"Tell Mother Not to Worry": Soldier Stories From Gettysburg's George Spangler Farm

“Kirkwood’s careful analysis of soldiers’ letters and veterans’ pensions powerfully highlights how the fighting at Gettysburg inaugurated a new and oftentimes lifelong struggle—for soldiers who survived their wounds, no less than their family members... Those interested in the long-term impact battle exacts on soldiers and their families will find this exemplary volume informative, powerful, and noteworthy.” -The Civil War Monitor

The George Spangler farm in Gettysburg is a place of reverence. Nurses held the hands of dying soldiers and prayed and spoke last words with them amid the blood, stench, and agony of two hospitals. Heroic surgeons resolutely worked around the clock to save lives. Author Ronald D. Kirkwood’s best-selling “Too Much for Human Endurance”: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg established the military and medical importance of the Spangler farm and hospitals. Now in paperback, “Tell Mother Not to Worry”: Soldier Stories from Gettysburg’s George Spangler Farm is Ron’s eagerly awaited sequel.

Kirkwood researched thousands of pension and military records, hospital files, letters, newspapers, and diaries of those present at the hospitals on Spangler land during and after the battle. The result is a deeper and richer understanding of what these men and women endured—suffering that often lingered for the rest of their lives. Their injuries and deaths, North and South, brought not only tragic sadness to parents, spouses, and children, but often financial devastation as well.

“Tell Mother Not to Worry” profiles scores of additional soldiers and offers new information on events and experiences at the farm, including the mortally wounded Confederate Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead. This sequel also includes another chapter on the often-overlooked First Division II Corps hospital at Granite Schoolhouse, a wounded list for that division, and a chapter on Col. Edward E. Cross, who died at Granite Schoolhouse in the middle of Spangler land. Kirkwood concludes by continuing the story of George and Elizabeth Spangler and their four children after the war and ends with an uplifting chapter on their modern-day descendants and how they were found after the release of “Too Much for Human Endurance.”

With this sequel, Kirkwood brings further understanding of the lives of the soldiers and their families and completes the story of George and Elizabeth Spangler’s historic farm.