Gettysburg Lectures

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought from July 1-13, 1863 and ended the Confederacy's second invasion of the North. It was the bloodiest battle fought in North America. (The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest single day.) Although there are many outstanding narrative accounts of the battle, the literature which carefully examines aspects of the battle and their significance is less extensive. Gabor Boritt's collection "The Gettyburg Nobody Knows" (1997) consists of nine essays by outstanding scholars which elucidate the battle and its consequences. Each essay is accompanied by notes and by comments by each author suggesting further reading. The book derives from presentations at the annual summer Civil War Institute in Gettysburg. Professor Boritt is the Director of the Institute. There is a wonderful tone of scholarship and of the desire to learn that pervades this volume. One of the authors reflects that all the participants in the seminars -- and the readers as well -- are students trying to learn rather than experts with all the answers. This attitude is one that could well be emulated in scholarship and intellectual activity of all kinds. It is a joy to have it presented in this book.The essays cover a great variety of topics. The first essay by Joseph Glatthaar discusses the role of the common soldier in the Gettysburg campaign and points out how the Confederate Army may have been at once tired, overconfident, and undisciplined in its movement to the North. Glenn LaFantasie follows this essay with a discussion of Joshua Chamberlain, the hero of Little Round Top which endeavors to separate the facts from the myths that have grown around Chamberlain. To my reading, Chamberlain still emerges from the essay as a highly impressive figure.Harry Pfanz has written three extensive narratives on the Battle of Gettysburg. In this volume, he contributes a slim but succinct essay on the Confederate General Richard Ewell. Pfanz largely exonerates Ewell from the criticism he has suffered in many quarters for failing to advance on Cemetery and Culps Hills on the first day of the battle.Kent Gramm's essay on the First Minnesota is an outstanding meditation on the hazards and chances of war and of the role of individual responsibility and action. It also has a great deal worthwhile to say about the Generalship of Lee, Meade, Longstreet, and Sickles. This is highly reflective, thoughtful historical writing.Emory Thomas's essay examines the role of JEB Stuart's cavalry in the battle and the impact of his absence. Unlike many studies, it focuses on the fighting on East Cavalry on the third day and his some insightful thoughts about the importance of that action and why it turned out the way it did.There are three essays which focus in different ways on the aftermath of the Battle of Gettysburg and its significance. Carol Reardon is a highly-regarded student of Pickett's Charge. Her essay focuses on the Union side of the line and on the difficult

You won't hear anywhere else about what happened to Joshua Chamberlain after the war, about what on earth JEB Stuart was doing (and why, to some degree), about the effects of Stonewall Jackson's absence, and more troumendously interesting subjects. This book WILL give you a different perspective on the battle. The book is full of minute details that may only be interesting to the Civil War buff. But, I can't imagine why not everybody in the world is a Civil War buff. This book also has a very good chapter on the Northern perspective of Pickett's Charge. Required reading for a Civil War buff, I emphasize. The authors are all splendid historians. They include Harry W. Phanz, Richard M. McMurry, Carol Reardon, and others.

Myths about the Battle of Gettysburg persist, but this fresh examination allows a deeper understanding of the events which took place those hot July days back in 1863. The book clarifies myths about Ewell, Chamberlain, Pickett and Lee. It's informative and quite fun.

I particularly enjoyed this book in which several essays are presented on different aspects of the battle because it addresses the issue that battles are fought in real time and cannot be changed by historians years later. Richard B. McMurray in his essay entitled "The Pennsylvania Gambit and the Gettysburg Splash" hit home with me because I have felt for a long time that Gettysburg did not win or lose the war for either side. McMurrays belief and I concur is that the war was won in the west by the western armies and his essay addresses the invasion of Pennsylvania in light of the siege of Vicksburg and other operations in the west in 1863. I am glad to have purchased this book for my Gettysburg collection.

Here is yet another fantastic piece from Dr. Gabor Boritt, arguably one of the greatest Lincoln historians of our time. This time around, Dr. Boritt has chosen as his focus Gettysburg - the location of the battle which many view as the turning point in the Civil War. This work draws from many different historians, and paints a marvelously interesting portrait of the battle. The writings Dr. Boritt has complied also gives the reader viewpoints of various aspects of the battle which have been hitherto overlooked. A recommended read for anyone seriously interested in the Batttle of Gettysburg.