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Gettysburg: The Last Invasion (Vintage Civil War Library) Paperback – February 11, 2014
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An Economist Best Book of the Year
A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year
The Battle of Gettysburg has been written about at length and thoroughly dissected in terms of strategic importance, but never before has a book taken readers so close to the experience of the individual soldier.
Two-time Lincoln Prize winner Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights and the sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the stone walls and gunpowder clouds of Pickett’s Charge; the reason that the Army of Northern Virginia could be smelled before it could be seen; the march of thousands of men from the banks of the Rappahannock in Virginia to the Pennsylvania hills. What emerges is a previously untold story of army life in the Civil War: from the personal politics roiling the Union and Confederate officer ranks, to the peculiar character of artillery units. Through such scrutiny, one of history’s epic battles is given extraordinarily vivid new life.
- Print length672 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherVintage
- Publication dateFebruary 11, 2014
- Dimensions5.18 x 1.32 x 7.97 inches
- ISBN-100307740692
- ISBN-13978-0307740694
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Editorial Reviews
Review
“Graphic and emotionally affecting . . . an extraordinarily detailed and realistic account.”
—The New York Times Book Review
“This is a masterful battle study, masterfully told. . . . Engaging. . . . Guelzo’s narrative is enlivened by frequent use of accounts by battle participants, observers and Gettysburg civilians, and his descriptions sometimes rise almost to lyricism.”
—The Seattle Times
“[A] rich, original work. . . . Guelzo’s book enlarges the conventional battle narrative. . . . It’s his expansive, rolling storytelling that makes this book so engrossing and sets Guelzo’s Gettysburg apart from the many others. . . . Through those pages runs a thoroughly readable description of every hour of those three hellish days, in enough detail to satisfy the keenest student of tactics and courage. Some good battle histories are crackling accounts of tactical moves and soldiers’ memories, stepping along as jauntily as a Sousa march. This one proceeds more like a stately symphony, solemn but enlivened by surprise digressions and meditations, taking its time, building to a finish that is familiar to all, yet seldom conducted so eloquently.”
—The Washington Post
“This is the finest single-volume account available. . . . There is a timeless quality to Gettysburg that makes it special.”
—The Wilson Quarterly
“Among the finest campaign studies of our generation. [Gettysburg] earns this distinction with smart and vivid writing, innovative organization, and insightful analysis that manages to synthesize the Gettysburg story in a way that will appeal to the literate novice and the seasoned Civil War history reader alike.”
—The Civil War Monitor
“Detailed . . . accessible. . . . Civil War buff and newcomer alike will find plenty to keep them interested. . . . [Guelzo’s] conclusions balance conventional wisdom with unbiased clarification and analysis.”
—The Christian Science Monitor
“Wonderful . . . Guelzo’s book is an extremely timely reminder that the American experiment has not been, as the Founders asserted, a ‘self-evident truth’ but in fact a highly debatable proposition that needed to be proved, not just in July 1863 at Gettysburg but on many days and in many places since.”
—The Wall Street Journal
“Wonderfully readable . . . [Gettysburg] marries scholarly rigor to a sense of narrative that rivals that of a novel.”
—The Daily Beast
“A stylish, comprehensive, and entertaining narrative . . . [Guelzo’s] account is not a typical tick-tock of troop movements; the pages are soaked in rich language and vivid character studies . . . Guelzo knows the power of the telling detail.”
—MHQ: The Quarterly Journal of Military History
“In this consistently riveting book, Allen Guelzo makes us feel that we are hearing the epic story of the Civil War’s most famous battle for the first time. . . . This is, simply, the best book about Gettysburg that has yet been written. It is hard, if not impossible, to imagine that there will ever be a better one.”
—Fergus M. Bordewich, author of America’s Great Debate
“What is there left to say about Gettysburg? In Allen Guelzo’s deft, scholarly hands, plenty. Gettysburg: The Last Invasion is fresh, fascinating, and compellingly provocative. It is a marvelous book that deserves to be read and savored. And it deserves to be on the bookshelf of all Civil War buffs.”
—Jay Winik, author of April 1865
“An extraordinary work of thorough scholarship combined with a lifetime of judgment about historic events. . . . Everyone interested in the decisive moment in Freedom’s struggle should read Guelzo’s simply extraordinary book.”
—Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the House and coauthor of Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War
“Despite all that has been written about the battle of Gettysburg, Allen Guelzo provides new information and insights in this stirring account. . . . Readers will find much to think about in this book.”
—James M. McPherson, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Battle Cry of Freedom
“Guelzo has composed a narrative that is detailed and compelling on a human level but easy to follow on an operational and tactical one . . . A triumph of source use and presentation, engaging enough for the general reader but rigorous enough for the scholar.”
—Library Journal
“Guelzo’s entry identifies key controversies, trenchantly advocates its interpretations, and rests on a sensible foundation, the confusion of a Civil War battle . . . [Gettysburg] reads like the battle might have been experienced . . . Guelzo demonstrates versatile historical skill in this superior treatment of Gettysburg.”
—Booklist, starred review
“Stirring . . . robust, memorable reading that will appeal to Civil War Buffs, professional historians and general readers alike.”
—Kirkus Reviews, starred review
“Graceful . . . [Guelzo] gets up close and personal with soldiers and officers, providing a previously unseen level of intimacy with those who strategized and fought the battle . . . This exacting account of ‘the last invasion’ may well go down as the last word on the subject.”
—Publishers Weekly
About the Author
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
For the present generation of battlefield tourists, the most important hill on the battlefield is the cone-shaped moraine known as Little Round Top. Oddly, this was not the name by which it was known at the time of the battle. People referred to it variously as Wolf’s Hill, Sugar Loaf, or simply the “rocky hill,” and after the battle, John B. Bachelder (who set himself up almost at once as the official chronicler of Gettysburg) tried to fix the name “Weed’s Hill” to it, in honor of the most senior Union officer killed there during the battle, Stephen Weed. But Little Round Top it became, and Little Round Top it stayed, although even then it played a strictly back-seat role in the imaginations of the battle’s veterans. It was not until the 1890s when curiosity began to shift in Little Round Top’s direction, and not for another eighty years – after Michael Shaara’s The Killer Angels – that Little Round Top suddenly blossomed into the key to the entire battle. From that point, and up through the Ronald Maxwell movie epic, Gettysburg, Little Round Top was transformed into “the key of the field in front beyond a doubt,” and popular historians upped the ante to the point where “they saved the Union at Little Round Top.”
In particular, it has been Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and the 20th Maine’s last-chance bayonet charge on Little Round Top on July 2nd which have taken most of the laurels for guaranteeing that salvation. Certainly, the stand of the 20th Maine makes for great drama in the midst of great drama. As the left-flank regiment of Col. Strong Vincent’s four-regiment brigade, Chamberlain’s 20th Maine held off at least two major rebel infantry attacks in their front that afternoon, and then, when their ammunition was virtually gone, fixed bayonets and charged downhill, surprising and scattering the rebels. It was a beau geste straight out of the story-books. The fact that Chamberlain had, only a year before, been an unheralded professor of rhetoric at Bowdon College made the charge all the more amazing: an amateur, in command of amateurs, somehow made not only the right call, but the most daring call that could have been made, and succeeded. Chamberlain’s story appealed to that deep streak of American self-reliance—that confidence in improvisation, that can-do spirit that trumps overly-intellectualized and hidebound European ways of doing things. That Chamberlain was a highly-intellectualized individual himself was beside the point.
It takes nothing away from the tenacity of the fighting – the last-minute arrivals, the desperate and sometimes hand-to-hand combat, the just-in-time swing and flow of the action – to say that the drama of Little Round Top has been allowed to run away with the reality. But looked at coldly, the real credit for defending Little Round Top belongs less to Chamberlain and the 20th Maine, and more to three others who have largely faded from attention: Gouverneur Warren, the Army of the Potomac’s chief engineer, who spotted rebel infantry swarming in the direction of the otherwise undefended hill and sent off gallopers to beg or borrow any troops they could find...Strong Vincent, who took his professional standing in his own hands, brought his brigade up to Little Round Top without authorization from his division commander, and organized its defense...and Patrick O’Rorke, who also bolted at Warren’s call and brought his 140th New York up and over the crest of Little Round Top just in time to shove an even more serious Confederate attack back down the slopes. Unhappily, O’Rorke was killed in the charge and Strong Vincent was shot through the groin and died after four days of suffering. Gouverneur Warren would outlive the battle, only to be pilloried for misconduct at Five Forks in 1865. That left Chamberlain as the best candidate for laurel-wearing. And he was not an unworthy candidate, either. He would survive three wounds in 1864 (one of them near-fatal), win the Congressional Medal of Honor, end the war as a major-general, serve four terms as governor of Maine and as president of Bowdoin. Even more important, he would publish at least seven accounts of Little Round Top, giving himself the starring role, and giving Little Round Top the starring role in the battle as the last extension of the Union Left flank.
Other veterans of Vincent’s brigade were not impressed: “Chamberlain,” complained Porter Farley of the 140th New York, “is a professional talker and I am told rather imaginative withal.” And the truth is that Chamberlain’s charge was only one of several such spoiling attacks that day, and Little Round Top was more of an outpost than the real flank of the Union line. It was the ex-professor’s considerable flair for self-promotion which vaulted him ahead of the others.
Nor is it entirely clear that Little Round Top quite deserved the role Chamberlain attached to it. The puffing of Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine is a subset of the larger problem of glamorizing Little Round Top itself. Charles Hazlett, yet another forgotten player on the hill that day who manhandled his six 10-pounder Parrott rifles “by hand and handspike” up through the tangled trees and underbrush of the hill, warned Gouverneur Warren that Little Round Top didn’t afford much in the way of an artillery platform. The cone of the hill crested in a narrow spine which offered very little room for the deployment of artillery, and only permitted a line of fire facing west. Both Warren and Hazlett agreed that Little Round Top “was no place for efficient artillery fire—both of us knew that.” Hazlett only took the trouble to get up there because he hoped that “the sound of my guns will be encouraging to our troops and disheartening to the others.”
Defending Little Round Top may even have endangered more than it protected the Union position at Gettysburg. The great Confederate attack on July 2nd had never been designed to seize Little Round Top in the first place; the plan laid down by both Robert E. Lee and James Longstreet was to swing a gigantic, curling blow up the Emmitsburg Road into the rear of Cemetery Hill, and brush past the “rocky hill.” When Gouverneur Warren began pulling, first Vincent’s Brigade, then O’Rorke’s regiment, then the balance of Stephen Weed’s brigade, up to Little Round Top, he was actually subtracting units which were intended to reinforce the Union line along the Emmitsburg Road, and thus made it all the easier for James Longstreet’s rebels to land the real blow of the afternoon. The Confederates who scrambled up Little Round Top were only there because they had wandered off-course during the attack, and probably would have made no difference to the overall outcome of events on July 2nd – except, of course, that they induced Union commanders like Warren to siphon-off troops which could have been used to shore-up the Emmitsburg Road. As it was, the thinly-spread Union troops along the Emmitsburg Road were crushed by Longstreet’s sledgehammer, and the Army of the Potomac was nearly brought to its knees. Had Longstreet succeeded in seizing Cemetery Hill, we would today be blaming, rather than celebrating, Warren, Chamberlain and O’Rorke for allowing themselves to be distracted by a useless piece of rocky real estate.
Because, in the end, it really was Cemetery Hill, not Little Round Top, which was the key, something the veterans of the battle attested to in the years after the war by making their pilgrimages to Cemetery Hill, not Little Round Top. Unlike the narrow spine of Little Round Top, Cemetery Hill was a broad, flat plateau, with the ideal elevation for the siting of artillery (which was, normally, 1% of the distance to the target and never greater than 7% of the distance) and plenty of back-space to accommodate limber chests, caissons, horse-teams and battery wagons. And although modern visitors to Cemetery Hill can get no idea of this because of the foliage that has grown up there since 1863, a four-negative panorama taken from Cemetery Hill in 1869 by the local Gettysburg photographers William Tipton and Robert Myers shows a dramatically uncluttered viewshed to the west, north and south. Cemetery Hill, in other words, constituted an artillerists’ dream. It was enough “to make an artilleryman grow enthusiastic,” wrote one Pennsylvania officer. “This high ground which dominated the town and the fields in all directions, save one” (to the east) gave to an artillerists’ eye “an unobstructed view of the rolling country open and accessible to the fire of our guns.” Even Confederate observers admitted that Cemetery Hill was “made, one might say, for artillery.”
So long as the Army of the Potomac held Cemetery Hill, it had a position from which its massed artillery could decimate any infantry Robert E. Lee attempted to throw at it – in fact, did decimate it during Pickett’s Charge on July 3rd. And so long as it held Cemetery Hill, it also gripped the Baltimore Pike, the principal life-line to its railhead and supply base in Maryland. Losing Little Round Top would not have won the battle for Lee, or lost it for the Union. Cemetery Hill would have, though, which is why, after the battle, the Soldiers’ National Cemetery was created on Cemetery Hill, why the first battlefield observation tower was built on Cemetery Hill, and why the first veterans’ encampments were held on Cemetery Hill. It would take another generation to forget Cemetery Hill’s importance, and the combination of a very gifted self-advertiser and a very gifted novelist to replace it with “the rocky hill.”
Product details
- Publisher : Vintage; Reprint edition (February 11, 2014)
- Language : English
- Paperback : 672 pages
- ISBN-10 : 0307740692
- ISBN-13 : 978-0307740694
- Item Weight : 1.35 pounds
- Dimensions : 5.18 x 1.32 x 7.97 inches
- Best Sellers Rank: #145,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #40 in Civil War Gettysburg History
- #333 in Native American History (Books)
- #1,586 in U.S. State & Local History
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Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They appreciate the detailed research and insightful account of the battle. The account brings the battle to life for them, providing a unique perspective. Readers enjoy learning about the personalities and rivalries among the officers. However, opinions differ on the quality of the maps - some find them excellent and plentiful, while others consider them poor.
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Customers find the book engaging and well-written. They describe the writing style as breezily entertaining compared to authoritative histories. The author is described as a master storyteller with a lyrical style. The Gettysburg Campaign is rich and complex, depicted vividly in the book.
"...(J. Horace McFarland Company, Publishers 1932), gives a briefer account with more anecdotes, more lists of participants, and more descriptions of..." Read more
"...Last Invasion" (2013) offers a detailed, insightful, and beautifully written history of the Gettysburg campaign that has much to teach both readers..." Read more
"...merely a retelling of a familiar story but is a transformative experience for the receptive reader...." Read more
"...Guelzo is not only a superb historian- he's a master storyteller, with a lyrical style to his writing which allows the reader to feel as if he's..." Read more
Customers appreciate the book's detailed and insightful narrative account. They find it informative, thorough, and colorful, with a good amount of quoted personal experiences from ordinary soldiers. The book is great for historians, buffs, and casual readers who want an interesting dissection and interpretation of Lincoln's life.
"A detailed, thorough, and lucidly written account of the Battle of Gettysburg, placing the battle itself in the context of the larger Confederate..." Read more
"...new book "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion" (2013) offers a detailed, insightful, and beautifully written history of the Gettysburg campaign that has..." Read more
"...The level of Guelzo’s research is prodigious...." Read more
"...Guelzo is not only a superb historian- he's a master storyteller, with a lyrical style to his writing which allows the reader to feel as if he's..." Read more
Customers find the book's account of the battle compelling and interesting. It provides a different perspective on the battle from both sides, with background and nuance on key historical issues. Readers say it immerses them in the swirl of the battle and is the best history of the entire 1863 Campaign. The author also goes into great detail about the political leanings of the generals in the army's high command.
"...It was the most important battle of the Civil War in that it was a decisive turning point, it was very close, and at repeated times, opportunities..." Read more
"...He goes into great detail into the political leanings of the generals in the army's high command and their relationship with McClellan...." Read more
"...Alas, there are none to be had. He is more successful and more satisfying when he deals with the issues of the individual soldier responding to the..." Read more
"...It will bring new insights into this event which changed the course of our nation...." Read more
Customers find the book fascinating and enlightening. They appreciate the quotes that give the book an immediate feel. The book provides insights into motivations and politics of the time, adding a fresh perspective to the event. Readers mention the book is provocative and makes them think, giving them a greater appreciation for the struggles and hardships endured by the participants.
"...We appreciate the effort, as it is the best and most unique part of the book...." Read more
"...; events which add great depth to the narrative, making this book unique and a major addition to the historiography of the period...." Read more
"...takes an edgy tone at a number of points, and this adds a novel element to the work. Pipe Creek and Meade...." Read more
"...Guelzo's "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion" among the most interesting, enjoyable, and informative...." Read more
Customers find the book insightful and well-written. It offers insights into the personalities and rivalries among the officers. They appreciate the author's attention to character qualities, interrelationships, and descriptions of the characters. The book is filled with many mini-biographies of the characters and personalities who were involved in the battle. Readers enjoy the author's factual portrayal of the battle, idiosyncrasies of the battle personages, and excellent discourse on psycho-emotional dimensions of leadership under stress in combat. They also appreciate the sharp character sketches and judgments abound on many of the officers that led the battle.
"...enormous cost of the war in blood and treasure, Young is sentimental about his subjects, providing intimate details of them, and of their..." Read more
"...The main characters are introduced with short, informative biographies...." Read more
"...it is a thorough and colorful history of the battle and the prominent personalities who were a part of it...." Read more
"...modern scholarship about the great battle and presents fresh analysis of the personalities and tactics, without being weird or extreme in his..." Read more
Customers have mixed views on the map quality. Some find the maps excellent and plentiful, with maps of particular fights and troop movements. Others say the maps are the worst they have seen in a military history book, hard to read, and edited poorly. The book provides very few illustrations.
"...It contains many small maps scattered in the text, although in the Kindle edition, unfortunately, one needs a magnifying glass to read them...." Read more
"...have little idea of the overall context, which means the maps aren't always that helpful...." Read more
"...For the first-timer, it is a thorough and colorful history of the battle and the prominent personalities who were a part of it...." Read more
"...I thought the maps were fine, but you may want another source to consult with as you read about each day of fighting...." Read more
Customers have different views on the book's pace. Some find it engaging and read quickly, while others find it slow-paced and difficult to keep up with the detailed account. The first 100 pages set the political background well, but it takes a while for the page-turning to start.
"...to the end of the battle and the presence of Lincoln, this book does not skip a beat...." Read more
"This is a very good book about only 3 days of battle. The author sets the stage quickly but the wonderful level of detail is somewhat diluted by..." Read more
"...Slow Artillery fire also was due to Hunt's doctrine to conserve ammo...." Read more
"Good pace of one of the most important battles in American history...." Read more
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Gettysburg: The Last Invasion- A Treasure of History, A Must Read for all Students of the Civil War
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- Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2013A detailed, thorough, and lucidly written account of the Battle of Gettysburg, placing the battle itself in the context of the larger Confederate campaign to invade the North, and force an end to the American Civil War. President Lincoln doubted his own re-election prospects in light of the growing unpopularity of a war in which the Union armies, excepting only Grant in the West, had been failing to gain traction despite frightful casualties. My mother heard her own mother say that if you lived in America during the Civil War, you lost family in combat.
Professor Guelzo provides new insights about the opposing armies: 30,000 slaves accompanied the invading Confederate Army, cooking, washing, and supporting the required logistics. (Union soldiers cooked and washed for themselves.) Confederate troops captured 40 free black men in Pennsylvania, took them South under guard, and sold them into slavery. And Southern society had become fragmented into wealthy planters who owned slaves, intent on establishing an European-style aristocracy in their slave-holding nation, and the poor, white "sandhillers" who struggled to wrest a subsistence living from their small farms.
This from Professor Guelzo, writing in the Wall Street Journal (July 1, 2013):
"Lincoln understood that [the Confederate states'] appeal to self-determination was dubious at best. The self-determination the Confederate states desired was the freedom to protect the legalized slavery of 3.9 million black people, purely on the basis of their race, in defiance of what the Declaration of Independence had to say about equality.
And having taken that step away from equality, the Confederacy had kept moving further and further away until its entire life came to resemble a European aristocracy. The Confederacy established an internal passport system for all persons, levied a steep graduated income tax, appropriated private property for military use, and nationalized Southern industries-- iron-making, clothing for military uniforms and even railroads. Even among whites, a disdainful hierarchy of thousand-bale cotton planters and poor white sandhillers emerged.
"The admiration for monarchical institutions on the English model, for privileged classes, and for a landed aristocracy and gentry, is undisguised and apparently genuine," marveled the British journalist William Howard Russell in 1861. King Leopold I of Belgium, in 1863, hoped that the Civil War would "raise a barrier against the United States and provide a support for the monarchical-aristocratic principle in the Southern states."
Rank-and-file Union soldiers encamped at night held debates about civics, morality, and public policy, demonstrating their sense of ownership of their Republic. Union officers complained that they could not order their men to do anything, but had to ask politely. The loosely organized, mass armies were more mobs than disciplined soldiers. Yet they fought stubbornly and valiantly, as if the war were personal to them. And as citizen soldiers, mostly volunteers, they understood the stakes of the conflict in a way soldiers of other nations did not.
As further evidence of this, Gettysburg is replete with stories of the ordinary soldiers, without orders, who took the initiative necessary on a chaotic battlefield to avert disaster (as at Little Round Top), and to secure victory. Often, they did so sacrificing their own lives. At Little Round Top alone, Colonel Patrick H. O'Rorke, of the 140th New York Infantry, was killed in action leading his men in a wild charge down the hill against Hood's advancing Texans and Alabamians, as was Strong Vincent, commanding officer of the Third Brigade, Fifth Division, Fifth Corps (which included, among other units, Colonel Joshua Chamberlain's 20th Maine). Lieutenant Charles E. Hazlett, commanding officer of the Union artillery battery hastily rushed to the top of the hill (and a West Point classmate of O'Rorke's), was shot down, mortally wounded by a Confederate sniper, as was General Weed, his superior. Guelzo notes that Joshua Chamberlain's later prominence, despite leading a small unit that was part of a much larger force commanded by Vincent, was largely due to Chamberlain's status as a survivor of the war and skillful self-promoter. Many of his superior officers, who deserved equal credit for heroism, had been killed in action.
More important to the ultimate outcome of the battle were a series of missteps by a Confederate Army that achieved dizzying successes on the first and second days of the battle, only to see repeated opportunities for victory squandered. On July 2, 1863 (the second day of the battle), Longstreet's Georgians actually overran the Union line on Cemetery Ridge briefly, before being forced to withdraw because a reserve unit failed to move up to support them. Many attribute Confederate failures to coordinate their attacks properly to the death of Confederate General T.J. (Stonewall) Jackson at Chancellorsville in early May, 1863. Jackson had a genius for taking Lee's orders (which deliberately were written in suggestive language rather than as direct commands to give his battlefield commanders some discretion in their maneuvers), and turning them into brilliant, strategic thrusts. At Chancellorsville, Jackson had defeated the Union Army once again.
Conventional wisdom has become that Confederate General George Pickett's Charge on July 3, 1863, a frontal assault across open fields against the thin Union line on Cemetery Ridge, was a suicide mission doomed at the outset. Professor Guelzo disagrees. In the Crimean War only a few years earlier, he points out, such a frontal assault had been a spectacular success. There were numerous other examples of successful frontal assaults in recent military history. The point in the Union line hit by the assault was defended by only 3,500 Union soldiers, giving Pickett's 15,000 men overwhelming numerical superiority. And Lewis Armistead's Virginians successfully overran the Union position on Cemetery Ridge at the angle in the center of the Union line, with only one Union unit left in reserve, the 72nd Pennsylvania Volunteers, known as the Fire Zouaves of the Philadelphia Brigade.
Professor Guelzo's book informs us that the Fire Zouaves were the last Union regiment in reserve on Cemetery Ridge at the angle in the center of the Union line.
As Confederate General Lewis Armistead led his Virginians in overrunning the Union position directly in front of the Fire Zouaves, their commanding officer, Alexander Webb, was hit in the right leg by a charge of buckshot. From Professor Guelzo's book: "[H]e could see a rebel officer pointing at him to get someone to take another shot. He and his aide, Frank Haskell, stopped the pullback of the 71st Pennsylvania, and then, "as the damned red flags of the rebellion began to thicken and flaunt along the wall," Webb turned to his last hope, the 72nd Pennsylvania.
The "Fire Zouaves" began trading fire from the crest with the Virginians in the angle, and together with the fire from the 69th Pennsylvania they hit Armistead. "He swerved . . . as though he was struck in the stomach," dropped his sword and hat, staggered for "two or three . . . steps," then collapsed with his left hand on the muzzle of one of Cushing's silent [Union] guns. Two or three of Armistead's men clustered around their fallen chief, but the others now began to pause, drift backward, drop to the ground, or turn and run back the way they had come. The sight of Armistead's fall enthused Webb, and he began waving his sword over his head, calling on the 72nd to charge: "Yes, boys, the enemy is running, come up, come up."
[W]hen he got no response, he rode up to the color sergeant of the 72nd, William Finecy, ordered him forward, and then tried to seize the colors himself. Webb had almost given up and turned back toward the mass of rebels when Finecy bolted forward, flourishing the colors and crying, "Will you see your color storm that wall alone?" That was enough of a signal. Finecy went down, hit thirteen times, but the line of the 72nd sprang forward, surged around Armistead and the remains of Cushing's guns, and rolled, pell-mell, all the way down to the stone wall "without any special formation," more a "melee than a line of battle."
My great-great uncle, Samuel Long, a private in the Union Army, was in the 72d Pennsylvania Volunteers, also known as the "Fire Zouaves" of the Philadelphia Brigade. Until I read Professor Guelzo's book, I had no idea that his unit was the final Union reserve on Cemetery Ridge, and the last hope of the Union Army to stem the Confederate attack. They did so, barely.
Thousands of accounts of the Battle of Gettysburg have been written. It was the most important battle of the Civil War in that it was a decisive turning point, it was very close, and at repeated times, opportunities were presented to both sides that could have made a difference in the outcome. In the end, an overly cautious Meade permitted Lee's retreating army to slip from his grasp, losing an opportunity to end the war then and there. Upon hearing the news, Lincoln put his head down on his desk and wept.
Of the older accounts of the battle, my personal favorite is Jesse Bowman's Young's The Battle of Gettysburg: A Comprehensive Narrative published by Harper & Brothers in 1913 when many veterans were still alive. Young brings together the various narratives and war records from both sides in a way that permits side-by-side comparison. As befits the enormous cost of the war in blood and treasure, Young is sentimental about his subjects, providing intimate details of them, and of their participation in a great military and historical event. Make no mistake: the soldiers on both sides fiercely defended their reputations in later years, arguing bitterly about the details of every controversial battle.
And of course, W.C. Storrick's Gettysburg: The Place, the Battles, the Outcome, by the retired Superintendent of Guides; for Twenty Years Connected With the Gettysburg National Park Commission (J. Horace McFarland Company, Publishers 1932), gives a briefer account with more anecdotes, more lists of participants, and more descriptions of the statuary and monuments scattered around the Gettysburg National Military Park.
As Professor Guelzo said at a lecture I recently attended, "European military scholars called the Battle of Gettysburg the "American Waterloo". Compared to Gettyburg, Waterloo was less monumental."
- Reviewed in the United States on May 30, 2013The sesquicentennial of the Battle of Gettysburg (July 1 -- July 3, 1863) offers the opportunity to reflect upon the battle and its significance. Although every aspect of the battle has been written about extensively, attempts at understanding continue, as with any historical subject of complexity and moment. Allen Guelzo's new book "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion" (2013) offers a detailed, insightful, and beautifully written history of the Gettysburg campaign that has much to teach both readers new to the battle and readers who have studied it in detail. Guelzo, Henry R. Luce Professor of the Civil War Era and Director of Civil War Era Studies at Gettysburg College, has written broadly about the Civil War and about Abraham Lincoln. His writings tend to show an interest in ideas, including broad philosophical and religious questions. (He has also written about the early American theologian, Jonathan Edwards.)
The strength of Guelzo's book lies in its discussion of the political and philosophical importance of the Battle of Gettysburg in the preservation of American democracy. Guelzo also has interesting things to say about the battle itself. The remainder of this review elaborates these matters.
Guelzo understands the Battle of Gettysburg, and Lincoln's subsequent Gettysburg Address, as a testing of democracy first. Guelzo writes: "Gettyburg was almost univocally a battle for the Union, and it was made all the more so by Lincoln's famous address, which contains no allusion to slavery and casts the battle entirely in the context of the preservation of liberal democracy." On the underlying background, Guelzo reminds the reader at the outset that "[t]his is a book about a nineteenth century battle". He places the battle, and the Civil War, in the context of the political and military history of the times, which results in insights often missed. For example, Guelzo qualifies the understanding many readers will bring to the book about the impact of the use of the rifle and the minie ball on battlefield strategy and on tactics. He denies that the Civil War or Gettysburg was an instance of "total" war as that term came to be understood in the twentieth century. He states succinctly that there are "few things more humiliating than the bewildered, small town incompetence with which American soldiers addressed themeselves to the task of managing, directing, and commanding the mammoth citizen-armies they had called forth." Guelzo also points to and rejects the tendency of post-Vietnam scholarship to downplay the importance of military history and the story of battles. His book is valuable in its unapologetic endorsement of the study of military campaigns as part of historical understanding.
Especially as it involves the Army of the Potomac, Guelzo's book offers political insights that are easy to overlook. He goes into great detail into the political leanings of the generals in the army's high command and their relationship with McClellan. Many McClellan followers remained among the generals of the Army of the Potomac and they had an uneasy relationship with their republican or abolitionist peers. George Meade, who became the commanding general just three days before the Battle of Gettysburg had a close relationship with McClellan and his military and political inclinations were heavily influenced by those of his predecessor. Guelzo shows, more than other Gettysburg studies that I know, how political considerations heavily influenced the generals in the Army of the Potomac and their approach to the battle.
The book is organized into four large parts which consider, respectively, the beginnings and goals of Lee's Gettysburg campaign and the approach of the Army of Northern Virginia and the Army of the Potomac towards what would become the battle during June, 1863. This is followed by a chapter on the first day of the battle, July 1, 1863, culminating in a discussion of the Confederate Army's failure to attempt to occupy the pivotal sites of Cemetery and Culps Hills. The discussion of the second day focuses on Longstreet's charge and how close it came to success together with the Army of Northern Virginia's attempts to take the hills they might have tried to take the prior day. Guelzo's treatment of the third day centers, as it must of Pickett's fateful charge against the Union center.
Guelzo has read and thought about many sources, primary and secondary, and his book covers the feel of battle from the high levels of command to the foot soldier on the ground. The military movements may not be described in as much detail as in some studies, but they are lucid and easy to follow. Guelzo also makes his account exciting rather than overly technical as he captures both the heroism and the large human suffering and pain occasioned by the battle.
Students of the battle will know of the many questions that surround it, such as the effect of J.E.B. Stuart's absence, whether the decision to refrain from attacking Cemetery and Culps Hills on July 1 was wise, whether Longstreet dragged his feet in implementing orders on July 2 and 3 and several others. Guelzo addresses the questions and issues and sometimes answers them in ways against what is probably the consensus of opinion. He is critical, for example, of Meade's leadership, finding him broadly too defensively minded and concluding that Meade did indeed intend to retreat from Gettysburg the night of July 2 until dissuaded by his Corps commanders. Guelzo also criticizes, in the company of President Lincoln but against considerable modern scholarship, Meade's failure to pursue Lee after the battle and to inflict further damage before Lee's retreat across the Potomac. Guelzo's strictures against General Meade will not convince every reader, but sifting through conflicting opinions is part of the purpose of history.
Students also disagree about whether the Army of Northern Virginia could have won at Gettysburg and if so how close it came to success. Some students believe that the Union position was virtually impregnable. Guelzo argues that it was a mistake for Lee to fight the battle, but having decided to fight, the battle could have been won on several occasions. The missed opportunities include the charge on Cemetery Ridge late on July 2, and the attacks on both Cemetery Hill and Culps Hill late on July 2. Guelzo finds that northern troops seemed always available and willing to take the last heroic step to avoid disaster, while southern leadership was often uncoordinated and did not make the final aggressive. timely push that might have led to victory at critical moments.
The ultimate lesson of the battle, for Guelzo, was that a democracy could have the strength and the will to defend itself and win a war. He writes: "It was not merely that Gettysburg finally delivered a victory, or that it administered a bloody reverse to Southern fortunes at the point and in the place where they might oterwise have scored their greatest triumph, or that it had come at such a stupendous cost in lives. It was that the monumental scale of that bloodletting was its own refutation to the old lie, that a democracy enervates the virtue of its people to the point where they are unwilling to do more than blinkingly look to their personal self-interest." Guelzo teaches a poignant lesson about the strength and fragility of American democracy that is both historically based and of current importance.
Guelzo's study combines attention to fact with historical thinking and with a sense of purpose and meaning. It will be a thoughtful consideration of the Battle of Gettysburg in this sesquicentennial year and beyond.
Robin Friedman
Top reviews from other countries
- DonReviewed in Canada on December 24, 2024
5.0 out of 5 stars Top Notch Analysis
Well researched with the value of perspective and analysis, Guelzo does a fine presentation of the battle, the loss to the Confederates and the long term impact on the outcome of the civil war. Writing style is very engaging and overall a book you wish to continue reading once started. Have enjoyed it twice and recommend highly for a Civil War buff.
- AdrianReviewed in the United Kingdom on March 1, 2018
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the Best
As many others have said this is probably the best book on the subject. The one impression that I was left with was how amateur many of the commanders were, there was no doubting their courage, but their approach to strategy and tactics and Lee in particular not scouting effectively is inexcusable; the normal excuse is that Stuart's brigade was absent, which it was, but there were small cavalry detachments available and scouting is best done by one man not an entire unit.
My only complaint is that thought there are loads of maps there is not a single map that shows the entire battlefield, which if the reader is unfamiliar with the field can be confusing. Apart from that this is a book that I have no hesitation in recommending since the scholarship is excellent.
One person found this helpfulReport - PaoloReviewed in Italy on April 15, 2014
4.0 out of 5 stars Scrupulous, minute to minute book
Having in Italy an excellent book on the Civil War, especially on military history, (Luraghi) I decided to buy this prize winner one not to know, but to have a deeper insight.
I found an excellent description of the battle, especially from the point of view of the real fighters; the tactic arises clearly, the open questions are clarified without hollow critics; the strategy is studied in a shorter way; interesting is the reconstruction of the political background of the generals, but the wide picture is summarized.
Only a remark: maps, as always, are difficult to find and to see on Kindle: in a book like this, this justifies a lost star.
- Ralph BangsReviewed in Canada on November 13, 2020
5.0 out of 5 stars If it is a good book.
Haven't read it all yet.
- CharlesReviewed in the United Kingdom on October 20, 2013
5.0 out of 5 stars Typical Guelzo
An intensely readable account, I have already read it twice, making sense of the complex event with much background I was unaware of. Guelzo's scholarship is always impeccable but this is the account of someone who has walked and absorbed the battlefield and understands its confusing topography and the significance it imparted to the events. The maps are very good and on Kindle the references can be found so easily. One caveat is that JEB Stuarts role on the 3rd day, which would explain so much, is passed over.
One person found this helpfulReport