Gettysburg
The Last Invasion
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
Winner of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Esteemed Civil War scholar Guelzo (Lincoln and Douglas) delivers a dense, impressively detailed account of the Civil War's turning point and bloodiest battle. Beginning shortly before the days of the actual engagement, his tome explores all aspects of Gettysburg as a military endeavor and the events that led to it. He addresses politics within the Union and the Confederate governments and armies, the personalities of major players and units, and places all within a greater historical and global context. Guelzo's beautiful prose transforms straightforward facts into a visceral, if gruesome, picture of the time and place (depictions of the injured and dead are as detailed as the discussions of military or political strategy), and supplementary maps and photographs aid visualization. Even while presenting the smallest details Guelzo contributes to a greater understanding of complexities of the battle and the Civil War as a whole of particular note is a soldier's memory of opposing army bandsmen simultaneously playing "Home, Sweet Home" one night across the banks of the Rappahannock River from one another. While the sheer length and level of required engagement with the text make it not for everyone, readers who are willing to dedicate the time to read it will find this book enriching and enlightening.
