Gettysburg at 150: The battle and a nation reborn

[Valin]

AEI

 

Event Summary

 

On Wednesday, in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg, Allen Guelzo delivered a keynote speech at AEI about the three-day battle's importance in American history.

 

As Guelzo, professor of history at Gettysburg College and author of "Gettysburg: The Last Invasion," recounted, the battle was the result of General Robert E. Lee's northward advance into Union territory. When the rebel army converged at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, Union forces were able to rebuff the enemy, but not without sustaining massive casualties. By July 4, 1863, more than 40,000 were dead, wounded, or missing.

 

Though Union forces were not able to deliver a knockout punch, the battle shifted morale dramatically in their favor, and the Confederate army would never be able to recover. As Guelzo said, "After Gettysburg, the sun never shone on the South again."

 

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Gettysburg: The Last Invasion

Allen C. Guelzo

 

From the acclaimed Civil War historian, a brilliant new historythe most intimate and richly readable account we have hadof the climactic three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 13, 1863), which draws the reader into the heat, smoke, and grime of Gettysburg alongside the ordinary soldier, and depicts the combination of personalities and circumstances that produced the greatest battle of the Civil War, and one of the greatest in human history.

 

Of the half-dozen full-length histories of the battle of Gettysburg written over the last century, none dives down so closely to the experience of the individual soldier, or looks so closely at the sway of politics over military decisions, or places the battle so firmly in the context of nineteenth-century military practice. Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights, and the sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the lay of the land, the fences and the stone walls, the gunpowder clouds that hampered movement and vision; the armies that caroused, foraged, kidnapped, sang, and were so filthy they could be smelled before they could be seen; the head-swimming difficulties of marshaling massive numbers of poorly trained soldiers, plus thousands of animals and wagons, with no better means of communication than those of Caesar and Alexander.

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