Witness To Gettysburg (review)

Abstract

Listen

Translate article

BOOK REVIEWS85 distant cantonment—everything conspires to make these southern mornings delightful" (p. 55). A wry sense ofhumor highlights Mosman's chronicle . For example, while enduring a forced march in Arkansas during 1862, Corporal Mosman reported that "the boys swear that the point is Nova Scotia, the direction northeast, and the time next week" (p. 13). Mosman was also astute enough to sense the changing nature of the war. While serving under Sherman near Atlanta in August 1 864, he pointed out that earlier in the war there were often long pauses between Union campaigns but that generals such as Sherman and Grant "go at it like a man at a day's work . . . they don't seem to care for clean clothes, but require clean guns" (p. 264). Editor Arnold Gates does a generally effective job. There are eighteen pages of very useful explanatory notes at the end of the text and Gates provides very interesting details of Mosman's life after 1 865. The total absence of maps will frustrate many readers and the purpose for the 59th's assignment to Texas is left largely unexplained. For hardy and patient readers seeking fuller knowledge of Civil War soldier life from the perspective ofan intelligent and literate infantry officer The Rough Side of War is highly recommended. Larry T. Balsamo Western Illinois University Witness To Gettysburg. By Richard Wheeler. (New York: Harper & Row, 1987. Pp. 288. $19.45.) Richard Wheeler has made something ofa career writing "eyewitness" histories on such diverse military conflicts as World War II, the American Revolution, and the Civil War—especially the latter. Witness to Gettysburg is his fifth work on America's epic internecine struggle, and it may be his best yet. The author has apparently immersed himself in the abundant firsthand accounts of America's most written-about battle and has drawn from fifty-eight ofthese sources the extensive quotations that make up the bulk of his book. Many of these reminiscences come from standard sources, such as Battles and Leaders ofthe Civil War and The War ofthe Rebellion: A Compilation ofthe Official Records ofthe Union and Confederate Armies. Other selections are drawn from well-known memoirs, such as those ofJames Longstreet, George Pickett, Heros Von Borcke, and Abner Doubleday. Many other recollections, however, such as those ofthe civilian inhabitants of Gettysburg, are much less familiar. Almost half of the book is actually a prelude to Gettysburg. Wheeler begins his account with the decision, in mid-May 1863, to invade Pennsylvania . He next follows the movement of Lee's army to the Shenandoah Valley and the efforts ofa confused, and soon-to-be-replaced, Joe Hooker 86CIVIL WAR HISTORY to ascertain what his opponent was really up to. Along the way, the author devotes full chapters to the preliminary battles at Brandy Station and Winchester . Many of the accounts from which Wheeler drew his material were published twenty years or more after the battle was fought. Recognizing that such eyewitness histories are sometimes combed with factual errors, the author has taken pains, he says, to identify the inaccuracies and remove them. He uses ellipses generously, to eliminate both the erroneous observations and unneeded words ofhis subjects. Having thus tested and tightened his quotations, he organized them chronologically and tied them together with his own connective prose, which is as admirable for its economy as for its clarity. So unobtrusive is Wheeler's writing, that it tends to blend with the quotations which surround it, creating a text that is almost seamless in its unity—a remarkable achievement indeed, considering that the book actually was constructed more on the model of a patchwork quilt. Unfortunately , the author (or perhaps the publisher) chose not to footnote his sources; therefore, the scholar is required to accept on faith Wheeler's accuracy in the use of his material. Not surprisingly, the author presents nothing new about the battle itself. Nor should the reader expect a fully developed history; the author's connective prose is too spare to provide a detailed account oftactics and troop movements, and the quotations which constitute the core of the book are much too anecdotal and personal to provide real perspective. Rather, the strength...