Battlefield to treat more than 14,000 Union and 6,800 Confederate wounded of the Battle of Gettysburg at the beginning of July, 1863.
context_section_description: One of the most important military engagements of the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg was waged over the first three days of July 1863 between the United States' Army of the Potomac, which was commanded by Major-General George Gordon Meade, and the Confederate States of America's Army of Northern Virginia, which had been marched north into Maryland and Pennsylvania by its commanding Major-General Robert E. Lee. Clashing near the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, the conflict quickly escalated into an intense combat situation with multiple, memorable skirmishes and battles, including Seminary Ridge, Little Round Top and Pickett's Charge. Meade's Union troops ultimately won the three-day, tide-turning engagement, which resulted in the deaths of more than 3,100 Union and 4,700 Confederate troops with wounded men totaling more than 14,500 (Union) and 12,600 (Confederate).
  In the aftermath, when Union military leaders realized that the farms, private homes, churches, and other buildings in and around the town of Gettysburg which had been pressed into service as makeshift regimental hospitals were so overwhelmed by the numbers of dying and wounded, and that many of the soldiers who had been unable to find shelter were being cared for in gardens and other outdoor spaces, they quickly secured approval from their superiors to create a new general hospital. Built sometime after July 8, 1863, it opened on July 22, and was named Camp Letterman in honor of Jonathan Letterman, M.D., the "Father of Battlefield Medicine" who created medical management procedures which transformed not only Civil War-era medicine, but the medical care for thousands of soldiers in subsequent wars, the tents of the hospital complex were erected east of Gettysburg. Union Army surgeons, nurses and members of the U.S. Sanitary Commission then began rendering care to soldiers from both sides of the conflict, ultimately evaluating and treating all of the wounded who had been transported from the various battle sites around Gettysburg. Meals were prepared for the men by a sizeable force of cooks while guards kept the peace among those who were ambulatory. Those needing more advanced treatment or who were doing well enough to be moved out for convalescent care were subsequently sent on to the Union's larger hospitals in Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
   
  Henry Janes was the physician in charge of this Union Army hospital.
  On 3 October 1863, this hospital's namesake, Dr. Jonathan Letterman, penned report to his superiors, which provided key details regarding the "operations of the medical department of the Union Army's with respect to the Gettysburg Campaign. Among Letterman's key points:
  ".... It is scarcely necessary to say that if the transportation [of wounded men] is not sufficient to enable the officers of the department to conduct it properly, the effect must fall upon the wounded.
  In the autumn of 1862, I investigated the subject very carefully, with the view to the adoption of some system instead of the irregular method and want of system which prior to that time was in vogue, to limit the amount necessary, and to have that amount always available. The transportation was one wagon to each regiment and one to each brigade.... This system worked well....
  On June 19, while the army was on the march … from before Fredericksburg to some unknown point north of the Potomac River, the headquarters being near Fairfax Court-House, Va., the transportation of the department was cut down by Major-General Hooker on an average of two wagons in a brigade, in opposition to my opinion.... This reduction necessitated the turning in of a large portion of the supplies, tents, &c., which were necessary for the proper care of the wounded in the event of a battle. Three wagons were assigned to a brigade of 1,500 men, doing away with regimental wagons. This method in its practical working is no system at all … and proved to be, what I supposed at the time it would be, a failure to give the department the means necessary to conduct its operations.
  The headq
caption: Operating Tent, Camp Letterman, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Summer 1863.
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