In 2007, detectives from the Niagara Falls, New York, Police Department were challenged by a judge as to how far back in time photoluminescence testing can verify the presence of human blood.

Hearing there were places in Gettysburg where bloodstain could still be seen nearly 150 years after the battle. The house on the Daniel Lady Farm is one of those locations.

The fieldstone house offered some protection as surgeons worked on wounded and dying Confederate officers. During the restoration of the house by the GBPA, shrapnel was found in a chimney on the east side of the house, as was the path the projectile followed in passing through the attic rafters.

Rank-and-file wounded were treated in the bottom of the barn, the stone foundation of the stable providing similar protection as the house, though at least one shell burst through, its shrapnel still visible, buried in a rafter.

The stable floor, being dirt, and also having been covered by cement in the 1930’s, would not have retained evidence of human blood. The cement floor was removed as part of the GBPA restoration.

The tests of the farmhouse were positive for blood on the floor.