Three Roads to Gettysburg
Meade, Lee, Lincoln, and the Battle That Changed the War, the Speech That Changed the Nation
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
An epic, revelatory account of the Battle of Gettysburg, where George Meade, Lincoln's unexpected choice to lead the Union army, defeated Robert E. Lee and changed the course of the Civil War, from the award-winning author of James Monroe: A Life
By mid-1863, the Civil War, with Northern victories in the West and Southern triumphs in the East, seemed unwinnable for Abraham Lincoln. Robert E. Lee’s bold thrust into Pennsylvania, if successful, could mean Southern independence. In a desperate countermove, Lincoln ordered George Gordon Meade—a man hardly known and hardly known in his own army—to take command of the Army of the Potomac and defeat Lee’s seemingly invincible Army of Northern Virginia. Just three days later, the two great armies collided at a small town called Gettysburg. The epic three-day battle that followed proved to be the turning point in the war, and provided Lincoln the perfect opportunity to give the defining speech of the war—and a challenge to each generation of Americans to live by.
These men came from different parts of the country and very different upbringings: Robert E. Lee, son of the aristocratic and slaveholding South; George Gordon Meade, raised in the industrious, straitlaced North; and Abraham Lincoln, from the rowdy, untamed West. Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860 split the country in two and triggered the Civil War. Lee and Meade found themselves on opposite sides, while Lincoln had the Sisyphean task of reuniting the country.
With a colorful supporting cast second to none, Three Roads to Gettysburg tells the story of these consequential men, this monumental battle, and the immortal address that has come to define America.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
McGrath (James Monroe) takes the long road to Gettysburg in this rambling group biography of Gen. George G. Meade, Gen. Robert E. Lee, and President Abraham Lincoln. McGrath first focuses on the men's early lives; the breezy biographical details on Lincoln and Lee do not reveal much that's new, whereas the innovative and meticulous lighthouse builder Meade is more robustly explored. McGrath then pegs the Mexican American War as changing all three men's trajectories: Lincoln in his political stance against the war, and Lee and Meade, as West Point graduates called to serve, in the lessons they learned in battle. Meade realized the "importance of taking and holding the high ground," a key component of his victory at Gettysburg, while Lee observed the "fragility" of senior military officer's relationships with their civilian commanders in chief, which, McGrath posits, led to his later success working with Confederate president Jefferson Davis (Lee always "made it a point to keep Davis informed"). The first two years of the war receive short shrift, while the Gettysburg battle itself gets three chapters, one for each day of the fighting; in them, McGrath provides some neat factoids and the drama is at times stirring. Less successful is the lightweight look at the Gettysburg Address. Nevertheless, Civil War buffs will find a few flashes of insight here.
