GETTYSBURG

Firsthand accounts from those who witnessed war.

There is no shortage of Gettysburg histories, so Chadwick, author of The Cannons Roar: Fort Sumter and the Start of the Civil War—An Oral History (2023), takes a different tack that will captivate the general reader. His book is an oral history of the 1863 battle in the sense that it describes events and individuals through the words of contemporaries—far more often written than spoken. This works better with events than individuals. His sources deliver conventional portraits of the major players. Everyone worships Robert E. Lee, George Meade (the Union commander) is hardworking and competent, Abraham Lincoln wise and sad. Chadwick follows the usual oral history format, introducing a subject, then quoting observers. Historical figures deliver their impressions, as do military officers and bureaucrats. He relies heavily on journalists who apparently roamed the battlefield freely; the British sent a large contingent, mostly to Confederate armies, where they fell under Lee’s spell. This being the first major war in an era of widespread literacy, common soldiers and Gettysburg citizens wrote letters and kept diaries.

An entertaining collection of primary sources.