Voices from Gettysburg: Letters, Papers, and Memoirs from the Greatest Battle of the Civil War

Summary

Powerful, haunting, and unforgettable, this remarkable gathering of original documents, including never-before-published letters and papers, creates a day-by-day eyewitness account of the monumental collision at Gettysburg, in the words of the commanders, soldiers, politicians, and civilians from both the North and the South who experienced firsthand the changing course of the Civil War.

July 1st through July 3rd in 1863, the crossroads town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, marked the beginning of the end of the Civil War. Lost to history are the voices of those who watched it unfold. Voices from Gettysburg brings together scores of original documents—a treasure trove of riches for both Civil War buffs and those discovering it anew—for a uniquely personal, chronological narrative of the Great Rebellion and the impetus for Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address.

Through these singular voices, we are there for the opening moves at Brandy Station and Winchester, Virginia; during the march with the advancing armies toward Seminary Ridge on July 1st: at the devastating battles for East Cemetery Hill and Culp’s Hill on July 2nd; amid the exhausted and blood-drained soldiers for one final deadly infantry assault known as Pickett’s Charge on July 3rd; and at the inevitable, harrowing retreat of the Confederates and Abraham Lincoln’s immortal address. We hear from a Union staff officer, a civilian theologian, a Confederate artilleryman, a sympathetic Northern woman, a Union prisoner-of-war, Union colonels and Confederate generals, a drummer boy, a fearful college student, those who orchestrated the Battle of Gettysburg, those who survived it, and those who would perish.

Gathering maps, personal letters, excerpts from forgotten memoirs, a detailed order of battle, and a comprehensive list of every unit that fought, New York Times bestselling and award-winning historian and author Allen C. Guelzo delivers an invaluable and sobering firsthand perspective of the Civil War’s turning point. Powerful, haunting, and unforgettable, it’s told in the authentic words of fire, blood, and smoke by those who saw the battle, heard its din, trembled in its crash, and struggled with its aftermath.