Gettysburg, Day Three

Rating:
Summary: Uninspiring
Review: As anyone who made it to this page knows, books hundreds of pages long have been written on particular portions of the Gettysburg battlefield, from the railroad cut on Day 1 to McPherson's Woods etc. Plenty of large books have specifically discussed the individual days, but most books dealing with July 3 inevitably focus on Pickett's Charge. So when Wert, who's written biographies on Longstreet and Custer, attempted to write a book focusing on all of the action on Day Three, it was a very large undertaking. Inevitably, Wert comes up short.

Wert is largely uninspiring compared to the Pantheon of Gettysburg authors, like Pfanz and Coddington. And to justify writing a book about Gettysburg or July 3rd, topics that have been written about endlessly, there has to be some originality involved to give the narrative meaning. Wert simply does not accomplish this, except perhaps on the cavalry actions, and it isn't surprising when the book is only 300 pages long.

July 3rd's action begins near dawn on Culp's Hill. Pfanz covers this action infinitely better in his book on Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill compared to Wert's book. Pfanz book has just as many interesting first hand accounts, and it's a more descriptive narrative concerning the military movements and combat on Culp's Hill.

Pickett's Charge is, of course, the highlight of the action on July 3. Wert's book has nothing groundbreaking regarding any aspect of the charge, from the action to the Confederate command chain before the offensive. That's not surprising, considering the Charge has been discussed to death. However, you'll find much more description on the action in both Sears' and Coddington's books, and those are books covering the entire campaign, not just Day Three.

The only thing that separates this Day Three study from the rest is the detail it gives to the 4 cavalry actions on July 3rd. Generally most only mention Custer's and Stuart's action southeast of the field and Kilpatrick's assault on the Confederate right. This book describes those actions in strong detail and analyzes two less significant cavalry skirmishes.

Still, for anyone who wants to read 300 pages worth of text on July 3 at Gettysburg, it would benefit you to read a more specific book on Pickett's Charge or the Culp's Hill chapters of the Pfanz book. Put simply, Wert's sum is not greater than Day Three's parts.

Rating:
Summary: Not a book for the new Civil War enthusiast.
Review: As surely as those of stone and iron,another monument has come to Gettysburg.
Jeffrey Wert has shown a brilliant,superbly researched,and humanized light on day 3.
The clear maps and luminous text transported me back to the grim field and its unfolding horrors in a way that rang in the soul.
Superbly selected primary source quotations and vignettes like the three-legged dog rooted me to my chair far beyond my alotted reading time.
I believe that the test of time will bring this work to its rightfull place, high in the pantheon of Gettysburg literature!

Rating:
Summary: Good Solid Work on the Crucial Third Day at Gettysburg
Review: From the drama of Meade's midnight conference to the gallant cavalry charge of Farnsworth south of the Round Tops, this book is a must for the Gettysburg enthusiast.

Granted, Wert may not be for the extreme purist ala Pfanz, but this very inexpensive work deserves a place on the shelf alongside Noah Andre Trudeau's comprehensive work, or the more recent works by James M. McPherson and Stephen Sears.

Wert gives good, solid narrative to the desperate clash on Culp's Hill, and hails the little-known George Sears Greene, the oldest General in the Union Army on the battlefield, as the unsung hero of the battle, as the failure of the Confederates to crack the right flank of the Union forces commanded by Greene at Culp's Hill (Gettysburg) seriously impacted Pickett's charge later that day.

The poignant aspects of the Culps Hill fight - the death of a scruffy little dog that charged with the Maryland Confederates against Maryland Unionist, and received a "Christian burial" from the heartbroken Union General who found him on the battlefield; the death of Wesley Culp, who was born nearby, went south to Virginia and joined the Rebels and died on his own property, and the horrible, suicidal charge of Charles Mudge's 2nd Massachusetts are part and parcel of Wert's narrative.

As a Cavalry enthusiast, I certainly have no complaints only complements for Wert's descriptive of the East Cavalry Battle, or the subsequent attempts by Merritt and Kilpatrick to get behind the battered Confederates by the Round Tops just after Pickett's charge. The reader will get a true feel of the ferocity and desperation of the Stuart-Custer fight, and of Kilpatrick's senseless order to Farnsworth to lead a mounted charge across the rocky and tree-filled landscape just south of the Round Tops.
Wert, to his credit, also writes of the little-known cavalry battle at Fairfield on the 3rd day between Merritt's Sixth U.S. Cavalry and Confederates led by "Grumble" Jones, a useless fight that resulted in a severe Union defeat (one of the captured Union cavalrymen was a Major George Cram, who was later commended by the Union Cavalry Chief Alfred Pleasanton in a document in this writer's possession).

By contrast, even the brilliant Gary Gallagher's series of essays in "The Third Day at Gettysburg and Beyond" doesn't even mention the cavalry fights!

Yes, the book is printed on rag paper, and yes, some of the maps described the wrong battles. For example the map depicting the fight on the South field (Round Tops)is actually the East Cavalry battle between Stuart and Custer, and vice versa. And yes, those were reasons why I gave this work a four-star review rather than the five-star which, with modifications and improvements it really deserves.

A good solid work on Gettysburg at an even better price!

Rating:
Summary: He is no Pfanz and I'm no fan of Wert
Review: I should have known not to buy this book after I bought and read Wert's book on Custer: "Custer: The Controversial Life of George Armstrong Custer" a few years ago. A college history major (VMI but still a true Yankee),for the last 20 years I have focused my attention on two subjects: Gettysburg and Custer (not just Custer at Gettysburg). I have read most of the 20th Century and much of the 19th Century lierature on both subjects; I have toured Gettysburg over a dozen times. Why bother writing books dealing with the two most written about battles on the North American continent (Gettysburg and Little Big Horn) unless you had some new insight, brought together a well written amalgamation of prior personal and scholarly accounts or wished to do an in depth study? Maybe you could ask Mr. Wert why he has now done that twice. His book adds nothing new or interesting to the literature on Gettysburg. Mr. Wert's style is awkward and a tough read. He jumps around giving no part of the Third Day's battle adequate attention. It is written more like a college paper than a scholarly work and is not "personal" enough to be a piece of "popular" history. I bought this hoping to find a book that gave a complete view of the Third Day, not just Pickett's Charge, until Harry Pfanz does a book on the Third Day or Pickett. You would be better off reading one of the many good books on "the Charge" and then reading Pfanz' "Culp's Hill & Cemetery Hill" for the rest of the Third Day fighting, until Pfanz writes one. Please Mr. Wert; stay away from Pearl Harbor, Midway, D-Day or the Battle of the Bulge, maybe you could write your next book about Napoleon or the Battle of Waterloo. I never liked the French anyway.

Rating:
Summary: A few key points worth learning
Review: The book provides new (to me) insights into often overlooked portions of the battle, specifically the cavalry actions of July 3rd. This concludes the good part of this review...

The attention received by Culp's Hill and Pickett's Charge is abbreviated and generally lacking when compared to other available texts on these subjects. A hard-core buff can find more depth and less confusion elsewhere, yet it's a bit much for casual readers.

The writing is painfully inconsistent. Some sections are written around first person accounts and are clean, clear and exciting. In contrast, the technical passages that attempt to detail the "what where how when" of units' movements and activities are muddy and confusing and sometimes inconsistent with the maps that are juxtaposed throughout the book.

Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: The book provides new (to me) insights into often overlooked portions of the battle, specifically the cavalry actions of July 3rd. This concludes the good part of this review...

The attention received by Culp's Hill and Pickett's Charge is abbreviated and generally lacking when compared to other available texts on these subjects. A hard-core buff can find more depth and less confusion elsewhere, yet it's a bit much for casual readers.

The writing is painfully inconsistent. Some sections are written around first person accounts and are clean, clear and exciting. In contrast, the technical passages that attempt to detail the "what where how when" of units' movements and activities are muddy and confusing and sometimes inconsistent with the maps that are juxtaposed throughout the book.

Rating:
Summary: Dry, detailed thorough descriptions lack drama
Review: This book has real plusses and minuses.

On the plus side, the research is meticulous, with names, quotes, maps, order of battle and precise citations on troop movements and actions. On the negative side, there is little previously uncharted territory and even less drama. The text is so chock full of short quotes, terms, phrases, names, units and minor details that the story is lost among the data.

For a person keenly interested in the precise alignment of troops, the battle organizational details, and plentiful quotations from common soldiers as well as generals, this is a fine work. Culp's Hill and cavalry action are detailed, not just Pickett's charge. Yet the overall impression fails to capture the glory, the courage, the drama or the simple bewilderment of the day. Several Medal of Honor winners receive less than a paragraph's treatment. Late analysis of some of the shortcomings of leadership, staff work, and vision found in the Confederacy's failure that day comes too little and too late. Despite generally good maps (two or three more with a few more details on barns, houses, roads, fences, etc. would have helped) some movements and progressions are hard to follow.

The author deserves full marks for copious research. The book just needs some more attention to life, a story, or simply a connecting theme to characterize the drama that may have determined the destiny of our nation.

Rating:
Summary: Good for hard core buffs
Review: Wert's Gettysburg, Day Three was not a disappointment, but it was not full of new and exciting facts or tidbits, but what can you really say about Gettysburg that is new? It is all in the manner of telling at this stage 139 years after the fact. I rather enjoyed his opinions about the command structure of the Confederate army. I can never quite get my hands around the way Lee gave such wishy-washy orders to his subordinates. After reading Grant's Memoirs, and seeing his clear and precise orders in written form, I have to conclude that a big part of Lee's success was luck, and the skill of generals like Jackson (fortunately dead by the time of Gettysburg) in reading his mind.

The book does spend a lot of time with unit identifications and it seems as if Wert was just trying to put them all out in one place for future reference. To his credit, he seems to place them all in one sentence when discussing them, so you can skim them easily if your eyes start to glaze over. I had just returned from my fifth visit to Gettysburg, a month before, when I read the book and I wish I had had it and taken notes when I walked the ground on Cemetery Ridge and Culp's! Fortunately I took a lot of photos of the regimental flank markers on the ridge and was able to follow, quite nicely, the action of that day. The book has some of the best maps of Pickett's Charge that I have seen. It also has discussions of the cavalry actions east and south of the main field, aspects of the battle that are often neglected all together. Unfortunately the maps illustrating these actions are transposed and mislabeled; the East Cavalry Field fight is labeled as the Fairfield fight and vice versa.

The photos are good. Except for the, seemingly mandatory, shots of the Union and Confederate generals, all are interesting. I was surprised to learn that Culp's Hill was as wooded then as it is now. The "clump" of trees on Cemetery Ridge was hardly the landmark it is today, but I suppose tress grow over time and I wonder if any of those trees witnessed the battle. Also, there seem to have been a lot of trees along the ridge that are not there today. Also, one picture of Culp's Hill shows very dramatically, the bullet holes and broken branches and barkless trees described in the book. All in all, not a bad summary of the third day at Gettysburg.

Rating:
Summary: I'm a bit disappointed.
Review: While this book is exhaustive in it's verbal detail, it is too lacking in visual support - maps - to keep it all in mind while wading through it. And, what few maps there are are hard to find, and hard to refer back to because of the rag-edge paper the book is printed on. All in all, I would suggest another source for this battle.