In the years shortly before the war and shortly after, Spangler’s Spring was a gathering spot for the town. Newspaper notices often carried announcements of Fourth of July celebrations or political gatherings at the site. Likewise, it was a center point for visitors at Culp’s Hill. In the first several decades after the war, Culp’s Hill was one of the leading attractions for tourists seeking to learn more about the battle, which stands in contrast to today when far fewer visitors see it than Little Round Top or the Bloody Angle or Oak Hill. As well, Spangler’s Spring took on a mythic status that didn’t quite matchup with battlefield reality, and today, it has layered on ghost stories.

The Spangler Family and the Spring’s Name

Spangler’s Spring takes its name from the Spangler family, prominent local farmers whose property encompassed this water source during the Civil War. Abraham Spangler was a wealthy landowner in Gettysburg, and by 1863 his son Henry Spangler was living on the family farm at the base of Culp’s Hill. The natural spring on their land became known as “Spangler’s Spring.” When the Battle of Gettysburg erupted, Henry’s wife Sarah and their children fled to safety at the urging of a Union officer, but Henry chose to stay behind to protect their home. As fighting raged over Culp’s Hill, Henry hunkered down in the farmhouse cellar while soldiers from both armies swarmed the area. After the battle, Henry emerged to a scene of devastation – at one point he found one of the family’s quilts wrapped around a wounded soldier outside their house.

Before the Battle: A Peaceful Gathering Place

In the antebellum years, Spangler’s Spring was known as a tranquil spot for locals to gather. The spring’s cool, pure waters made it an attractive destination, and local tradition holds that the spring was first “discovered” by area residents around 1847. By the 1840s and 1850s it had become a popular picnic and meeting site – even political rallies were held among the pretty boulders and woods around Spangler’s Spring in those years. Neighbors and travelers could stop to refresh themselves at the spring long before it became famous for a battle. In those peaceful days, no one could have imagined the bloodshed that would later erupt on that very ground.

Battle and Bloodshed at Spangler’s Spring

All that changed during the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, when this quiet spring found itself in the crossfire. On the evening of July 2, Confederate forces under Maj. Gen. Edward “Allegheny” Johnson attacked the Union right flank and seized the wooded lower slopes of Culp’s Hill near Spangler’s Spring. (Recall that Johnson made his headquarters at the Daniel Lady Farm, and his men stepped off for their attack from that site.) Through the night, the spring lay roughly between the two opposing lines, occasionally occupied or patrolled by each side. Before dawn on July 3, Union commanders launched a desperate counterattack to reclaim the ground. In a near-suicidal assault, Union regiments (including the 2nd Massachusetts and 27th Indiana) flung themselves across Spangler’s Spring meadow toward the Confederate positions on the hill. They met with withering fire. Hundreds of Union soldiers from Massachusetts and Indiana fell in the span of minutes during the failed charge on Culp’s Hill that morning. The 27th Indiana, for example, suffered around 41% casualties in just twenty minutes of fighting near the spring – a testament to the ferocity of the battle in this once-idyllic spot.

Throughout the chaos, soldiers from both sides did attempt to draw water from Spangler’s Spring – but under far from peaceful conditions. One Union captain later recalled how he crept ahead with some canteens to fill at the spring, only to suddenly encounter Confederate “Johnnies” doing the same thing; he prudently backed away and reported the enemy’s presence. Skirmishes erupted as each side realized the other was at the water source. There was certainly no friendly truce or mingling at the spring that night. In fact, the 27th Indiana’s regimental history noted that any man who ventured into the open for water or to aid the wounded “ran the gauntlet of a rain of lead” from enemy sharpshooters. Several Union soldiers were shot down trying to rescue their injured comrades lying near the spring, including one who dropped his rifle and rushed out unarmed to carry a friend to safety. These grim realities stand in contrast to a popular legend that later grew up about Spangler’s Spring – a tale that soldiers of North and South supposedly met there in friendship to share a drink. In truth, no contemporary accounts substantiate a deliberate water truce. According to the Pennsylvania Rambler, the enduring story of fraternization around Spangler’s Spring appears to be a post-war myth that began circulating in the late 19th century, perhaps as a romantic symbol of sectional reunion. Actual participants remembered Spangler’s Spring for fierce fighting and desperate thirst, not handshakes and camaraderie.

Aftermath and Preservation

When the fighting finally subsided on July 3, the Spangler farm was left ravaged. Johnson’s Confederate troops slipped away from Culp’s Hill that night, and Union soldiers cautiously reoccupied the ground around the spring at daybreak on July 4. They were greeted not by an enemy force, but by the harrowing aftermath of battle: corpses sprawled across the rocks and fields, wounded men moaning for help, and the earth “gashed, seamed and trampled” by the ferocious combat. Henry Spangler’s once-orderly farm was now a scene of ruin. When Henry and Sarah were reunited, they found their home uninhabitable. Every scrap of food in the house had been consumed, and the Union and Confederate troops had stripped the property of blankets, clothing, and supplies for bandages and bedding. The farmhouse itself had been a field hospital; blood stained the floors and bullet holes riddled the walls. Dozens of soldiers who died in the fighting were hastily buried in shallow graves around the yard and nearby fields, and grisly piles of amputated limbs lay where surgeons had tossed them outside. The Spanglers’ spring – once a pleasant watering hole – had literally been a fountain of life and death over those days. It took months for the family to recover. Eventually Henry Spangler moved his family to a different farm, and over the next few years the remains of the fallen were disinterred and reburied properly (many in Gettysburg’s new National Cemetery).

In the post-war years, Spangler’s Spring became a noted landmark for veterans and visitors seeking to remember Gettysburg. Early battlefield guides often pointed out the spring, sometimes recounting the embellished tale of a friendly truce there. By the 1890s, with tourism rising, the spring was in danger of being degraded by souvenir-hunters and overuse. In 1895 the U.S. War Department (then overseeing Gettysburg) constructed a granite and concrete springhouse over Spangler’s Spring to protect it. The arched structure, built of native Gettysburg rock, features three bronze plaques. One plaque is inscribed with a poetic epitaph: “One country and one flag. The strife of brothers is past.” It commemorates the fact that this spring had provided water to men of both the Union and Confederate armies during the battle. For decades, visitors could still drink from Spangler’s Spring using an iron cup attached by a chain and a metal trap-door in the springhouse. In the twentieth century, the National Park Service closed off access to the water out of concern for groundwater contamination, ending the tradition of tourists taking a sip of Gettysburg history. The stone springhouse from 1895 remains in place today, and a wayside sign marks “Spangler’s Spring” for the many who stop by. Nestled at the foot of Culp’s Hill (accessible off the Baltimore Pike via a small park road), the spring looks tranquil once more – belying the violence that took place there over 160 years ago.

Ghostly Legends of Spangler’s Spring

Like many sites on the Gettysburg battlefield (Devil’s Den, the Jennie Wade House, Iverson’s Pits), Spangler’s Spring has acquired a reputation for ghostly activity. Some visitors and ghost tour guides claim that on quiet evenings you might encounter unseen company at the old spring. One oft-told tale is that the spirits of soldiers linger at Spangler’s Spring, still thirsting for water. There are accounts of phantom blue and gray soldiers observed kneeling down to drink from the spring, only to fade away silently into the surrounding trees. Others have reported hearing the sounds of footsteps circling the spring when no living person is present, or the distant echo of gunfire and shouts carried on the night air. Some people describe a sudden chill or the feeling of being watched by the spring. Perhaps most eerie of all, numerous witnesses have heard the disembodied voice of a woman near Spangler’s Spring – even though no women were on the battlefield during the fight.

The legend of this mysterious female presence has given rise to Gettysburg’s famous “Woman in White” of Spangler’s Spring. According to local lore, a sorrowful lady in a white dress haunts the area around the spring. Those who claim to have seen her say she first appears as a wispy mist rising from the ground, which then resolves itself into the glowing figure of a young woman in white. An overwhelming sense of sadness is often reported in her wake. Who is this Woman in White supposed to be? Stories abound, though none can be proven. One popular version has it that she was a heartbroken bride-to-be who committed suicide at the spring after her fiancé was killed in the war or jilted her, forever binding her spirit to the spot. Another theory suggests she might be the ghost of a compassionate nun or nurse who came from a nearby convent to tend to the wounded after the battle, still searching for someone she lost. Whatever her true origin, the Woman in White has become part of Gettysburg’s ghost lore. Over the years countless curious visitors have lingered by Spangler’s Spring at dusk hoping to catch a glimpse of the spectral lady or the thirsty soldier spirits said to roam there. In this way, Spangler’s Spring remains a place where history and legend intertwine – a quiet wooded spring that witnessed the horrors of war, and where some say the restless echoes of that past can still be felt (and even seen) today.