YORK, Penn. — For the men and women inside the George Spangler Farm Hospital during the Battle of Gettysburg, Independence Day 1863 was anything but a celebration.

Blood covering their arms, aprons and bare skin, tired and weary surgeons — surrounded by pools of blood and piles of amputated limbs — worked hours on end to help repair a seemingly endless stream of wounded soldiers.

“A surgeon, having been long at work, would put down his knife, exclaiming that his hand had grown unsteady and that this was too much for human endurance – not seldom hysterical tears streaming down his face,” wrote Major General Carl Schurz of the scene he experienced.

Though the scene in that hospital has mostly faded into history, one Dowagiac native is working to ensure that it is never forgotten by sharing the stories of the people who experienced life at the hospital first hand.

Ron Kirkwood, 64, of York, Pennsylvania, recently released his first book “Too Much for Human Endurance: The George Spangler Farm Hospitals and the Battle of Gettysburg.” A 1973 Dowagiac Union High School graduate, Kirkwood spent his early years growing up in Dowagiac and Sister Lakes. After high school and graduating from Central Michigan University, he went on to work as a writer and editor for USA Today, the Baltimore Sun, Harrisburg Patriot-News, and the York Daily Record.

Using first-hand accounts, “Too Much for Human Endurance,” Kirkwood’s first foray into a full-length book, tells the story of the George Spangler Farm in Gettysburg. The farm served as a home for two Army of the Potomac’s XI Corps hospitals during the Battle of Gettysburg and hosted approximately 3,000 men. Kirkwood believes the farm was essential to the Union army’s victory in Gettysburg.

“A lot of this stuff was reported, and although it has been gathered, it has never been put into one book — the strategies, the stories of the men, the sacrifices of the doctors, nurses and Spanglers. … It’s a bunch of stories in one book about the people and the farm and how it was used to win the most important battle of the Civil War for the Union. … My excitement is in getting this story out there so that people can know how important this farm was.”

Though Kirkwood can attribute some of his love of reading and writing to his education through the Dowagiac Union School system, he places his interest in Battle of Gettysburg to the George Spangler Farm itself.

First becoming interested in the history of the Civil War after reading a book on the subject in the 1980s, Kirkwood later became a volunteer with the Gettysburg Foundation. For the last six years, he has served as a guide at the George Spangler Civil War Field Hospital site, now owned by the Gettysburg Foundation. It was at the farm that Kirkwood became fascinated with hearing the stories of those that experienced the Battle of Gettysburg from the farm.

“When I started all of this, I didn’t have any real drive to become an author,” Kirkwood said. “Instead, I just wanted to research and share the story of the farm. It’s a rare Gettysburg story that hasn’t been told. This is one story that has been left behind, untold for so many years.”

Through the 408-page, 23-chapter book, Kirkwood said he hopes that he can accomplish his goal of ensuring that the story of those who lived and died at the Spangler Farm will never be forgotten. He added that he hopes readers will walk away from the book having learned something new and achieving a new appreciation for this period of history.

“We can never truly understand what happened there,” Kirkwood said. “The closest we can get is hearing the stories and the words of the men and women who were there and hearing what they thought, how they felt and what they went through. If not a total picture, it gives us a sense of what these people sacrificed. I think it is important to get that story out.”