On Saturday and Sunday, July 18-19, 2015, from 11:00am to 4:00pm, experience the medical aid and relief efforts offered to Civil War soldiers. Harpers Ferry National Historical Park park staff and living history volunteers from the 3rd US., 142nd Pennsylvania Infantry, and the 20th Maine Hospital will demonstrate national, local, civilian, and military efforts that sustained the Union Army. In the autumn of 1864, as General Philip Sheridan prepared his army for the Shenandoah Valley Campaign, Harpers Ferry became a launching point and depot, which supplied food, equipment, ammunition, and medical attention for the army in the field.
Living history volunteers along with park staff will portray Harpers Ferry’s medical and relief efforts, which provided aid and comfort to the thousands of soldiers fighting during the American Civil War. The outpouring of funds and care was so vast that the relief effort was described as “an artery of the people’s love to the people’s army." This program will tell the story of both the national and local civilian and military efforts to sustain the Union Army. At Harpers Ferry, field hospitals, a commissary, diet kitchens, soldiers rests, the U.S. Quartermaster, and the U.S. Sanitary Commission all contributed to the vast sustenance needed to maintain an army.
Source: U.S. Department of the Interior, National Park Service
