If you search online for George Bushman of Gettysburg, you’d be forgiven for believing that he was, more or less, a farm . . . or better said, a guy who had a farm that became famous. You’ll find next to nothing on who he was and what he was like as a man. Since the farm is so well-known, let’s deal with the farm first.

George Andrew Bushman’s farm, located along the Baltimore Pike and behind the Round Tops, became the site of a major Union field hospital, treating over 1,200 Union soldiers and approximately 125 Confederate soldiers. During the three-day battle from July 1 to July 3, 1863, the Bushman farm’s strategic location made it an ideal site for medical operations. The Union Army’s XII Corps established a field hospital on the property, utilizing the farmhouse, barn, and surrounding grounds to care for the wounded. The proximity to active battlefields and accessibility via the Baltimore Pike facilitated the swift transport and treatment of injured soldiers.

Among the Confederate soldiers treated at the Bushman farm was Lewis Powell, also known as Lewis Payne. Powell later became infamous for his role in the assassination conspiracy against President Abraham Lincoln, specifically for his attack on Secretary of State William H. Seward. His treatment at the Bushman farm underscores the complex human narratives intertwined within the broader historical events.

The severity of the battle and the high number of casualties necessitated immediate burials on the farm’s grounds. Records indicate that at least 52 Union soldiers and 41 Confederate soldiers were interred on the property. These burials were later relocated to formal cemeteries, but the initial interments highlight the farm’s role in the immediate aftermath of the conflict.

So George Andrew Bushman the man. Who was he and what was he like? Around the Gettysburg Battlefield are at least three Bushman farms that all figured prominently in the battle. The farms are all within about a mile to two miles of each other (on either side of the Round Tops). It’s natural to assume that all these Bushmans must be closely related. In fact, they’re not. The three farms are that of George, Lewis, and Reverend Michael. Lewis and George are closely related—Lewis is the son of George, and Colonel Strong Vincent died on Lewis’s farm. But Reverend Michael Bushman and George Bushman are not particularly close relatives—roughly third cousins. Both have heritage going back to Hanover and Prussia in what is now Germany, but you have to go back generations before their ancestry crosses.

Many have read the story of Sadie Bushman and believed that she wound up at the George Bushman farm and, since she was allegedly sent to her grandmother’s house, George and his wife must have been her grandparents. Whether Sadie was actually at the George Bushman farm is unclear (there’s a decent chance), but George and his second wife, Anna Wolf, were definitely not her grandparents. In fact, Sadie was a closer relative of Reverend Michael Bushman, who was her uncle and her father’s brother.

So again, who was George Bushman? Born in 1810 to Andrew Bushman and Mary Wible, he was the sixth of nine children. And this is where some of the confusion comes from—most of the Bushman families of the era were prolific, averaging six to eight children. Their names frequently overlapped across families and generations. In George’s immediate family alone were siblings Henry, Susanna, Mary, Eli, John, William, and Elisabeth—all common names that turn up in various Bushman families and generations. In George’s time in Cumberland and Gettysburg, at least one other George Bushman not in his immediate family turned up regularly in the newspapers.

In 1832, George married Mary Kepner, and together they had four children: Lewis, Henry (named after George’s closest brother, apparently), Althedore, and Althea. The union with Mary was tragically short-lived—Mary died in 1839, just seven years into their time together. George waited 11 years before he remarried, this time to Anna Wolf. George and Anna had no children together.

Beyond being a husband and father, George was a prominent farmer. With regularity, he promoted his wares through the local papers in the good old-fashioned manner of free samples. The following clippings are just a few that pop up over the years wherein George gave editors free apples, lemons, cider, and other farm products.

A few years after his death, when his estate was sold, the items for sale reflected the years of farm labor.

But George was far more than just a farmer—he was deeply involved in politics, and even his death notice included his devotion to the Democratic party (which, of course, stood against Lincoln). Starting no later than 1857, George began running for sheriff of Cumberland in Adams County (and almost certainly won the job—he continued running for it at least through 1868). Small-town politics, even then, were rough affairs. In one of his later campaigns, as he announced his candidacy on the Democratic ticket, he was forced to address persistent local rumors that he would run as an independent if not placed atop the Democratic ticket.

In the years following the war, he joined with other landowners whose homes and farms had been wrecked by the battle. They put together a committee whose purpose was to petition the legislature to allot money for battle damages.

Beyond politics, George turned up in various ways around the county. In 1861, his spring house (where perishable foods were stored to keep them cool) was burglarized, and the thief(s) made off with butter and meat.

In 1875, George’s barn was hit by lightning; it quickly burned to the ground. His horses and other high-value animals were in the fields and spared, but a small lamb perished.

In 1878, George Tate in the county successfully sued Bushman for more than $67, which in today’s money would be about $2800. The nature of the dispute was not reported.

In the late years of the nineteenth century, one of the papers reported the deaths of citizens under the headline “Death’s Doings,” which conjures images of a hooded character working his way around the county. The day finally came for George Andrew Bushman, and the newspaper gracefully elided the campaign rumors, the lawsuit, and sundry other conflicts, opting to highlight George as one of the county’s most prominent citizens. While his neighbor but not-close relative Reverend Michael Bushman was buried at the Pfoutz Meeting House Cemetery (formerly known as the Marsh Creek church cemetery), George was buried with other family members at the Evergreen Cemetery.