Gettysburg Stone
Philadelphia, Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
This stone from the battle-field of Gettysburg is placed by citizens of the neighborhood in the year 1916 to mark the nearby site of the West Philadelphia General Hospital of the United States Army later designated the Satterlee General Hospital …… transcription continues on the marker
This transcription may be incomplete
Our source stores marker text in a field capped at 255 characters, and this inscription appears to have been cut off. We won’t guess at the missing words — the inscription is the primary source, and inventing it would be worse than leaving it short.
Have you stood in front of this marker? Send us the full text or a photo of the sign and we’ll complete the record.
The Story
Neighbors set this stone — carried from the battlefield at Gettysburg — in 1916 to mark the site of one of the Civil War's largest Union military hospitals, the West Philadelphia General, later renamed Satterlee General Hospital. Sprawling across West Philadelphia, Satterlee treated tens of thousands of sick and wounded soldiers, including many brought north from Gettysburg itself in July 1863. A piece of the battlefield thus commemorates the place where its casualties were nursed.
Why it matters
It links the carnage of Gettysburg to the vast, often-forgotten medical effort behind the lines, where huge general hospitals labored to save the Union's wounded far from the front.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the summer of 1863, the Civil War reached a terrible peak at Gettysburg, and the human cost of those three days had to go somewhere. Behind every great battle of that war stretched an enormous, less-remembered effort to save the wounded — and much of it happened in cities far to the rear, including here in West Philadelphia.
Philadelphia was a major hub of the Union war effort: a city of railroads, factories, and hospitals, positioned to receive casualties shipped north from the fighting. To handle the staggering numbers, the Army built sprawling general hospitals, vast complexes of wards laid out like small cities, capable of caring for thousands of men at once.
This stone marks the site of one of the largest of them. Set here in 1916 by citizens of the neighborhood, and carried from the Gettysburg battlefield itself, it ties a quiet residential corner of Philadelphia to the vast machinery of Civil War medicine that once occupied this ground.
People & events
The hospital remembered here began as the West Philadelphia General Hospital and was later designated the Satterlee General Hospital. In its day it was among the great military hospitals of the North — a huge Union facility that treated many tens of thousands of sick and wounded soldiers over the course of the war.
Its connection to Gettysburg is direct and poignant. When the battle filled the region's medical system to overflowing in July 1863, casualties were moved north to hospitals like this one, so that the suffering of that Pennsylvania battlefield was carried, quite literally, into the wards of West Philadelphia. The men who cared for them — surgeons, nurses, and hospital staff — fought their own long campaign against wounds, infection, and disease.
The stone itself tells a story of memory. In 1916, more than half a century after the guns fell silent, neighbors chose to mark what had stood here by bringing a piece of the Gettysburg battlefield to the site. It is a deliberate act of remembrance, linking the place where soldiers were hurt to the place where so many were healed.
Its place in the American story
Gettysburg is remembered for its charges and its cemetery and its famous address, but this stone points to something the monuments on the field can't show: the immense medical effort that the war demanded behind the lines. Saving the wounded was one of the Union's largest undertakings, and it reshaped American medicine and public health for generations.
The great general hospitals of cities like Philadelphia pioneered the large-scale, organized care of casualties — the logistics of moving, housing, and treating thousands of men at once. Much of what later became standard practice in caring for the sick and injured has roots in the hard lessons of these Civil War wards.
That a neighborhood chose to commemorate a hospital, rather than a battle, is itself meaningful. It insists that the story of the war includes not only those who fell in the fighting but the vast, patient labor to save those who might yet live — a chapter usually written far from the famous fields.
If you visit
Don't expect a battlefield here. What you'll find is an ordinary West Philadelphia neighborhood, which is exactly what makes the marker so striking: a fragment of Gettysburg set down amid streets and houses, where a hospital city once sprawled and has since vanished into the everyday fabric of the block.
Look closely at the stone and remember that it is not local rock — it was carried from the battlefield itself, a piece of that ground placed deliberately by people who wanted this history kept. Reading its 1916 date, you can feel the reach of memory: neighbors, decades on, refusing to let the site be forgotten.
For a traveler, this is a rewarding contrast to a trip out to Gettysburg proper. Visit the battlefield for the scale of the fighting, then come here to complete the story — the place, well behind the lines, where the war's wounded were brought and tended. It's a reminder that history hides in plain sight, sometimes in a single stone on a quiet corner.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Plan your visit
NearbyMake a day of it — museums, food, and places to stay near this marker.
Museums & culture
- Bridgette Mayer3.0 mi away · 709 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
- African American Museum in Philadelphia3.1 mi away · 701 Arch Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Congress Hall3.2 mi away · Philadelphia, PA
- Liberty Bell Center3.2 mi away · 526 Market Street, Philadelphia
- Independence Hall3.2 mi away · 520 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Independence Visitor Center3.2 mi away · 599 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
Attractions
- American Bandstand0.6 mi away
- Philadelphia Zoo1.8 mi away
- Rocky Steps1.9 mi away
- Pennsylvania Railroad, Connecting Railway Bridge2.0 mi away
- The Universal Sphere2.2 mi away
- One Liberty Observation Deck2.2 mi away
Food & drink
- Munchie’s Cafe3.0 mi away · 728 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Philly Pretzel Factory3.0 mi away
- Burger King3.0 mi away
- Talula's Garden3.0 mi away · 210 West Washington Square, Philadelphia, PA
- Talula's Daily3.0 mi away · 208 West Washington Square, Philadelphia, PA
- Fat Salmon3.0 mi away · 719 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
Places to stay
- DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel Philadelphia Center City2.5 mi away · 237 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Cambria Hotel Philadelphia Downtown - Center City2.5 mi away · 219 South Broad Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Holiday Inn Express2.5 mi away · 1305-11 Walnut Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Fairfield Inn & Suites2.5 mi away · 261 South 13th Street, Philadelphia, PA
- Residence Inn Philadelphia Center City2.6 mi away · 1 East Penn Square, Philadelphia, PA
- The Notary Hotel2.6 mi away · 21 North Juniper Street, Philadelphia
Places data © OpenStreetMap contributors. Hours and details change — call ahead.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related events
- · Battle of Gettysburg
- · Satterlee General Hospital
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Satterlee U.S.A. General Hospital
Philadelphia, PA · est. 2003
During the Civil War, the Union Army needed hospitals on a scale the nation had never before contemplated, and Satterlee was among the largest and most complete. From 1862 to 1865 its long one-story wards and sprawling tent city treated thousands of sick and wounded soldiers across more than sixteen acres of West Philadelphia. Named for Gen. Richard Satterlee, the army's medical purveyor, it reflected a wartime revolution in military medicine and sanitation.
John Page Nicholson (1842-1922)
Philadelphia, PA · est. 1998
John Page Nicholson fought in the Civil War and then devoted his life to remembering it. A meticulous scholar, he edited the two-volume Pennsylvania at Gettysburg and worked to preserve the battlefields at Gettysburg and Valley Forge. In 1888 he helped found a library and museum dedicated to the war he had lived through.
George Gordon Meade (1815-1872)
Philadelphia, PA · est. 1999
George Gordon Meade rose from Army engineer to major general, taking command of the Army of the Potomac just days before it turned back Robert E. Lee's invasion at Gettysburg in July 1863 — the campaign that broke the Confederacy's northward push. Philadelphia was his family's city, and a grateful nation gave him a house here, where he lived until his death in 1872. The marker stands near that home, tying the Union's most consequential victory to the ordinary streets of the general who won it.
US Sanitary Commission Great Central Fair
Philadelphia, PA · est. 2012
For three weeks in June 1864, Logan Square filled with exhibits, goods, and crowds as the U.S. Sanitary Commission's Great Central Fair raised more than a million dollars for Union soldiers and their families. The Commission had grown out of the vast, largely female volunteer effort to feed, nurse, and comfort the men at the front. On June 16, President Abraham Lincoln—making his only official public appearance in Philadelphia—stepped before the crowd to praise the work being done there.