Pennsylvania Hall: Both Sides Under One Roof

Pennsylvania Hall, at the center of Gettysburg College's campus, was the largest building in town when the battle came in July of eighteen sixty-three. On the first day of fighting, Union surgeons commandeered it as an emergency field hospital, hauling wounded soldiers from both sides into its classrooms and halls. By evening, Confederate forces had overrun the campus, and their own surgeons took over, continuing to treat the wounded under rebel control.

The building changed hands with the battle itself. When the fighting ended, casualties were treated there through July twenty-ninth. Built in eighteen thirty-seven, Pennsylvania Hall is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and still stands at the heart of the college, its Greek Revival exterior and columned portico giving little sign of what its floors once held.