All that remains of Camp Letterman today is a couple of plaques and benches in the Giant Foods parking lot. I go into Giant every time I'm at Gettysburg and it's sobering to know I'm standing where all those amputations and deaths occurred after the battle. Amputations without the proper pain medication, and with instruments often just wiped onto the doc's apron before moving on to the next arm or leg... it's impossible to comprehend. Camp Letterman first opened officially on the 22nd of July in 1863...exactly three weeks after the first shot was fired. It was the most vast field hospital ever to be built on the continent. Roughly twelve hundred soldiers were buried at the hospital before eventually being disinterred to be moved to other places or to the National Cemetery. The camp/hospital stayed in operation until November of 1863. (all other field hospitals were closed by a few months before that... August I believe.)
