Gettysburg, by Stephen W. Sears

This particular book is precisely the sort of one-volume battle study one wants for a battle like Gettysburg. For nearly as long as it has taken since the battle itself, Gettysburg was viewed as the high tide of the Confederacy, with a great deal of attention paid to those few Confederates that were able to reach the lines of Brigader General Hays and the battery of Alonzo Cushing, and to the view that it was just possible for the Confederacy to overcome the Union, but where it all fell apart. This book strips away the romantic myth and examines the battle in a broad context that ends up giving a surprisingly detailed criticism of the behavior of a variety of generals, with accounts taken from personal diaries, journals, letters, regimental histories, and the like, to create an immensely detailed account of a battle that is well-known but which also still has much that remains unknown about it. The attention of the author goes well beyond the focus on some notable leaders as Lee, Meade, Lincoln, Hooker, Buford, Longstreet, Ewell, and others whose names are familiar on the corps level for their leadership before and during the battle, but extends to discussion of brigade and regimental commanders and fights over colors, which seems to take a large part of the regimental histories. One of the more surprising aspects of this account is the way that it gives a detailed discussion of officers that many readers may have never heard about, such as the way that the skill of the commander of the largely unheralded 8th Ohio placed his regiment skillfully enough that it drove off the troops of both the incompetent Brockenbrough as well as the out-of-his depth Joe Davis, nephew of the Confederate president and Confederate nepo baby, thus taking out the entire left flank of Pickett’s Charge well before the peak of the charge. Many readers will be unaware that there was a relative of Jefferson Davis who served as an incompetent brigadier general in Lee’s army.

As befits a massive battle study, this book has almost 550 pages of important reading material. The book begins with a list of maps and a short introduction about the battle, which given that the author also has written a well-regarded book on Chancellorsville, the battle which preceded Gettysburg, it makes, as well as other books on the Army of the Potomac and its leadership, it makes sense why Gettysburg would be a natural subject for the author to tackle. The author begins by looking at Lee’s efforts to move to the aggressive after the victory at Chancellorsville (1) by invading Pennsylvania and the turmoil within the Union command after Hooker’s embarrassing loss (2). The author discusses the risks of action, including the way that a sharp cavalry fight at Bristoe Station led to Stuart seeking to restore his glory by riding around the Army of the Potomac, which contributed to Lee’s lack of information about Union dispositions before the Battle of Gettysburg (3). The author discusses the marching of the armies (4), Lee’s experiences in “enemy country” (5), and the high stakes involved in battle for Lee so far away from his base of supplies against an enemy he held in contempt (6). At this point, just a bit more than 150 pages into the book, the discussion of the battle itself begins with a discussion of the meeting engagement that took place the morning of July 1st just outside of the small town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania (7), and with the successful efforts the Confederacy had as the battle expanded due to their temporary manpower advantage (8) as well as the gains they had fighting against the poorly led XI corps. Meade’s agreement to fight it out at Gettysburg (9) and the intense fighting on the left flank of the Union army thanks to Sickles’ incompetence (10) mark the second day’s fighting. The author then discusses battle in the evening and morning around Culp’s Hill which ultimately favored the Union (11), the artillery duel (12), as well as Pickett’s charge and the associated cavalry action on the third day (13), after which the author discusses the aftermath of the battle (14) and the struggle over the battle’s meaning by those involved and observing the battle (epilogue). The book closes with a detailed discussion of the leadership and composition of the armies at Gettysburg, notes, a bibliography, and an index.

The Battle of Gettysburg itself contained a large enough context, including preliminary operations in the aftermath of Chancellorsville and ties with other fronts of the war as well as the continual efforts of Lee to use the threat of victory in the North as a means of diplomatically ending the Civil War in favor of the Confederacy. Lee accurately understood that once his army was pinned to the defense of Richmond it was only a matter of time before defeat followed, and that is what indeed did happen. Yet Lee’s handling of the Gettysburg campaign deserves (and receives here) a fair degree of criticism, including letting Stuart hamstring his information-gathering capabilities, and letting his subordinates bungle into starting the meeting engagement that he specifically ordered them not to engage in, even if the first day did largely go the way of the Confederates, in large part due to the incompetence and bungling of the 11th Corps under Howard. The detailed understanding of the regimental level distribution of the forces on both sides of the battle help the author make some remarkably nuanced conclusions about the behavior of the generals, including the difficulties that Meade had in switching from defense to counterattack on or after July 3rd, given the disorganized state of many of the units of the Army of the Potomac that were out of order because of the way that they had been used to plug gaps in the intense fighting of July 2nd and 3rd. Likewise, though the author is critical about the lax leadership of many, he is also willing to stand up in defense of those who he considers to have been overlooked for their achievements, like the excellent work Doubleday put in as the interim commander of 1 Corps during the July 1 fighting, which the author considers to be his best day in the whole Civil War as a commander on any level, considerable praise indeed for an officer not viewed as being excellent at all. Among the other benefits of the author’s attention to detail is the way that he is able to point to the beginning of the cannon duel on July 3rd that was recorded by a local Gettysburg mathematics professor who was also passionate about timekeeping and meteorology, all of which adds a lot of flavor to a large but excellent work of history.