Lee harbored hopes that one final assault against Cemetery Ridge would sweep away the Union defenders and open the road north. Pickett’s Charge remains the stuff of “Lost Cause” legend. Guelzo finds Chamberlain’s claim to have saved the Union’s fortunes at Little Round Top to be much overrated. Two iconic commanders are Joshua Chamberlain of the 20th Maine Regiment and Confederate General George Pickett.

He had heard a wounded Yankee “begging in his agonizing thirst for a drink.” Once he had performed that act of mercy, “he sprinted back to his own skirmish line” as his comrades yelled out, “Down, Yanks, we’re going to fire.” And on both sides, Guelzo writes, “the soldiers returned to the business at hand of killing one another.” On the morning of the third day, a Connecticut regiment held its fire as a lone Confederate was seen advancing toward their lines. “If the enemy is there tomorrow,” Lee told his lieutenants, “we must attack him.” And that battle, said Meade at a late-night gathering of his commanders, has been “forced on us.”ĭay two was reckoned a draw, but the Union forces had now secured strong positions on Cemetery Ridge overlooking the Confederate positions south of the town. There was uncertainty as to what would happen the next day. After some early success, day one went to the Confederates who occupied the town, where soldiers fraternized with friendly locals. And George Meade, who had just been given command of the Union’s Army of the Potomac, had troops digging defensive positions at Pipe Creek, southeast of Gettysburg.īut by noon of July 1, Union troops were reporting they were in “a stand-up fight” on the outskirts of Gettysburg. Lee saw a war-ending sweep toward Washington.

This was not the battle that either commander expected. But it is also rich in humanizing detail gleaned from vivid battlefield reports and from the postwar accounts of participants on both sides for whom time had not diminished the events of the three days. It captures the ebb and flow of battle, the tactics and the strategy. His account well deserves a prominent place on the shelves of both Civil War buffs and general readers. Guelzo directs the Civil War Studies program at Gettysburg College. We know how it will end, but let’s ignore that, letting the fog of war suspend historical knowledge.

Allen guelzo gettysburg