My Gettysburg: Meditations on History and Place by Mark A. Snell

Abstract

Reviewed by: My Gettysburg: Meditations on History and Place by Mark A. Snell Mary Munsell Abroe My Gettysburg: Meditations on History and Place. By Mark A. Snell. ( Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 2016. Pp. xiv, 222. $29.95, ISBN 978-1-60635-293-9.) "Historical knowledge," observes urban planner Kevin Lynch, "must be communicated to the public for its enjoyment and education. Words and pictures convey much, but real things make the deepest impression" (What Time Is This Place? [Cambridge, Mass., 1972], 51–52). Civil War battlefields [End Page 471] are real places in time and space. As Mark A. Snell's collection of essays revolving around one such site demonstrates, a battlefield is a primary document that not only tells us about what happened there but also reveals us to ourselves, as humans and Americans, with a vividness and immediacy that the printed page cannot. Although each essay relates to the Gettysburg campaign, this work defies easy categorization. Several chapters involve analyses of military matters, such as the importance of logistics in the Union win and the question of Union cavalry leader Judson Kilpatrick's accountability for his less-than-stellar participation in the Gettysburg campaign. While balanced and instructive, these treatments of the military may lose some readers when the author moves into the tactical weeds. Other essays tend toward sociopolitical study, like the useful glimpse Snell provides of the nearby battle's impact on the civilian population of York, Pennsylvania (where the author grew up), and his insight into the motives and loyalties of men from the new, divided state of West Virginia during the Gettysburg operation. Even popular culture receives attention, as Snell considers music that was prompted by the battle and emerged in its immediate wake and through the early twentieth century. Despite the disparate nature of topics treated and musings rendered, this anthology's organizing principle is clear: the power of place to engage, inspire, and inform. Also noteworthy in Snell's wide-ranging discussion, which features extensive use of primary and appropriate secondary sources, are his essays that reveal Civil War battlefields, including Gettysburg and comparable sites, as contested ground. One essay, on the history of reenacting, defines "living history" as types of historical interpretation that generate interest among practitioners and the public but beget criticism, specifically, that they distract from a site's meaning and message or minimize the human cost of war (p. 175). The author, who wears the hats of academic historian, military veteran, and former reenactor, uses oral history and insights derived from sociology to contextualize reenacting and living history in their historical settings; Gettysburg enters the picture as an example of a less-than-realistic reenactment during the Civil War centennial period. In addition to his evenhanded assessment of the drawbacks and benefits of living history and reenactments, Snell also probes public memory of the Civil War, which continues to occupy its own contested space, and his scholarship here serves to enlighten rather than lecture. Snell achieves similar balance in considering another area of long controversy: preservation versus commercial development. Writing as both a historian and as a local taxpayer, Snell addresses the averted threat of a gambling complex on the border of Gettysburg National Military Park; in doing so, he makes a case for preservation values that presents the issue as one of quality of life for neighbors and squares with his goal of allowing a unique piece of material culture to tell its story on the land. By delving into the multilayered relationship between men (including himself) and one special plot of ground, Snell informs ongoing debates over ownership of American history generally and the Civil War specifically. He also sheds light on the role of commemorative public spaces as tools that could help Americans develop a mature historical memory, one that recognizes and is [End Page 472] willing to learn from the painful episodes and the proud moments of our collective past. Mary Munsell Abroe College of Lake County Copyright © 2018 The Southern Historical Association