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Title: Gettysburg, Day Three by Jeffry D. Wert ISBN: 0-684-85914-9 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.41 (17 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: disappointing
Comment: 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: 5
Summary: On the Field at Gettysburg
Comment: After 30 years of reading books about the Civil War and about Gettysburg in particular, I recently have found very little to keep my interest. It was almost as if I had "read it all". I picked up Jeffert Wert's book "Gettysburg :Day Three" primarily because of his past books. I had read one on Longstreet and one on Custer. In the past I have found Wert to be highly readable yet consistly knowledgable on his chosen subject. I was not disappointed. Suddenly I was on the battlefield I had visited over 25 year ago. Seeing Culp's Hill,Spangler's Spring and the surrounding woods.I was reminded of standing at Hay's position at the stone wall and viewing Seminary Ridge and the Blue Ridge Mountain range behind it.When you read the section on the cannonade against the oncoming Confederates the distance takes on a completely new meaning.( If you've ever visited Gettysburg on a hot July day you have a greater appreciation of how suffocating it must have felt.)
Wert transports the reader to the field of battle. To read this book makes the reader feel the temor of the earth during the cannonade prior to the Confederate charge. You also sense the desperation in the fighting on both sides. The reader comes to, somewhat, understand the hesitation yet the fortitude of the men in gray as they rose to march against the postion so prominent and so formidable yet so far away. I found the book even handed and fair to both sides of the battle. I agree with the previous writer that more maps would have been better but I always complain about a lack of maps.
I highly recommend to those that have become jaded,as I had, to pick this book up and once again experince this battle in the only way left to us. You won't be disappointed.
Rating: 3
Summary: Uninspiring
Comment: 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.
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Title: Gettysburg: The First Day (Civil War America (Hardcover)) by Harry W. Pfanz ISBN: 0807826243 Publisher: University of North Carolina Press Pub. Date: 01 July, 2001 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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Title: Gettysburg: The Second Day by Harry W. Pfanz ISBN: 0807847305 Publisher: University of North Carolina Press Pub. Date: 01 March, 1998 List Price(USD): $17.54 |
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Title: Gettysburg-Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill (Civil War America (Hardcover)) by Harry W. Pfanz ISBN: 0807821187 Publisher: University of North Carolina Press Pub. Date: 01 January, 1994 List Price(USD): $39.95 |
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Title: Gettysburg by Stephen W. Sears ISBN: 0395867614 Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company Pub. Date: 24 June, 2003 List Price(USD): $30.00 |
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Title: Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage by Noah Andre Trudeau ISBN: 0060193638 Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Pub. Date: 18 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $34.95 |
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