Gettysburg's Most Hellish Battleground PDF Download

Author: Phillip Thomas Tucker
Publisher: Fonthill Media
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 510

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Book Description
During the crucial three days of combat at Gettysburg, the most nightmarish place on the entire battlefield was appropriately named the Devil's Den. This jumble of huge boulders situated at the southern end of Houck's Ridge was truly a hell on earth during the decisive afternoon of July 2, 1863. The tenacious struggle that raged beyond control at the battle-line's southern end was all-important, because the Devil's Den and Houck's Ridge anchored the left flank of the over-extended Union battle-line, before Federal troops occupied Little Round Top to the east. The battle-hardened veterans of Lieutenant General James Longstreet's First Corps captured this vital sector— the first Union left flank—in one of the few Southern successes of the second day, after some of the war's most bitter fighting. Nevertheless, the dramatic story of the successful turning of the first Union left flank has been long overlooked and ignored largely because of the giant historical shadow cast by the more famous struggle at Little Round Top, which was only the second and last fight for the southern flank of both armies on July 2. Therefore, the important contest for possession of the first Union left flank at the Devil's Den and Houck's Ridge was crucial on the bloody afternoon that decided the fate of America. • Includes 22 colour and sepia-tinted photographs

Author: Phillip Thomas Tucker
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781634991230
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
During the crucial three days of combat at Gettysburg, the most nightmarish place on the entire battlefield was appropriately named the Devil's Den. This jumble of huge boulders situated at the southern end of Houck's Ridge was truly a hell on earth during the decisive afternoon of July 2, 1863. The tenacious struggle that raged beyond control at the battle-line's southern end was all-important, because the Devil's Den and Houck's Ridge anchored the left flank of the over-extended Union battle-line, before Federal troops occupied Little Round Top to the east. The battle-hardened veterans of Lieutenant General James Longstreet's First Corps captured this vital sector-- the first Union left flank--in one of the few Southern successes of the second day, after some of the war's most bitter fighting. Nevertheless, the dramatic story of the successful turning of the first Union left flank has been long overlooked and ignored largely because of the giant historical shadow cast by the more famous struggle at Little Round Top, which was only the second and last fight for the southern flank of both armies on July 2. Therefore, the important contest for possession of the first Union left flank at the Devil's Den and Houck's Ridge was crucial on the bloody afternoon that decided the fate of America.

Author: John Michael Priest
Publisher: Savas Publishing
ISBN: 1611211778
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 537

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Book Description
“[A] stirring narrative of the common soldier’s experiences on the southern end of the battlefield on the second day of fighting at Gettysburg.” —Civil War News “Stand to It and Give Them Hell” chronicles the Gettysburg fighting from Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top on July 2, 1863, through the letters, memoirs, diaries, and postwar recollections of the men from both armies who struggled to control that “hallowed ground.” John Michael Priest, dubbed the “Ernie Pyle” of the Civil War soldier by legendary historian Edwin C. Bearss, wrote this book to help readers understand and experience, as closely as possible through the written word, the stress and terror of that fateful day in Pennsylvania. Nearly sixty detailed maps, mostly on the regimental level, illustrate the tremendous troop congestion in the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, and Devil’s Den. They accurately establish, by regiment or company, the extent of the Federal skirmish line from Ziegler’s Grove to the Slyder farm and portray the final Confederate push against the Codori farm and the center of Cemetery Ridge, which three Confederate divisions—in what is popularly known as Pickett’s Charge—would unsuccessfully attack on the final day of fighting. “‘Stand to It and Give Them Hell’ puts a human face on the second day of the nation’s epic Civil War battle . . . Mike Priest has taken a familiar story and somehow made it fresh and new. It is simply first-rate.” —Lance J. Herdegen, award-winning author of Union Soldiers in the American Civil War “Remarkable . . . Priest’s distinctive style is rife with anecdotes, many drawn from obscure diaries and letters, artfully stitched together in an original manner.” —David G. Martin, author of The Shiloh Campaign

Author: James A. Hessler
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
ISBN: 1611214564
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 546

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Book Description
A “fascinating illumination of little-known accounts and personalities” by two experts on the Battle of Gettysburg (Civil War News). The historiography of Gettysburg’s second day is usually dominated by the Union’s successful defense of Little Round Top—but the day’s most influential action occurred nearly one mile west along the Emmitsburg Road, in farmer Joseph Sherfy’s peach orchard. This is the first full-length study of this pivotal action. On July 2, 1863, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee ordered skeptical subordinate Lt. Gen. James Longstreet to launch a massive assault against the Union left flank. The offensive was intended to seize the Peach Orchard and surrounding ground for use as an artillery position to support the ongoing attack. However, Union Maj. Gen. Daniel Sickles, a scheming former congressman from New York, misinterpreted his orders and occupied the orchard first. What followed was some of Gettysburg’s bloodiest and most controversial fighting. General Sickles’s questionable advance forced Longstreet’s artillery and infantry to fight for every inch of ground to Cemetery Ridge. The Confederate attack crushed the Peach Orchard salient and other parts of the Union line, threatening the left flank of Maj. Gen. George Meade’s army. The command decisions made in and around the Sherfy property influenced actions on every part of the battlefield. The occupation of the high ground at the Peach Orchard helped General Lee rationalize ordering the tragic July 3 assault known as Pickett’s Charge. This richly detailed study is based on scores of primary accounts and a deep understanding of the terrain. The authors, both Gettysburg Licensed Battlefield Guides, combine the military aspects of the fighting with human interest stories, in a balanced treatment of the bloody attack and defense of Gettysburg’s Peach Orchard.

Author: Frank Aretas Haskell
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781470398446
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
The Battle of Gettysburg is a vivid firsthand account of the most famous battle of the Civil War. Two weeks later, while his memory was fresh and his adrenaline still high, Union Lieutenant Frank Haskell;a Medal of Honor recipient;wrote this book, one of the most honest and accurate eyewitness accounts of war ever written. Haskell, an officer in the Army of the Potomac, describes soldiers preparing for and fighting in a battle that;unknown to them;would shape the destiny of a nation. Haskell is more than a casual observer, however, he is at the center of the Union line as Pickett's Charge thunders up Cemetery Ridge. This powerfully insightful account;unblemished by an attempt to look good in the history books;preserves an intimate portrait of the most famous Civil War battlefield. Whether you're an armchair historian or a devoted Civil War buff, Tom West's distinctive narration will shed new light on this transcendent moment in American history.

Author: Franklin Aretas Haskell
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863
Languages : en
Pages : 122

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Book Description
Eyewitness accounts are some of the best resources to bring history to life. Nearly 150 years have passed since the Battle of Gettysburg. Since then, countless histories, poems, stories, plays and movies have been created to honor and remember the momentous American event. The very first account, which remains among the best, was written by Union Colonel Frank A. Haskell only weeks after the battle. Haskell arrived with the Union Second Corps on July 2nd and spent the day defending various positions including Cemetery Ridge and the Peach Orchard. He was present at the council of war meetings of General Meade and his commanders. Haskell's position saw some of the heaviest fighting during Pickett's Charge. After General Gibbon was wounded, Colonel Haskell was credited with rallying the troops to repel the rest of the Confederate assault. Just weeks after the battle, he recorded his experiences. Sadly, only months later, he was killed leading a charge at the Battle of Cold Harbor. His writings were published in 1898 in a book titled, "The Battle of Gettysburg." To this day, Frank A. Haskell's experiences are regarded as some of the best accounts of Gettysburg and are indispensable in the study of the battle.

Author: John Matteson
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN: 0393247082
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 528

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Book Description
Pulitzer Prize–winning author John Matteson illuminates three harrowing months of the Civil War and their enduring legacy for America. December 1862 drove the United States toward a breaking point. The Battle of Fredericksburg shattered Union forces and Northern confidence. As Abraham Lincoln’s government threatened to fracture, this critical moment also tested five extraordinary individuals whose lives reflect the soul of a nation. The changes they underwent led to profound repercussions in the country’s law, literature, politics, and popular mythology. Taken together, their stories offer a striking restatement of what it means to be American. Guided by patriotism, driven by desire, all five moved toward singular destinies. A young Harvard intellectual steeped in courageous ideals, Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. confronted grave challenges to his concept of duty. The one-eyed army chaplain Arthur Fuller pitted his frail body against the evils of slavery. Walt Whitman, a gay Brooklyn poet condemned by the guardians of propriety, and Louisa May Alcott, a struggling writer seeking an authentic voice and her father’s admiration, tended soldiers’ wracked bodies as nurses. On the other side of the national schism, John Pelham, a West Point cadet from Alabama, achieved a unique excellence in artillery tactics as he served a doomed and misbegotten cause. A Worse Place Than Hell brings together the prodigious forces of war with the intimacy of individual lives. Matteson interweaves the historic and the personal in a work as beautiful as it is powerful.

Author: Allen C. Guelzo
Publisher: Vintage
ISBN: 0385349645
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 673

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Book Description
Winner of the Guggenheim-Lehrman Prize in Military History An Economist Best Book of the Year A Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Book of the Year The Battle of Gettysburg has been written about at length and thoroughly dissected in terms of strategic importance, but never before has a book taken readers so close to the experience of the individual soldier. Two-time Lincoln Prize winner Allen C. Guelzo shows us the face, the sights and the sounds of nineteenth-century combat: the stone walls and gunpowder clouds of Pickett’s Charge; the reason that the Army of Northern Virginia could be smelled before it could be seen; the march of thousands of men from the banks of the Rappahannock in Virginia to the Pennsylvania hills. What emerges is a previously untold story of army life in the Civil War: from the personal politics roiling the Union and Confederate officer ranks, to the peculiar character of artillery units. Through such scrutiny, one of history’s epic battles is given extraordinarily vivid new life.

Author: Carol Reardon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863
Languages : en
Pages : 64

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Book Description
"The Battle of Gettysburg attained a special aura that has distinguished it ever since. Boston journalist Charles Carleton Coffin dubbed it "the high water mark" of the rebellion, while others described it as the "turning point of the war." But it was President Lincoln who most eloquently expressed Gettysburg's significance. On 19 November 1863, Lincoln delivered "a few appropriate remarks" at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery that became known as the Gettysburg Address: "We here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain-that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom-and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." --p. 61.

Author: Comte De Paris
Publisher: Digital Scanning Inc
ISBN: 1582180652
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
The Comte de Paris' account of the Battle of Gettysburg is widely acknowledged to be the fairest and most graphic description of the battle ever written. To make the work still more complete, an itinerary of the Army of the Potomac and cooperating forces in the Gettysburg campaign, June and July, 1863, has been carefully revised and enlarged from documents in the possession of the War Department.