The Guns at Gettysburg

The guns still stand at Gettysburg amid the markers and the monuments on the hallowed ground. And it is fitting that they do, for Gettysburg marked not only the high tide of the Confederacy and the turning point of the war, but also the greatest cannonade ever seen in this hemisphere. In no battle of the Civil War did artillery play a more decisive role than it did here, and no factor contributed more to the Union victory than the superior handling of the Federal cannon. Amid all the discussions of the errors of generalship on both sides, too little credit has been given to that all-but-forgotten hero of the battle, General Henry Jackson Hunt, the chief of the Union artillery. In reappraising and retelling the battle form the artilleryman’s point of view, Colonel Downey has made a real contribution to our understanding of the reasons for the Confederate failure to crush the Army of the Potomac.