Decisions at Gettysburg: The Nineteen Critical Decisions That Defined the Campaign

by Matt Spruill

The Campaign and Battle of Gettysburg have inspired scrutiny from virtually every angle. Standing out amid the voluminous scholarship, this book is not merely one more narrative history of the events that transpired before, during, and after those three momentous July days in southern Pennsylvania. Rather, it focuses on and analyzes nineteen critical decisions by Union and Confederate commanders that determined the particular ways in which those events unfolded.

Matt Spruill, a retired U.S. Army colonel who studied and taught at the U. S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, contends that, among the many decisions made during any military campaign, a limited number—strategic, operational, tactical, organizational—make the difference, with subsequent decisions and circumstances proceeding from those defining moments. At Gettysburg, he contends, had any of the nineteen decisions he identifies not been made and/or another decision made in its stead, all sorts of events from those decision points on would have been different and the campaign and battle as we know it today would appear differently. The battle might have lasted two days or four days instead of three. The orientation of opposing forces might have been different. The battle could well have occurred away from Gettysburg rather than around the town. Whether Lee would have emerged the victor and Meade the vanquished remains an open question, but whatever the outcome, it was the particular decision-making delineated here that shaped the campaign that went into the history books.

Along with his insightful analysis of the nineteen decisions, Spruill includes a valuable appendix that takes the battlefield visitor to the actual locations where the decisions were made or executed. This guide features excerpts from primary documents that further illuminate the ways in which the commanders saw situations on the ground and made their decisions accordingly.

Genres: Civil War, History

216 pages, Paperback

First published March 16, 2011

Reviews

[robin friedman · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Book For The Serious Gettysburg Student

With its complexity, drama, and significance, the Battle of Gettysburg, fought July 1 -- July 3, 1863, has endlessly fascinated Americans. As the 150th anniversary of the battle approaches, it will undoubtedly receive even more attention. There are innumerable books which examine every aspect of the Gettysburg campaign from broad overviews to detailed specialized accounts of individual actions and from a variety of perspectives, such as military, political, or social. Matt Spruill's new book "Decisions at Gettysburg: the Nineteen Decisions that Defined the Campaign" (2011) offers an analytic, military approach to Gettysburg. Spruill is a former professor at the U. S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. He is a former Licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg and the author of five earlier books on Civil War battlefields. The book is published by the University of Tennessee Press.

In the Preface, Spruill notes accurately that his book presupposes a good, basic background knowledge of the battle in his readers. His book does not offer an overview of the actions and participants in the campaign such as can be found, for example in Coddington, Sears, or Trudeau. Nor does the book offer a detailed day-by-day or even more specific account such as can be found, say, in Harry Pfanz or many other books. The book does not offer a close examination of Little Round Top, Devil's Den, Pickett's Charge, or any other action. Many students of the battle, including myself, spend a great deal of time with these studies and, as Spruill notes, tend to get lost in the detail.

Spruill develops and examines what he finds to be nineteen decisions that shape the Gettysburg campaign. By a "critical" decision Spruill means a situation that presented options. When a course was chosen, it shaped events in the Gettysburg campaign or battle from that point forward. The book is in two broad parts. In the first part, Spruill develops the nineteen key decisions beginning before the campaign and concluding with Lee's retreat from Gettysburg on July 4, 1863. The second part of the book offers a battlefield tour geared to understanding the decisions that Spruill identifies in the first part.

The decisions Spruill identifies range from broad strategical considerations to apparently small tactical matters. In general, the decisions become more individualized and focused as the book proceeds from the planning of the Gettysburg campaign to its final day. Thus, Spruill begins with Lee's decision to invade the North and his reorganization of the Army of Northern Virginia following the death of Jackson. On the Union side, Spruill focuses on the reorganization of artillery in the Army of the Potomac which did indeed have major consequences at Gettysburg. Spruill's nineteen decisions do not include President Lincoln's decision to replace Hooker with Meade as commander of the Army of the Potomac just before the battle. This probably should have been included, making an even twenty critical decisions.

Among the smaller-scaled critical decisions Spruill identifies are Confederate Brigadier General Evander Law's decision to send troops to stop the damaging artillery fire from Devil's den at the outset of Longstreet's assault on July 2 and the subsequent confusion and disarray in the Confederate charge as exemplified by Confederate Brigadier General Benning's shifting off course to loose the focus of the charge on the left of the Union position.

With respect to each decision, Spruill presents succinct background. He describes the options available to the decision maker and explains the nature of the decision taken. He then shows the impact of the decision on the immediately succeeding events and on the remainder of the battle. His discussions are informed by military knowledge and by distinctions that will help readers understand the situations. On the whole, Spruill avoids judging decisions as correct or incorrect. Rather he shows how they played out in the context of subsequent events. The book is even-handed as between North and South.

The second part of the book consists of a clearly laid out driving tour of Gettysburg. The driving directions seem to me precise with the items to be covered in each of the thirteen stops collated well with the key decisions Spruill identifies earlier in the book. The most valuable aspect of this section of the book was the detailed quotations that Spruill offers from the battle reports of the commanders, including Lee, Ewell, Hood, Birney, Humphries, Greene, among others. These first-hand sources are often slighted or buried in detail in longer accounts of the battle. Spruill allows the reports to speak for themselves in the context of his analysis.

Readers with a good knowledge of the battle who want focus will benefit greatly from the book. Spruill's study will help the student of the battle to organize and better understand the welter of detail available on Gettysburg. Serious students of the military aspect of the campaign -- part of but not the entire focus of the Gettysburg Guide examination, for example -- will enjoy this study.

Robin Friedman

[Matthew Bartlett · Rating 5 out of 5]

If there has ever been a constant debate about the Campaign of Gettysburg, it has been the “what ifs” of history. Many beginner historians oftentimes pose those questions to aid in their critical thinking of the battle itself and since Gettysburg stands as a pinnacle to historical battle analyses, than those “what ifs” of history suit itself here. In his book Decisions at Gettysburg, Matt Spruill defines what some of the major decisions and repercussions were in the campaign that help to aid in the “what if” struggle of this fateful engagement. What this book offers are new looks into the grand strategies and the small decisions which would shape the future of the armies. What he also has done is given a list of what could have happened if other decisions were made. In the end, this book is a collection of those thoughts and strategies, nineteen to be exact, that shaped what we know today.

Matt Spruill has authored many battlefield guide books, including Summer Thunder, Summer Lightning, and Winter Lightning. His work, Summer Thunder, explores the artillery placement throughout the Battle of Gettysburg. While he is a former licensed battlefield guide at the Gettysburg National Military Park, he is also experienced in leading other battlefield tours as well. He also served in the armed forces and was commissioned a second lieutenant in 1964 and retired in 1992.

There are many things right with this book that students of Gettysburg should pay attention to in their studies. The first major thing which I must say is that the work does not get bogged down in the minutia of regiments along with the over-bloated military terms I have seen in previous works. Spruill simply defines many of the things which occurred in the campaign which had a lasting effect on how we study the battle today. He avoids using a standard of analytic military writing which uses tables and charts to help define a point which is undefinable. Instead, what we get is a coherent statement about the decisions made at Gettysburg which either hindered the Confederacy or aided the Union. In some cases, they were vise-versa. The book is separated into five sections, the pre-battle, the three days of combat in separate chapters and the aftermath. This offers the reader a chance to follow the line of battle instead of ranking the nineteen important decisions out of a timeline. When talking about the second day of combat, he includes the decisions made at Culp’s Hill, a forgotten section of the battlefield even to this day. The first day of battle can oftentimes be confusing to readers as to what actually happened, but here in this work, Spruill easily defines the actions taken by the armies that by just analyzing the decisions made on that day, the reader is in full understanding. In addition to all of this, Spruill includes a lengthy and useful appendix which gives the reader a chance to drive out to the fields and see where these decisions were made along with a view of the action. Included in this appendix are orders and reports between the commanders so that you are not just reading the decisions, but you are visiting them as well.

I recommend this book to the beginner student of the Battle of Gettysburg mainly because it easily defines the decisions made during the campaign that helped to morph this battle into a major Union victory. I also recommend it to any student of the Civil War because of the simplicity of the work. I have read other works about strategy and tactics which are filled with military jargon not usually seen in the realm of historical writing. Knowing his audience, Spruill writes for the historians instead of the select few who could understand his words. With the addendum of the appendix, this is a welcome addition to any Civil War library.

Matthew Bartlett - Gettysburg Chronicle

[Josh Liller · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book is really a summary of the Gettysburg Campaign, with an emphasis on important decisions made during the three days of battle. Nearly a quarter of the main text covers the period leading up to the battle, but no in-depth analysis of decisions made during the withdrawal. The decisions are usually presented with military terminology, though clearly explained.

The author is critical of JEB Stuart's absence during most of the battle, but the important, I daresay definitive, work on the subject - Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart's Controversial Ride to Gettysburg - is absent from the biography.

Although the book is over 200 pages long, the main text is less than 100 pages long and the appendices rudimentary (driving tour, orders of battle). Perspective photos are often too small to be useful.

While the text is focused and the analysis generally on-target, I didn't get much from it that I hadn't already gotten from reading other books about Gettysburg. It's clearly written for someone already familiar with the battle yet doesn't seem deep enough to be worthwhile for Civil War buffs. Not recommended.

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

An overview of the battle, zooming in to key moments and the possible decisions commanding officers could have made at key points. And yes, there were a number of massive decisions that could have changed how this battle turned out.

Amply illustrated, with plenty of battlefield maps, this book is also a great battlefield guide for the second half, giving precise directions of how to tour the Gettysburg chronologically and how to look as a commander did and how to find key corners where essentially the United States was reborn. Essential for Gettysburg enthusiasts.

[Bryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you’re someone who has spent a number of years studying the Battle of Gettysburg, there isn’t much new information added to the historiography of the battle. The author chose twenty situations from the battle, provided potential courses of action by the involved individuals, outlined the actual decision chosen, and explained the outcome of that choice on the battle. From Buford’s decision to fight at Gettysburg to Meade’s failure not to pursue Lee after the battle, the situations detailed are what you would expect to be explored in such a work.

That’s not to say that it isn’t well written or kept my attention. Quite the opposite. Spruill does a great job of providing possible strategic or tactical alternatives for each decision made. Unlike some books on Gettysburg, it is obviously well-researched with no glaring mistakes that a casual historian would make about the battle.

That said, the decisions coverage is about 130 pages of the book with another 50 pages that provides a guided tour of the locations involved in the critical decisions. Unfortunately, the tour is useless. There are very few maps to orient the reader. More problematic is that portions of battle reports by the officers involved in the critical decisions are interspersed in the tour. While useful, such excerpts would have been much better placed with the decisions in order to provide better context.

Overall, if you’re new to the battle, I recommend reading this book for its information but advise skipping the tour. A Field Guide to Gettysburg by Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler would serve as a much better touring handbook for the battle.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Don't let the short page count of this work fool you. It is an excellent analysis and explanation of the major command decisions of Gettysburg. The author distills down the factors involved in key command decisions and explains them from the viewpoints of the participants of the day with the information they had available when they had to make them, sometimes improvising in the heat of the moment. Much has been made of some of the bad decisions made during this battle, but after reading this book they are more likely to be perceived in shades of grey rather than stark black and white. Also includes a guide to battlefield locations where many of the key command decisions were made and describes how the terrain and other factors at each specific location influenced the specific decisions.

[Andrew · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a quick read and I found the book to be just okay. I didn't find it added anything new to Gettysburg historiography, nor make a particularly compelling argument. If the book has a strength, it is how it framed familiar information in these nineteen strategic or tactical decisions.

[Bob Ryan · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is handy if you're going to visit the National Battlefield, just visited the battlefield or are looking to impress your friends who are Civil War "nuts". The battle at Gettysburg is the turning point of the Civil War and resulted in the largest numbers of American casualties in any single battle. The book presumes you have a basic understanding of the battle and the movement of troops during the three day battle. A working knowledge of the battlefield geography is useful, a lot of the battle tactics are determined by the terrain each army occupied.

The book is divided into four chapters. The first relates decisions made before the battle started and the other three chapters are for each day of the battle. The book is supplemented by maps of the area and includes pictures of the officers involved. The author is a graduate of the US Army War College and was a licensed battlefield guide at Gettysburg and does an excellent job of explaining the relevant points of each critical decision.

There are three appendixes along with an extensive list of footnotes and bibliography. The first appendix follows the battlefield tour of the park. It explains what you are seeing at each of the 13 stops on the guided tour. There are also excerpts from the "after battle" notes from the officers involved in the battle at each stop taken from the official US Army records. The comments add to the reasoning behind the nineteen decisions as to the officer's assumptions and knowledge at the time of the battle.

I would have liked to have more maps showing battlefield movements, but aside from that, this a an excellent supplement to an understanding of the battle at Gettysburg.

[Jim Blessing · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a quite interesting book that discussed in detail the major command decisions at the Battle of Gettysburg and how they affected the battle. It appears that the absence of Confederate cavalry was a key reason for Lee's defeat or at least his decision of fighting the battle at Gettysburg.

[Tony 08 · Rating 5 out of 5]

C'est le premier opus de cette série que je lis.
L'ensemble est extrêmement intéressant...les points stratégiques, opérationnels et tactiques abordés le sont dans le détail.
Captivant !