Walter E. Day

This book came out in 1912, so one can't help but suspect that it was intended for the fiftieth anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Sadly, it is not an ideal monument.

To be sure, it is not terribly flawed. It was published late enough that it could use the Official Records of the war, as well as the accounts in the famous Battles and Leaders set, and some other sources. It uses the best sources available. But it's sloppy at times. For instance, one of the brigadiers in Robert Rodes's division, George Doles, is consistently called "George Dole," and this error also occurs on the book's maps. One of those maps also names the division commander "Podes," although the others correctly call him "Rodes."

To give credit where credit is due, it gives a better-than-average account of the campaign leading up to Gettysburg, as Robert E. Lee's army enters the North and tries to do damage in Pennsylvania. This was one of the clearest explanations of this part of the campaign I've ever read.

But it's as if that used up all the author's energy, because the battle itself is rather briefly covered. To give just one example: When we get to Pickett's Charge, it's almost entirely viewed from the Confederate side -- we don't hear anything about Gibbon's division that took the charge. It isn't factually wrong, but it isn't particularly informative.

And the conclusions the author draws after the battle range from the dubious to the flat-out wrong. An obvious example of the latter: He still believes in cavalry fighting on horseback. In just two years, World War I would prove him dead wrong -- but even in the Civil War, the development of the rifle musket had ended that. Cavalry was still useful, because it could scout and screen movements and provide rapid reinforcement, but for fighting, it needed to get off its horses.

And it strikes me that the book has a pro-Southern bias. I don't mean that he comes out and says that the Confederacy was in the right, or anything like that. On that account, it is pretty well balanced. But he has more confidence in the southern armies than the northern. For instance, he laments that if there had been just a few more troops to support Pickett's Charge, then the battle might have been won. But there was no other division; Lee's army had been fought to a frazzle by then. And even if there had been another division, I don't think most people would have believed that it could succeed. Not more than two percent of Pickett's men made it to the wall that the Union forces were defending; they were quickly overwhelmed. Maybe the next division could have gotten 20% of its troops to the wall. That would be at most two thousand men. If Meade's army had truly been threatened, Meade had the intact Sixth Corps as a reserve to drive them back. Pickett's Charge was a forlorn hope, as James Longstreet knew; Lee's only hope had been to win the battle in the previous two days, and he didn't.

And the author is pretty hard on George Meade. Oh, I agree with him that Meade's pursuit of Lee was too slow and too passive. But could Meade have done better? Remember, for starters, that Meade had only had the command for a week -- he hadn't even managed to get his own staff in place. And while everyone had known that his predecessor Joe Hooker was in trouble, most people thought John F. Reynolds would be Hooker's replacement (and the author doesn't even mention the moves to get Reynolds into the job); Meade had no reason to be thinking about what the army should be doing until the job was thrust upon him three days before the battle! On top of all that, Meade's army was almost as fought-out as Lee's, and (unlike Lee) he had suffered a horrid loss of his subordinates: of his seven corps commanders, one (Reynolds) was dead, two (Hancock and Sickles) were wounded and out of action, and one (Sykes) was brand-new, having only gotten the command when Meade was promoted. With his army in that condition, how was Meade supposed to plan a pursuit?

On top of all that, the author thinks Richard Ewell and A. P. Hill were good corps commanders. I can't recall any other twentieth century writer who believes the same.

All in all, Gettysburg was a battle fought under conditions of great difficulty for both sides, few of them acknowledged here (e.g. there is no mention of the fact that Lee was sick and Longstreet had a sore foot, or of the fact that Lee was finding it harder and harder to identify and promote competent brigadiers). As a broad overview, this is a decent book. But don't look at it too closely.… (lisätietoja)