My Gettysburg

A. Snell Mark

Description

The Gettysburg Campaign and its culminating battle have generated more than their share of analysis and published works. In My Gettysburg, Civil War scholar and twenty-six-year Gettysburg resident Mark Snell goes beyond the campaign itself to explore the "culture" of the battlefield. In this fascinating collection, Snell provides an intriguing interpretation of some neglected military aspects of the battle, such as a revisionist study of Judson Kilpatrick's decision to launch "Farnsworth's Charge" on the southern end of the Confederate line after Pickett's Charge and the role of Union logisticians in the Northern victory. In addition, he looks at a town east of Gettysburg-York, Pennsylvania, a community that likewise suffered invasion in the summer of 1863-as well as at the role of Union and Confederate soldiers from the new state of West Virginia who fought against each other during the campaign. Further, this collection assesses Gettysburg's evolution as a historic place: an American shrine, an inspiration for popular music, a training ground for soldiers past and present, a mecca for reenactors, a combat zone between commercial developers and preservationists, and a home to its residents-including the author, who gives us a personal view of what the battlefield and its surrounding community have come to mean to him.A retired Army officer and an established authority on the Civil War and military history, Snell amply demonstrates in this thought- provoking yet entertaining anthology that there remains much to learn even from such a well-studied subject as Gettysburg.

Sujets

• Philosophie et théologie
• USA
• United States of America
• Memoir
• History of the Americas
• American Civil War
• États-Unis
• Guerre de Sécession

Informations

• Publié par: The Kent State University Press
• Date de parution: 17 octobre 2016
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781631012266
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

My Gettysburg
MY GETTYSBURG
Meditations on History and Place
Mark A. Snell
THE KENT STATE UNIVERSITY PRESS
Kent, Ohio
© 2016 by The Kent State University Press, Kent, Ohio 44242
All rights reserved
“Casinos and Other Entertainments” first appeared as a guest post on the Civil War Memory blog on September 12, 2010, with the title “Gettysburg and Battlefield Preservation: Another Perspective” and appears courtesy of Kevin Levin. “Music Inspired by the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863–1913” is reprinted from Bugle Resounding: Music and Musicians of the Civil War Era , ed. Bruce C. Kelly and Mark A. Snell. Copyright © 2004 by The Curators of the University of Missouri, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201. “Union Lifeline” is reprinted from The Ongoing Civil War: New Versions of Old Stories , ed. Herman Hattaway and Ethan S. Rafuse, Copyright © 2004 by The Curators of the University of Missouri, University of Missouri Press, Columbia, Missouri 65201.
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 2016008085
ISBN 978-1-60635-293-9
Manufactured in the United States of America
LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA
Names: Snell, Mark A., author.
Title: My Gettysburg : meditations on history and place / Mark A. Snell.
Description: Kent, Ohio : The Kent State University Press, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016008085 (print) | LCCN 2016009338 (ebook) | ISBN 9781606352939 (pbk. : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781631012266 (ePub) | ISBN 9781631012273 (ePDF)
Subjects: LCSH: Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863.
Classification: LCC E475.53.S66 2016 (print) | LCC E475.53 (ebook) | DDC 973.7/349--dc23
LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2016008085
20  19  18  17  16     5  4  3  2  1
For my sisters ,
S HIRLEY L EE W OJEWODZI ,
a true Civil War buff ,
and
M ARTHA D ARLENE E RNST
( 1944–2013 ),
who couldn’t have cared less
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgments
1 My Gettysburg Address—“A Little Lot of Stars”
2 East of Gettysburg
York County, Pennsylvania, during the Invasion of 1863
3 Union Lifeline
The Army of the Potomac’s Logisticians in the Gettysburg Campaign
4 (West) Virginians in the Gettysburg Campaign
5 “A Hell of a Damned Fool”
Judson Kilpatrick, Farnsworth’s Charge, and the Hard Hand of History
6 Music Inspired by the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863–1913
7 Cadet Gray, Khaki, and Camouflage
The U.S. Army and Gettysburg, Post-1863
8 The History of Civil War Reenacting
A Personal Recollection
Epilogue
Casinos and Other Entertainments
Notes
Index
Preface and Acknowledgments
This book is a collection of essays that focuses in one way or another on the Gettysburg campaign, viewed by some historians and laymen as the most decisive campaign of the Civil War. Of course, it was not. In terms of strategic decisiveness, the Vicksburg and Atlanta campaigns were far more important. Gettysburg, however, was bloodier and was fought on northern soil at the chronological halfway point of the conflict. Raids notwithstanding, it marked the last invasion of northern territory by a significant Confederate force. Despite its non-decisiveness, the name “Gettysburg” conjures images of daring bayonet assaults, mounted cavalry charges, and heroic last-ditch efforts by determined gray-clad infantrymen—the “High-Water Mark” of the Confederacy. It has captured the imagination of generations of Americans, North and South and mostly white. As William Faulkner wrote in Intruder in the Dust ,
For every Southern boy fourteen years old, not once but whenever he wants it, there is the instant when it’s still not yet two o’clock on that July afternoon in 1863, the brigades are in position behind the rail fence, the guns are laid and ready in the woods and the furled flags are already loosened to break out and Pickett himself with his long oiled ringlets and his hat in one hand probably and his sword in the other looking up the hill waiting for Longstreet to give the word and it’s all in the balance, it hasn’t happened yet, it hasn’t even begun yet, it not only hasn’t begun yet but there is still time for it not to begin against that position and those circumstances which made more men than Garnett and Kemper and Armistead and Wilcox look grave yet it’s going to begin, we all know that, we have come too far with too much at stake and that moment doesn’t need even a fourteen-year-old boy to think This time. Maybe this time with all this much to lose and all this much to gain: Pennsylvania, Maryland, the world, the golden dome of Washington itself to crown with desperate and unbelievable victory the desperate gamble, the cast made two years ago. 1
Many years after Faulkner penned that extremely long sentence, an African American historian visited Gettysburg and saw Pickett’s Charge in a very different light. After viewing the Electric Map in the old, now-razed Visitors Center, he strolled southward down Hancock Avenue, part of the maze of twenty-six miles of tour roads maintained by the National Park Service. “I began with Cemetery Ridge, the site of Pickett’s Charge, where on the afternoon of July 3, 1863, some 13,000 Southerners, flags flying, drums rolling, trumpets blowing, had marched up a softly sloping hill toward the waiting Yankee cannon.” Continuing, he reflected,
Half of them never made it back to their lines. The spot of their furthest advance is near a monument commemorating Brig. Gen. Lewis Armistead, who had placed a hat on the end of his sword—so that his Virginia lads could look up, see it and be emboldened—and shouted, “Come on, boys, give them the cold steel!” He was mortally wounded in the charge. Had Armistead’s admittedly brave men prevailed and the Union lines been broken, slavery might have been preserved in the South for generations. I gazed at his stone memorial and softly cursed his slavery-spreading soul. And for good measure, that of D. Wyatt Aiken, a South Carolina colonel who held my blacksmith ancestor in bondage and commanded one of the South Carolina regiments that had fought half a mile or so way from this spot on the previous day. Then I asked the good Lord to forgive me. 2
Thus, the Gettysburg Battlefield and the battle itself are viewed in different ways by diverse peoples and generations. Some visitors come to learn, some come for inspiration, some come because they have no choice, such as the countless bus loads of school children who venture onto the battlefield every spring and go running up the observation towers, screaming and laughing while their licensed battlefield guides wait below during a respite from the pandemonium. Some visitors even come to savor the supernatural. An entire cottage industry has sprung up, with costumed guides leading nighttime walks through the streets of “haunted” Gettysburg, their flock of paying customers hoping to spot the shimmering specter of a long-dead Union or Confederate soldier. Boo. Some people, like me, even come to Gettysburg to live and raise a family, although those residents in my population subset will always be considered “outsiders” by the natives.
The following anthology is a modest addition to the extensive historiography of the Gettysburg campaign and is a result of my own particular interests, some of which do not focus on the battle itself but rather on the impact of the campaign on the people who lived during that tumultuous time and those generations who came later. It also is reflective of my interest in what I call the “culture” of the Gettysburg Battlefield and its ever-changing landscape and view-shed. Some of the essays already have appeared in print, either as journal articles or chapters in books. Chapter 1 , “My Gettysburg Address—‘A Little Lot of Stars,’” is an autobiographical sketch of sorts, relating how I came to live in Gettysburg and my own personal story associated with such a famous place. Chapter 2 , “East of Gettysburg: York, Pennsylvania, during the Invasion of 1863,” is based in part on a revision of a section of my master’s thesis written while a graduate student at Rutgers University. Chapter 3 , “Union Lifeline: The Army of the Potomac’s Logisticians in the Gettysburg Campaign,” originally appeared in the now-defunct journal, Columbiad: A Journal of the War between the States and later was included in the anthology The Ongoing Civil War: New Versions of Old Stories (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004), edited by my mentor Herman Hattaway and my friend Ethan Rafuse. Chapter 4 , “(West) Virginians at Gettysburg,” appeared in another form as part of my latest book, West Virginia and the Civil War: Mountaineers Are Always Free (Charleston, SC: History Press, 2011). Chapter 5 , “‘A Hell of a Damned Fool’: Judson Kilpatrick, Farnsworth’s Charge, and the Hard Hand of History,” originally was a presentation delivered at the annual seminar of Gettysburg National Military Park in 2000. Chapter 6 , “Music Inspired by the Battle of Gettysburg, 1863–1913,” was a chapter in the anthology, Bugle Resounding: Music and Musicians of the Civil War Era (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004) which Bruce C. Kelley and I coedited. Chapter 7 , “Cadet Gray, Khaki, and Camouflage: The U.S. Army and Gettysburg, Post-1863,” is a revision of an article originally published in Blue and Gray Magazine in 1990. Chapter 8 , “The History of Civil War Reenacting: A Personal Recollection,” is only tangentially related to Gettysburg, but there are enough connections to the battle’s centennial that allow it to fit into this volume. The epilogue, “Casinos and Other Entertainments,” was a guest post on Kevin Levin’s very popular Civil War Memory blog, concerning the ongoing fight among commercial enterprises, developers, preservationists, local and state governments, the National Park Service, and Gettysburg residents.
In the course of assembling this anthology, many people provided encouragement, assistance and support. My for