Date: Fri 09-Jul-1999

Publication: Bee

Author: MARYG

Quick Words:

Gettysburg-essays-Kendall

Full Text:

A Good Reason, And Appropriate Time, To Re-Visit Gettysburg

(with book cover)

BY DAVID KENDALL

(Three Days At Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership; edited

by Gary W. Gallagher, Kent State University Press, 1999, 373 pp, $35.)

GETTYSBURG, PENN. -- One hundred and thirty-six years ago this month, two

American generals and a combined 150,000 troops staged an incredible

"Independence Day" event at this tiny, crossroads town in southern

Pennsylvania.

Through an amazing chain of circumstances, the Army of northern Virginia under

Robert E. Lee, and the Army of the Potomac under George G. Meade, meshed in a

conflict so controversial, even to this day, that had the word "if" never been

added to the English language, it might still prove impossible to describe.

Now, Gary Gallagher, a professor of history at the University of Virginia, has

assembled 13 thoroughly readable essays in a small volume that spans the

entire action from the firing of the first shot on July 1, to Pickett's tragic

charge on July 3. This may very well be one of the most important collections

on the Battle of Gettysburg.

Alan Nolan's kick-off essay analyzes the legend of Lee's omniscient

leadership, and places it under a sharply penetrating light. His conclusions

are not all flattering to "Marse Robert," citing important military authority

including Carl von Clausewitz in support.

At a recent seminar concerning the first day of battle, one speaker critiqued

the leadership of Union general Oliver Otis Howard, referring to the major

general as "Oh, oh!" It was a contemporarily comfortable view.

However, in his essay "Three Days at Gettysburg," Wilson Greene takes

exception to that conventional viewpoint in a scholarly analysis of Mr

Howard's options and decisions.

Of special interest is the essay on Union artillerist Major General Henry

Jackson Hunt by Gary Kross. In a strong view of the employment of Union

batteries, especially on the third day of the battle, Mr Kross cites Hunt's

commentaries on orders given by Second Corps commander Major General Winfield

S. Hancock.

Gen Hunt felt that, had he been permitted overall control of targets and

timing, "I do not believe that Pickett's Division would have reached our

line." The reference, of course, is to the famous charge of the Virginians and

North Carolinians that nearly breeched the Union line on July 3.

If I have any criticism of this book, it simply is that Professor Gallagher

fails to offer the credentials of his essayists. While careful students of the

Civil War know that Robert Krick is an associate of Mr Gallagher's, and one

with whom he often finds himself in conflict, and that Peter Carmichael is a

former student of both, nowhere are such relationships discussed. And, while I

know that Gary Kross is one of the most respected registered guides at the

Gettysburg Battlefield, I have such knowledge only because I have attended

walking tours and seminars with him under the aegis of the Civil War Education

Association. Other readers may not be so fortunate.

Amply illustrated and profusely annotated, Three Days at Gettysburg should

enhance the library of any student of military history in general, the

American Civil War in particular, and the Battle of Gettysburg in specific. It

is available through area bookstores and via the Internet.