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The Weather Gods Curse the Gettysburg Campaign
256 pages, Paperback
Published June 10, 2025
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Displaying 1 - 4 of 4 reviews
January 19, 2026
A fascinating look at one of the least written about aspects of Gettysburg, this book belongs on the shelf of all serious scholars. The authors posit that weather had an outsized influence on the outcome of the war's biggest battle. They incorporate many graphs and charts to back their theory. It amazes me that no prior book length study has been done on the subject of weather and the Gettysburg campaign. A worthy effort and well worth the time spent.
November 26, 2025
It turns out that there is something new to say about the Battle of Gettysburg.
This is a book of forensic meteorology, which I did not know was a thing. The co-authors, John Nese and Jeffrey Harding, have applied modern tools to get an accurate report on the weather conditions during the Gettysburg campaign and they have some informed opinions about how the weather conditions could have affected the battle.
Most historians relied on the temperature readings taken by Michael Jacobs, a professor living in Gettysburg. He took reading four times a day throughout the campaign. Nese and Harding point out the basic fact that temperature alone does not measure how difficult it was to march and fight. As we all know, it ain't the heat, it's the humidity.
They start with a primer on basic meteorology including the relationship between air pressure and weather. They also explain how humidity is measured in the air. The discovered that the weather observations from the National Observatory in Washington were underutilized information that they could use. They also utilize a new tool developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It has developed an historic weather recreation program which produces weather reading in the Gettysburg area going back to 1830.
Using all these tools, they have produced heat index data for June 3, 1863 to July 14, 1863 which includes the battle and the marches before and after the battle. They also gather together the comments and observations from the soldiers involved. The soldier's letters home are filled with comments about the weather.
All of this leads to some interesting observations.
The Union Army had forced marches of up to 30 miles leading up to the battle. Two of those marching days had heat indexes in the high nineties. Many soldiers were crippled by heat exhaustion and some died.
On July 2nd, the key day of the battle, the heat index on the battlefield could have been as high as 105 degrees F. The soldiers were fighting for their lives in wool uniforms carrying heavy packs and arms. The soldiers who attacked Little Round Top had marched hard to the battlefield in that weather. It is likely that the weather-related fatigue contributed to the Union's ability to stop them at the turning point of the battle.
The next day, July 3, was even hotter. The men in Pickett's Charge had been marched hard to the battlefield. They were charging across open fields in brutal heat. Men suffered sunstroke.
The Union Army had an advantage because they were primarily in a defensive position and they had some amount of shade on their battlelines.
There were unusual torrential downpours during the Confederate retreat which almost trapped the retreat at the Potomac.
The authors have a starling statistic about how big this battle was. " 1 out of every 200 people alive in the United States in 1863 took part in the Battle of Gettysburg. A battle of equivalent size today, relative to the current US population, would include over 1.5 million souls."
This is a very smart new way to look at the battle, and it is well carried out.
This is a book of forensic meteorology, which I did not know was a thing. The co-authors, John Nese and Jeffrey Harding, have applied modern tools to get an accurate report on the weather conditions during the Gettysburg campaign and they have some informed opinions about how the weather conditions could have affected the battle.
Most historians relied on the temperature readings taken by Michael Jacobs, a professor living in Gettysburg. He took reading four times a day throughout the campaign. Nese and Harding point out the basic fact that temperature alone does not measure how difficult it was to march and fight. As we all know, it ain't the heat, it's the humidity.
They start with a primer on basic meteorology including the relationship between air pressure and weather. They also explain how humidity is measured in the air. The discovered that the weather observations from the National Observatory in Washington were underutilized information that they could use. They also utilize a new tool developed by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It has developed an historic weather recreation program which produces weather reading in the Gettysburg area going back to 1830.
Using all these tools, they have produced heat index data for June 3, 1863 to July 14, 1863 which includes the battle and the marches before and after the battle. They also gather together the comments and observations from the soldiers involved. The soldier's letters home are filled with comments about the weather.
All of this leads to some interesting observations.
The Union Army had forced marches of up to 30 miles leading up to the battle. Two of those marching days had heat indexes in the high nineties. Many soldiers were crippled by heat exhaustion and some died.
On July 2nd, the key day of the battle, the heat index on the battlefield could have been as high as 105 degrees F. The soldiers were fighting for their lives in wool uniforms carrying heavy packs and arms. The soldiers who attacked Little Round Top had marched hard to the battlefield in that weather. It is likely that the weather-related fatigue contributed to the Union's ability to stop them at the turning point of the battle.
The next day, July 3, was even hotter. The men in Pickett's Charge had been marched hard to the battlefield. They were charging across open fields in brutal heat. Men suffered sunstroke.
The Union Army had an advantage because they were primarily in a defensive position and they had some amount of shade on their battlelines.
There were unusual torrential downpours during the Confederate retreat which almost trapped the retreat at the Potomac.
The authors have a starling statistic about how big this battle was. " 1 out of every 200 people alive in the United States in 1863 took part in the Battle of Gettysburg. A battle of equivalent size today, relative to the current US population, would include over 1.5 million souls."
This is a very smart new way to look at the battle, and it is well carried out.
August 13, 2025
It's hard to accurately review books like this and I never want to be or seem harsh. I suppose the best way is to approach from the perspective of what I "hoped" the book would be compared to what it was.
I purchased the book on the recommendation of Gary Adelman and the American Battlefield Trust when they mentioned it during their live coverage of Pickett's Charge this year. As it was described and as I understood it from the descriptions online, it was to be an analysis of the Gettysburg Campaign rooted in meteorology and how it compared to the boots on the ground experience of the men. I cannot say that's really what it was.
The book overall (I would like to emphasize here that I did not hate it) was far, far too granular for me at times in terms of meteorology. The authors went to great pains to explain weather systems, patterns and technology, which I greatly appreciated, it just seemed far too specific for the task at hand. I was expecting 50% weather, 50% history, with an easy marbling of the two. It turned out to be about 80% weather, 15% history and 5% asides. In short, the book is far more about weather and weather history than how weather related to the Gettysburg Campaign.
If there is any criticism I could lay against the book, it was the approach they took to analyzing contemporary weather paired with historical accounts. It seemed more that the authors were trying to debunk soldiers accounts of the weather rather than bolster, analyze or explain. 'They say it was tremendously hot and dry. But was it really? Based on modern NOAA findings... then XYZ, yes. It would have been hot and dry at that period, in that area."
There is a lot of very good information in the book and obviously an incredible effort applied in collating it all. Still, I do not feel that all the information, specifically as it related to the minutia of meteorology, was entirely necessary. Nor was all the information as well integrated as I would have hoped or liked, though I suppose that's more of a personal preference.
It's not a bad book, just mostly about weather and weather history, not the war.
I purchased the book on the recommendation of Gary Adelman and the American Battlefield Trust when they mentioned it during their live coverage of Pickett's Charge this year. As it was described and as I understood it from the descriptions online, it was to be an analysis of the Gettysburg Campaign rooted in meteorology and how it compared to the boots on the ground experience of the men. I cannot say that's really what it was.
The book overall (I would like to emphasize here that I did not hate it) was far, far too granular for me at times in terms of meteorology. The authors went to great pains to explain weather systems, patterns and technology, which I greatly appreciated, it just seemed far too specific for the task at hand. I was expecting 50% weather, 50% history, with an easy marbling of the two. It turned out to be about 80% weather, 15% history and 5% asides. In short, the book is far more about weather and weather history than how weather related to the Gettysburg Campaign.
If there is any criticism I could lay against the book, it was the approach they took to analyzing contemporary weather paired with historical accounts. It seemed more that the authors were trying to debunk soldiers accounts of the weather rather than bolster, analyze or explain. 'They say it was tremendously hot and dry. But was it really? Based on modern NOAA findings... then XYZ, yes. It would have been hot and dry at that period, in that area."
There is a lot of very good information in the book and obviously an incredible effort applied in collating it all. Still, I do not feel that all the information, specifically as it related to the minutia of meteorology, was entirely necessary. Nor was all the information as well integrated as I would have hoped or liked, though I suppose that's more of a personal preference.
It's not a bad book, just mostly about weather and weather history, not the war.
October 10, 2025
The Weather Gods Curse the Gettysburg Campaign by Jon M. Nese and Jeffrery J. Harding will stand as the definitive account of the impact of the weather on the Gettysburg Campaign. Using heretofore unutilized period weather data, as well as modern reanalysis technology, the authors provide a day-by-day look at the effect of the weather from the beginning of the Confederate invasion of Maryland through its retreat to Virginia. In cases where period data is scant, incomplete, or contradictory, the conclusions are appropriately couched and presented as the most likely explanation. For the first time incorporating the role of the heat index, the authors provide scientific evidence to account for the numerous soldiers’ stories of men dropping out of the march due to extreme heat and many dying of heat stroke. Soldiers’ descriptions of how they perceived the weather humanizes the hard data. In examining the heavy rain that stalled Lee’s retreat to Virginia, the authors used historical data to estimate the amount of rain that must have fallen in the upper Potomac drainage area to have raised the river 10-15 feet. Like most The History Press titles, the book includes numerous maps, period photos, and illustrations. Although there are copious end notes, there is no bibliography or index. An index is available online, however, at this link: https://bpb-us-e1.wpmucdn.com/sites.p.... Co-author Jon M. Nese, PhD, is a professor at Penn State University in the Department of Meteorology and Atmospheric Science. Some may remember him from his previous stints on The Weather Channel. Co-author Jeffrey J. Harding is a licensed Battlefield Guide at Gettysburg National Military Park, an independent historian, and a leadership consultant. This book is highly recommended as the only comprehensive and scientifically based study of the role the weather played during the Gettysburg Campaign.
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