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Civil War America
Pickett's Charge in History and Memory
If, as many have argued, the Civil War is the most crucial moment in our national life and Gettysburg its turning point, then the climax of the climax, the central moment of our history, must be Pickett's Charge. But as Carol Reardon notes, the Civil War saw many other daring assaults and stout defenses. Why, then, is it Pickett's Charge at Gettysburg--and not, for example, Richardson's Charge at Antietam or Humphreys's Assault at Fredericksburg--that looms so large in the popular imagination?
As this innovative study reveals, by examining the events of 3 July 1863 through the selective and evocative lens of 'memory' we can learn much about why Pickett's Charge endures so strongly in the American imagination. Over the years, soldiers, journalists, veterans, politicians, orators, artists, poets, and educators, Northerners and Southerners alike, shaped, revised, and even sacrificed the 'history' of the charge to create 'memories' that met ever-shifting needs and deeply felt values. Reardon shows that the story told today of Pickett's Charge is really an amalgam of history and memory. The evolution of that mix, she concludes, tells us much about how we come to understand our nation's past.
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"A fresh look at the disastrous assault.-- New Yorker
"A splendidly lively study of the manipulation, not necessarily deliberate or malign, of public opinion.-- Atlantic Monthly
"Exceptionally lucid. . . . This fine book provides vivid evidence of just how far we will go to alchemize fantasy into fact.--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
"Well-written and meticulously researched, Pickett's Charge in History and Memory utilizes first-rate scholarship to tell a fascinating story. . . . Should win a wide audience among general readers.-- Civil War History
Assessing the myths and facts surrounding Pickett's Charge, Carol Reardon explores why this event endures so strongly in the American imagination. She demonstrates that the story told today of the charge is really an amalgam of history and memory and that the evolution of that mix tells us much about how we come to understand our nation's past.
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As this innovative study reveals, by examining the events of 3 July 1863 through the selective and evocative lens of 'memory' we can learn much about why Pickett's Charge endures so strongly in the American imagination. Over the years, soldiers, journalists, veterans, politicians, orators, artists, poets, and educators, Northerners and Southerners alike, shaped, revised, and even sacrificed the 'history' of the charge to create 'memories' that met ever-shifting needs and deeply felt values. Reardon shows that the story told today of Pickett's Charge is really an amalgam of history and memory. The evolution of that mix, she concludes, tells us much about how we come to understand our nation's past.
<!--copy for pb reprint --
"A fresh look at the disastrous assault.-- New Yorker
"A splendidly lively study of the manipulation, not necessarily deliberate or malign, of public opinion.-- Atlantic Monthly
"Exceptionally lucid. . . . This fine book provides vivid evidence of just how far we will go to alchemize fantasy into fact.--Jonathan Yardley, Washington Post
"Well-written and meticulously researched, Pickett's Charge in History and Memory utilizes first-rate scholarship to tell a fascinating story. . . . Should win a wide audience among general readers.-- Civil War History
Assessing the myths and facts surrounding Pickett's Charge, Carol Reardon explores why this event endures so strongly in the American imagination. She demonstrates that the story told today of the charge is really an amalgam of history and memory and that the evolution of that mix tells us much about how we come to understand our nation's past.
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296 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 1997
23 people are currently reading
204 people want to read
About the author
Carol Reardon
20 books7 followersCarol Reardon is an American military historian with a focus on the Civil War and Vietnam eras. She is a scholar-in-residence at the George and Ann Richards Civil War Era Center at Penn State University, and an associate professor.
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
July 3, 2025
How Americans Have Viewed Pickett's Charge
The third day, July 3, 1863, of the Battle of Gettysburg has become immortalized by what is commonly referred to as Pickett's Charge. After an extensive cannonade, a Southern infantry forced crossed about one mile of open ground to attach the Union position on the center of Cemetery Ridge. A small number of Confederate troops reached and briefly penetrated the Union defense. The attack was repulsed with great loss to the Confederate troops. The Battle of Gettysburg was essentially over and the Confederate Army began a long and difficult retreat the next day.
These are some of the bare-boned facts about Pickett's charge. General George Pickett, a subordinate of General Longstreet, commanded the right wing of the Confederate assault leading troops from Virginia. The left wing of the assault was under the command of Generals Pettigrew and Trimble from the Corps of Confederate General A.P. Hill. The assault force on the left included troops from North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and elsewhere in the South. There was also a small column to the right of Pickett's troops that included soldiers from Florida and Georgia.
Professor Carol Reardon's study, "Pickett's Charge in History and Memory" (1997) eloquently explores how and why the events of the third day at Gettysburg have assumed legendary, heroic status among so many Americans over the years. Professor Reardon gives only the briefest account of the battle itself and focuses instead on the many imponderables and uncertainties in the historical record. She has some important things to say about skepticism regarding the initial battlefield accounts, some of which were written many years after the event when memories had turned and faded. She has even more important things to say about how and why Pickett's charge became and remains a subject for contention and about why many people still find it a climactic moment of the Civil War and of American history.
Professor Reardon describes how Virginians and North Carolinians fought between themselves about which troops had been braver and had carried more of the brunt of the failed assault. She discusses how the Charge became legendary as the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" and how its repulse became viewed as sealing the fate of the Confederacy. Beginning in the mid-1870s Union and Confederate Veterans met on the Gettysburg Battlefield to relive their memories of the Charge. The former enemies had reconciled and become friends. Pickett's Charge became a symbol of the valor, the heroism, and the common bond of soldiering shared by the troops on both sides. The memory of Pickett's charge helped reunite the United States. It also, unhappily, promoted a "Lost Cause", romanticized view of the Old South and tended to draw the Nation's attention away from the issues of slavery and of race relations that had precipitated the Civil War.
I found Professor Reardon's descriptions of the reunions at Gettysburg between veterans in 1877 and 1913 the most moving and interesting part of the book, as they showed clearly the symbolic character that Pickett's Charge had assumed. Pickett's Charge became an emblem of the nature of the Civil War and of the subsequent reconciliation between North and South.
Professor Reardon also devotes more attention to the Union side of the line than is sometimes accorded in studies of the Charge. Interestingly, she points out that Union veterans of the first and second days of Gettysburg -- the soldiers in Sickle's Third Corps, the defenders of Culp's and Cemetery Hills, among others, sometimes felt slighted at the attention lavished on the third day of the Battle at the expense of their contributions.
In recent years, perhaps under the influence of Scharra's novel, "The Killer Angels" the Union defense of Little Round Top under Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine have rivalled Pickett's Charge in accounts of the climactic moment of the Battle. Professor Reardon does not address this revival of interest in Little Round Top. It would be interesting to explore it in a manner analogous to her treatment of the Charge.
I think many modern accounts of the Charge tend to emphasize its futility, the highly remote chances it had of success, and the tremendous loss of life that followed in its wake. This is a more modernistic approach to the Charge than the approach based upon a shared valor and heroism that Professor Reardon discusses. The modern sensibility has affected again the way Americans view the Charge.
Professor Reardon has written a thoughtful meditation of Pickett's charge and its interpretation and reinterpretation over the years. She views her subject seriously and with reverence. She concludes her book with the words of a Gettysburg veteran writing in 1908 (p.213): "Tradition, story, history -- all will not efface the true, grand epic of Gettysburg."
Robin Friedman
The third day, July 3, 1863, of the Battle of Gettysburg has become immortalized by what is commonly referred to as Pickett's Charge. After an extensive cannonade, a Southern infantry forced crossed about one mile of open ground to attach the Union position on the center of Cemetery Ridge. A small number of Confederate troops reached and briefly penetrated the Union defense. The attack was repulsed with great loss to the Confederate troops. The Battle of Gettysburg was essentially over and the Confederate Army began a long and difficult retreat the next day.
These are some of the bare-boned facts about Pickett's charge. General George Pickett, a subordinate of General Longstreet, commanded the right wing of the Confederate assault leading troops from Virginia. The left wing of the assault was under the command of Generals Pettigrew and Trimble from the Corps of Confederate General A.P. Hill. The assault force on the left included troops from North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and elsewhere in the South. There was also a small column to the right of Pickett's troops that included soldiers from Florida and Georgia.
Professor Carol Reardon's study, "Pickett's Charge in History and Memory" (1997) eloquently explores how and why the events of the third day at Gettysburg have assumed legendary, heroic status among so many Americans over the years. Professor Reardon gives only the briefest account of the battle itself and focuses instead on the many imponderables and uncertainties in the historical record. She has some important things to say about skepticism regarding the initial battlefield accounts, some of which were written many years after the event when memories had turned and faded. She has even more important things to say about how and why Pickett's charge became and remains a subject for contention and about why many people still find it a climactic moment of the Civil War and of American history.
Professor Reardon describes how Virginians and North Carolinians fought between themselves about which troops had been braver and had carried more of the brunt of the failed assault. She discusses how the Charge became legendary as the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" and how its repulse became viewed as sealing the fate of the Confederacy. Beginning in the mid-1870s Union and Confederate Veterans met on the Gettysburg Battlefield to relive their memories of the Charge. The former enemies had reconciled and become friends. Pickett's Charge became a symbol of the valor, the heroism, and the common bond of soldiering shared by the troops on both sides. The memory of Pickett's charge helped reunite the United States. It also, unhappily, promoted a "Lost Cause", romanticized view of the Old South and tended to draw the Nation's attention away from the issues of slavery and of race relations that had precipitated the Civil War.
I found Professor Reardon's descriptions of the reunions at Gettysburg between veterans in 1877 and 1913 the most moving and interesting part of the book, as they showed clearly the symbolic character that Pickett's Charge had assumed. Pickett's Charge became an emblem of the nature of the Civil War and of the subsequent reconciliation between North and South.
Professor Reardon also devotes more attention to the Union side of the line than is sometimes accorded in studies of the Charge. Interestingly, she points out that Union veterans of the first and second days of Gettysburg -- the soldiers in Sickle's Third Corps, the defenders of Culp's and Cemetery Hills, among others, sometimes felt slighted at the attention lavished on the third day of the Battle at the expense of their contributions.
In recent years, perhaps under the influence of Scharra's novel, "The Killer Angels" the Union defense of Little Round Top under Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine have rivalled Pickett's Charge in accounts of the climactic moment of the Battle. Professor Reardon does not address this revival of interest in Little Round Top. It would be interesting to explore it in a manner analogous to her treatment of the Charge.
I think many modern accounts of the Charge tend to emphasize its futility, the highly remote chances it had of success, and the tremendous loss of life that followed in its wake. This is a more modernistic approach to the Charge than the approach based upon a shared valor and heroism that Professor Reardon discusses. The modern sensibility has affected again the way Americans view the Charge.
Professor Reardon has written a thoughtful meditation of Pickett's charge and its interpretation and reinterpretation over the years. She views her subject seriously and with reverence. She concludes her book with the words of a Gettysburg veteran writing in 1908 (p.213): "Tradition, story, history -- all will not efface the true, grand epic of Gettysburg."
Robin Friedman
November 11, 2009
I met the author when she spoke at Weber State University. I’d been out of the ‘Civil War Enthusiast’ scene for awhile when I attended her lecture. And I’m sad to say that is quite the appropriate term to describe many who study the Civil War. In any case Carol Reardon is a cool and classy historian who knows that one of the most important phrases to say early and often in a historical lecture is “We don’t really know exactly what happened.”
Still, by reading the excellent works of diligent historians we can get a pretty good idea of what happened. By the end of Ms. Reardon's engaging presentation, I remembered why I had been so captivated studying the Civil War during my late teens/early 20s. When it comes to the Civil War, you will never run out of things to study, debate, or ponder deeply.
Reardon is also a historian called upon to take new service men and women onto the historical battlefield to consider how wars are fought. Like I said, she’s pretty cool. I have a signed copy of this book in my collection, from her hand to mine. I recommend this book to any one who thinks that Pickett’s Charge has been talked about enough, or figured out sufficiently.
Still, by reading the excellent works of diligent historians we can get a pretty good idea of what happened. By the end of Ms. Reardon's engaging presentation, I remembered why I had been so captivated studying the Civil War during my late teens/early 20s. When it comes to the Civil War, you will never run out of things to study, debate, or ponder deeply.
Reardon is also a historian called upon to take new service men and women onto the historical battlefield to consider how wars are fought. Like I said, she’s pretty cool. I have a signed copy of this book in my collection, from her hand to mine. I recommend this book to any one who thinks that Pickett’s Charge has been talked about enough, or figured out sufficiently.
May 20, 2017
About a mile from my home is a Chinese restaurant at which I have eaten more-or-less weekly for over a decade. It was only recently I noticed that the small shopping center where it is located is named the “General Hancock Plaza”. For a much longer time I have been aware of a state historical marker on a nearby highway noting the birthplace of General Winfield S. Hancock. Maj. General Hancock commanded the Federal troops who withstood and repulsed the Confederate assault led by Lt. Gen. James Longstreet against Union positions on Cemetery Ridge on the third and climactic day of the battle of Gettysburg, July 3, 1963. That assault is known around the world by the name of one of the officers whose division participated in the assault, Maj. General George Pickett.
Why this incident, considered by many to be the turning point of the American Civil War, became known as “Pickett’s Charge” and not “Longstreet’s Assault” or “Hancock’s Stand”, is the subject of Carol Reardon’s Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory . She traces the way the narrative of the assault changes from the letters and diaries of participants, through early newspaper accounts, veterans’ periodicals, and regimental histories, and considers how the experiences of reunions, paintings, poems, fiction, and the changing landscape and memorials of the battlefield itself affected veterans’ memories and public perceptions.
The book contains many thought-provoking observations and narratives, such as looking at how, in attempting to correct the historical record, advocates will often offer compensating distortions in place of mere correction, and how veterans of Pickett's brigade used the rhetoric of North-South reconciliation to have their narrative become the version accepted by Northern veterans and historians. But Reardon often becomes bogged down in the details of various accusations and counter-accusations between veterans from different states and among Southern partisans of Pickett, Lee, and Longstreet. At other points she over-interprets the significance of trivia such as T shirts and souvenirs being sold by merchants surrounding the battlefield. The final chapter gives a fascinating account of the 50th anniversary reunion of the battle’s survivors, and, though it often reads more like journalism than history, provides one of the book’s most memorable sections. An epilogue looks at “Pickett’s Charge” as it has been considered by historians and in popular culture since 1913.
In the end, Reardon’s conclusion about historical accuracy and public perception of significant historic events echoes the line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend” or, as the author herself puts it, “when history and popular memory clashed, history rarely won.”
Why this incident, considered by many to be the turning point of the American Civil War, became known as “Pickett’s Charge” and not “Longstreet’s Assault” or “Hancock’s Stand”, is the subject of Carol Reardon’s Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory . She traces the way the narrative of the assault changes from the letters and diaries of participants, through early newspaper accounts, veterans’ periodicals, and regimental histories, and considers how the experiences of reunions, paintings, poems, fiction, and the changing landscape and memorials of the battlefield itself affected veterans’ memories and public perceptions.
The book contains many thought-provoking observations and narratives, such as looking at how, in attempting to correct the historical record, advocates will often offer compensating distortions in place of mere correction, and how veterans of Pickett's brigade used the rhetoric of North-South reconciliation to have their narrative become the version accepted by Northern veterans and historians. But Reardon often becomes bogged down in the details of various accusations and counter-accusations between veterans from different states and among Southern partisans of Pickett, Lee, and Longstreet. At other points she over-interprets the significance of trivia such as T shirts and souvenirs being sold by merchants surrounding the battlefield. The final chapter gives a fascinating account of the 50th anniversary reunion of the battle’s survivors, and, though it often reads more like journalism than history, provides one of the book’s most memorable sections. An epilogue looks at “Pickett’s Charge” as it has been considered by historians and in popular culture since 1913.
In the end, Reardon’s conclusion about historical accuracy and public perception of significant historic events echoes the line from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance: “When the legend becomes fact, print the legend” or, as the author herself puts it, “when history and popular memory clashed, history rarely won.”
April 23, 2023
Interesting read on how the Confederate attack on the afternoon of day 3 became Pickett's Charge and the battle fought in the press and media to keep it that way.
January 26, 2011
Really interesting. Explains how Virginians rewrote the history of the Third Day of Gettysburg to leave out the role of Pettigrew's division of non-Virginians from "Pickett's" Charge.
October 9, 2024
"No such reunion could be held by British and Boer veterans, by the soldiers of Russian and Japan or by those of France and Germany. Only here in the United States could former foes meet as friends," bragged a Northern veteran. This was a statement referring to Union and Confederate veterans meeting at Gettysburg during a time of reconciliation.
Carol Reardon's book is not about the famous charge on July 3rd, 1863. It is about the legacy and how people view it, so if you are looking for the strategy and tactics about the afternoon attack, you will not find it here. I recommend Earl Hess' book and James Hessler's book if you would like to read about that. I made an attempt to read this book a year ago and I was not into it. My opinion has changed fortunately because this is a well written book and original.
Pickett's Charge is the most famous charge in American history, but it is not the largest charge in the war. In fact, Longstreet's corps attack on July 2nd was larger than Pickett's Charge, yet it is this attack that fascinates so many people. Carol Reardon explains why and how people in the aftermath see it.
There were a lot of interesting anecdotes in this story. The chapter on the North Carolinians that participated in Pickett's Charge defending their honor and legacy was my favorite chapter. The Virginians get all the attention, but the North Carolinians argue they got the furthest than any Virginian did. There were also stories about Union troops that wanted to reconcile whereas others hated that Pickett' men were getting the attention instead of the Northern victory.
An excellent book worth reading and provides a different perspective on the Battle of Gettysburg.
Carol Reardon's book is not about the famous charge on July 3rd, 1863. It is about the legacy and how people view it, so if you are looking for the strategy and tactics about the afternoon attack, you will not find it here. I recommend Earl Hess' book and James Hessler's book if you would like to read about that. I made an attempt to read this book a year ago and I was not into it. My opinion has changed fortunately because this is a well written book and original.
Pickett's Charge is the most famous charge in American history, but it is not the largest charge in the war. In fact, Longstreet's corps attack on July 2nd was larger than Pickett's Charge, yet it is this attack that fascinates so many people. Carol Reardon explains why and how people in the aftermath see it.
There were a lot of interesting anecdotes in this story. The chapter on the North Carolinians that participated in Pickett's Charge defending their honor and legacy was my favorite chapter. The Virginians get all the attention, but the North Carolinians argue they got the furthest than any Virginian did. There were also stories about Union troops that wanted to reconcile whereas others hated that Pickett' men were getting the attention instead of the Northern victory.
An excellent book worth reading and provides a different perspective on the Battle of Gettysburg.
June 5, 2019
This book is the best work I have read on the Confederate attack on the center of the Union's line on the final day of the Battle of Gettysburg. As Carol Reardon expertly argues, most of what we know - or think we know - about the assault known as "Pickett's Charge" is more myth than history, including the name attack itself.
What makes this attack so different from the scores of other costly advances made by infantry in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia? The short answer to this question is how the event has been remembered by various persons and groups practically since the attack ended on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. Reardon's book provides a fine account of "the history" as it unfolded - at least as much as is known - of Pickett's Charge, and then the book delves into controversy.
Who got credit for the attack and why? How did media, reconstruction and reconciliation influence how Americans North and South remembered that event? How did this attack come to be remembered as "the high tide of the Confederacy"? How and why do modern Americans remember the attack and what does it say about us? These are all questions Reardon sorts out in this excellent work.
If you want the truth about the event, as much as it can be had - including the history of the "history" we accept as fact, you will love this book. However, if you are emotionally invested in a particular version of the final Confederate infantry assault at Gettysburg and think you have it all figured out, this book will surely irritate you!
If you only read one book about Pickett's Charge, this should be the book!
What makes this attack so different from the scores of other costly advances made by infantry in Lee's Army of Northern Virginia? The short answer to this question is how the event has been remembered by various persons and groups practically since the attack ended on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. Reardon's book provides a fine account of "the history" as it unfolded - at least as much as is known - of Pickett's Charge, and then the book delves into controversy.
Who got credit for the attack and why? How did media, reconstruction and reconciliation influence how Americans North and South remembered that event? How did this attack come to be remembered as "the high tide of the Confederacy"? How and why do modern Americans remember the attack and what does it say about us? These are all questions Reardon sorts out in this excellent work.
If you want the truth about the event, as much as it can be had - including the history of the "history" we accept as fact, you will love this book. However, if you are emotionally invested in a particular version of the final Confederate infantry assault at Gettysburg and think you have it all figured out, this book will surely irritate you!
If you only read one book about Pickett's Charge, this should be the book!
August 14, 2018
This book attempts to organize the memories of soldiers who participated in the final day of battle at Gettysburg in 1863. Talking about the collective memory of soldiers is a difficult task, as Reardon notes in her opening pages. The book is essentially an account of shouting matches in newspapers and journals between soldiers from Virginia and North Carolina during a handful of decades after the war. While Reardon does not promise more than this, she offers a glimpse of what the book could have been when she briefly discusses the memory of Pickett's Charge on t-shirts and in other popular media.
April 12, 2022
This is a fantastic history of Pickett's Charge as a historical event and the historiography (read, mythmaking) about the assault. Reardon pulls from a huge selection of historical sources and uses them to great effect. In letting the sources speak for themselves, she keeps up momentum in a historiography-heavy study. Her analysis of memory is the best there is, and she connects a half-century of scholarly debate to modern markets and consequences. While it may be dry for introductory readers, those interested in the history of Civil War history will be greatly pleased.
March 21, 2021
On Point
The Author does a wonderful job with first hand accounts of the struggles and triumphs of battle. Gives all sides in its description of Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge, enjoyable reading.
The Author does a wonderful job with first hand accounts of the struggles and triumphs of battle. Gives all sides in its description of Gettysburg and Pickett's Charge, enjoyable reading.
August 26, 2024
I loved this book! It has changed my whole perspective when it comes to reading histories of Civil War battles, especially the battle of Gettysburg. It makes clear the distinction between history and memory. I would recommend the book to all students of history.
December 1, 2020
The argument could be made that Pickett’s Charge is the most pivotal event in this Nation’s history and I am happy to make it.
December 31, 2020
Interesting content, somewhat dull writing. Would have been helpful for my thesis though.
May 25, 2023
Excellent micro-history of the famous charge.
September 29, 2024
I thought it was going to be more about tactical but it was more about memory. Still a good book that encapsulates controversies surrounding the final day at Gettysburg.
August 29, 2011
Pickett's Charge in History and Memory is about the making of history. The book focuses on the final day's charge during the Battle of Gettysburg and how it is remembered.
In particular, the book chronicles the attempts of Virginia veterans to take the credit and avoid the blame for the failed assault. (And foist the blame on the North Carolina and Tennessee regiments who also took part.)SPOILER ALERT: In the end, the Virginians won (thus it is called Pickett's charge after his division of Virginians).
The book is excessively repetitive, so it at times does not make very gripping reading. But if you are interested in history (and about how little is really known about anything in the past), this is a fascinating book. It's also very intersesting to see how politics affects memory (and the reliability of witnesses). I highly recommend it to people interested in the history behind history.
In particular, the book chronicles the attempts of Virginia veterans to take the credit and avoid the blame for the failed assault. (And foist the blame on the North Carolina and Tennessee regiments who also took part.)SPOILER ALERT: In the end, the Virginians won (thus it is called Pickett's charge after his division of Virginians).
The book is excessively repetitive, so it at times does not make very gripping reading. But if you are interested in history (and about how little is really known about anything in the past), this is a fascinating book. It's also very intersesting to see how politics affects memory (and the reliability of witnesses). I highly recommend it to people interested in the history behind history.
February 16, 2015
A pioneering study of the contested landscape of memory of an event versus the actual event, how that memory supplanted the actual events, and how that memory shaped / frame / reflected the society that created it. Far from trying to retrieve the reputation of North Carolina soldiers, Reardon explores the how Reunion shaped the political landscape of the New South, how that Reunion came through the reconciliation of soldiers around honor, valor, and virtue, and how North Carolina soldiers themselves defended that honor, valor, and virtue against the misleading statements of Virginia Confederate Veteran groups. Memory studies, how a people remember their history, are a worthy addition to the study of history. Not only is this what history is all about but it is why historians get excited about the profession.
January 14, 2012
Very good book on Pickett's charge. Very good - almost intricate detail. I particularly appreciated the fog of war discussion at the beginning - very refreshing for the author to position the book in a way that effectively says we know what we know, but a complete and accurate account can never be made due to the perspectives of each individual on the field. Or an approximation there of. Great read.
July 8, 2008
Another fine tome on the American collective memory of the Civil War. What was, in reality, a somewhat disastrous attack by the Confederates became, through the lens of Southern-influenced memory, a romantic last stand of a tragic and doomed culture. How did this story get twisted around like this? Read the book and find out.
July 18, 2013
This book should be required reading for anyone who has ever visited the High Water Mark and enjoyed a moment of reverent silence. It really puts that experience in context. Thoroughly readable and tough to put down!
September 14, 2007
Decent look at how people looked at the assault from the year after the battle to current day. A little long winded and not an exciting read. And this is coming from a Gettysburg buff.
August 12, 2011
Not always a great read but engrossing if you are interested in the battle.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews