The Shaping of a Battle: Gettysburg (review)

Book Reviews333 the volume for the historian is that the contemporary and later evaluations that were unfavorable to Brown are neglected. With this limitation in mind, one finds here some understanding of the Old Testament figure of John Brown and of the terrific impact that his sacrifice made upon the poets, writers, and other intellectuals of the North and the Western world. Through the early letters, the fierce eloquence of his speech to the Court in November, 1859, and the sad epitaph which he handed to a guard on the morning of his execution there runs a thread of idealism which helps to explain John Brown and aids in understanding the tremendous appeal that this martyr has had ever since. Stedman, Howells, L. M. Alcott, Wendell Phillips, Melville, Whittier, Emerson, Thoreau, Holmes, Sandburg, and Benet—these are some of the literary figures represented in the literary selections. His soul did indeed go marching on. Brown himself had great contempt for mere "words." His was the propaganda of the deed, even to the ultimate sacrifice. The eloquence of this sacrifice, aldn to the martyrs of old, inspired a generation that marched to war—a war that Brown had seen with foreboding on the morning that he approached the scaffold. "I, John Brown," he had written, "am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away, but with Blood. I had as I now think vainly flattered myself that without very much bloodshed, it might be done." The lives of over half a million men were spent before the end of the tragedy that Brown sensed had been reached. Rodney C. Loehr University of Minnesota The Shaping of a Battle: Gettysburg. By James Stewart Montgomery. (Philadelphia: The Chilton Company, 1959. Pp. xxxi, 259. Folding maps included. $5.95.) in the centennial throb of Civil War literature much has been written, and in all probability much more will be published. If we divide it roughly into two classes—the first for the general reader who wishes merely to read about the war, its high fights, anecdotes, and human interest stories; the second for the student who wishes to examine the war intelligently and conscientiously—James Stewart Montgomery's The Shaping of a Battle: Gettysburg falls clearly into the former. Pieced together from some of the best known and most popular writings, the author has left the source work to others. Ue adds his opinions on many of the "whys" of Gettysburg, if not with originality, certainly with some military acumen, for he is a soldier having served in two world wars. Quite obviously he knows war and enjoyed his military experiences. In addition to his conclusions at the end of the book, where he points to the modicum of good that comes from war despite its many and manifest evils, the reader can sense his understanding for Bald Dick Ewell's temptation to go forward 334CIVIL WAR HISTORY with the skirmish line and join in the fun instead of attending to the more serious business of a divisional commander. In his introduction, Mr. Montgomery anticipates the question which comes to the minds of all those interested in the Civil War—why another book about Gettysburg? His answer is that other writers have viewed the battle from one side or the other, following the fortunes of the Union Army or marching with Lee's men. By his own words, "In this book, I have attempted a picture in the round, to sketch the events taking place on both sides of the flaming battle fronts and to tell something of the plight of peaceful civilians caught between hostile armies and forced in spite of themselves to become actors in the terrible drama of war," he sets forth his purpose. Omitting for the moment his secondary purposes of vindicating Meade in "The Second Battle of Gettysburg" and discussing the "whys" of the battle itself, to which but little space is given at the end of the book, it is fair to say that he has achieved his purpose, although one might argue his definition of a picture in the round. It should be more definitive than sketchy. The reader cannot...