The Gettysburg Campaign June July 1863

A matchless account of the Battle of Gettysburg, drawn from Shelby Foote’s landmark history of the Civil War Shelby Foote’s monumental three-part chronicle, The Civil War: A Narrative, was hailed by Walker Percy as “an unparalleled achievement, an American Iliad, a unique work uniting the scholarship of the historian and the high readability of the first-class novelist.” Here is the central chapter of the central volume, and therefore the capstone of the arch, in a single volume. Complete with detailed maps, Stars in Their Courses brilliantly recreates the three-day conflict: It is a masterly treatment of a key great battle and the events that preceded it—not as legend has it but as it really was, before it became distorted by controversy and overblown by remembered glory.

"The Battle of Gettysburg attained a special aura that has distinguished it ever since. Boston journalist Charles Carleton Coffin dubbed it "the high water mark" of the rebellion, while others described it as the "turning point of the war." But it was President Lincoln who most eloquently expressed Gettysburg's significance. On 19 November 1863, Lincoln delivered "a few appropriate remarks" at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery that became known as the Gettysburg Address: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." --p. 61.

Includes 7 maps and numerous other illustrations The Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 continues the series of campaign brochures commemorating our national sacrifices during the American Civil War. Authors Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler examine the operations that culminated in the pivotal three-day Battle of Gettysburg, pitting the Union Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. George G. Meade against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee.

The Gettysburg Campaign, June-July 1863 continues the series of campaign brochures commemorating our national sacrifices during the American Civil War. Authors Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler examine the operations that culminated in the pivotal three-day Battle of Gettysburg, pitting the Union Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. George G. Meade against the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee. This brochure includes seven maps and seventeen illustrations.

A must-read for those interested in the battle of Gettysburg, the bloodiest battle of the bloodiest war in American history Long recognized as one of the best introductions to the campaign, Albert A. Nofi's The Gettysburg Campaign does not focus exclusively on the three days of the battle, but shows how events of May and June of 1863 set the stage for the engagement, and traces Lee's retreat from the field and the hesitant Northern pursuit, a fascinating tale in itself.

Long recognized as one of the best introductions to the campaign, Albert A. Nofi's The Gettysburg Campaign does not focus exclusively on the three days of the battle, but shows how events of May and June of 1863 set the stage for the engagement, and traces Lee's retreat from the field and the hesitant Northern pursuit, a fascinating tale in itself.

Although over one hundred fifty years have passed since the start of the American Civil War, that titanic conflict continues to matter. The forces unleashed by that war were immensely destructive because of the significant issues involved: the existence of the Union, the end of slavery, and the very future of the nation. The war remains our most contentious, and our bloodiest, with over six hundred thousand killed in the course of the four-year struggle. Most civil wars do not spring up overnight, and the American Civil War was no exception. The seeds of the conflict were sown in the earliest days of the republic's founding, primarily over the existence of slavery and the slave trade. Although no conflict can begin without the conscious decisions of those engaged in the debates at that moment, in the end, there was simply no way to paper over the division of the country into two camps: one that was dominated by slavery and the other that sought first to limit its spread and then to abolish it. Our nation was indeed “half slave and half free,” and that could not stand. Regardless of the factors tearing the nation asunder, the soldiers on each side of the struggle went to war for personal reasons: looking for adventure, being caught up in the passions and emotions of their peers, believing in the Union, favoring states' rights, or even justifying the simple schoolyard dynamic of being convinced that they were “worth” three of the soldiers on the other side. Nor can we overlook the factor that some went to war to prove their manhood. This has been, and continues to be, a key dynamic in understanding combat and the profession of arms. Soldiers join for many reasons but often stay in the fight because of their comrades and because they do not want to seem like cowards. Sometimes issues of national impact shrink to nothing in the intensely personal world of cannon shell and minié ball.