Spangler's Spring
Spangler's Spring sits at the south base of Culp's Hill, where some of the fiercest fighting of the Battle of Gettysburg unfolded on July 2-3, 1863, and where thirsty soldiers from both armies are said to have drawn water during the lulls; the War Department capped the spring in stone in 1895 after years of heavy use. By the late nineteenth century a legend had taken root that on hazy evenings a glowing Woman in White rises from the ground as mist, then takes shape and drifts across the field, pausing and bending low as though tending a fallen man. Some hold she is an itinerant nun of the Sisters of Charity who came to nurse the wounded after the battle and never stopped her rounds; others say she was a young woman who took her own life here after a broken engagement, one more sorrow in fields already full of them. Witnesses describe not fear but a deep sadness that settles over the spring as she passes.
📍 Colgrove Avenue off Baltimore Pike, south base of Culp's Hill, Gettysburg National Military Park, Gettysburg, PA 17325, Gettysburg, PA · Get directions