Pickett's Charge in History and Memory (review)

230CIVIL WAR HISTORY Richard S. Ewell, RobertE. Lee, Jeb Stuart, George Meade, and Daniel Sickles— during the campaign, a portrait of Joshua Chamberlain, a speculation on Gettysburg's importance in the conflict, a description of Pickett's Charge from the ranks of the blueclad defenders, and a survey of the battle's image in our collective memory. The book's title implies that the essays offer much that is either new or unknown . But only two of the nine essays seem to warrant such a contention— J. Matthew Gallman and Susan Baker's description ofthe town and surrounding Adams County during the four years ofwar andAmy J. Kinsel's analysis of the cultural legacy ofthe three-day battle since its immediate aftermath to the present. Both essays touch briefly on subjects not usually examined in other works on the campaign. The bulk of the essays address familiar and controversial aspects of the Gettysburg literature. The authors offer interpretations that will add to the debate . Because oftheir stature as historians their writings deserve a careful reading . Harry Pfanz gives a thoughtful defense of Richard Ewell's performance on July 1; EmoryThomas asserts that an explanation for Jeb Stuart's conduct might lie in the cavalryman's physical and mental exhaustion; Carol Reardon reminds us of how little is really known about Pickett's Charge; Kent Gramm recounts the events of July 2 and how command decisions interwove to place the First Minnesota in a cauldron ofdeath; JosephT. Glatthaarcontends thatthecampaign's exertions dulled the fighting edge of Lee's army; and Glenn LaFantasie renders a portrait of Joshua Chamberlain as the colonel of the Twentieth Maine wanted it drawn. None of the essays, however, will probably spark more heated discussion than Richard M. McMurry's argument that Gettysburg was neither a decisive Union victory nor a turning point in the war. If students of the conflict seek a turning point, McMurry offers the Battle of Champion Hill in Mississippi on May 16, 1863. This reviewer disagrees with much of McMurry's argument, but his writings never fail to inform; his essay warrants a careful reading. In all, The Gettysburg Nobody Knows offers nine essays that are uniformly good and that either touch upon seldom studied aspects of the campaign or recast old disputes. The book is a worthwhile addition to the long shelf of Gettysburg books. Jeffry D. Wert Centre Hall, Pennsylvania Pickett's Charge in History andMemory. By Carol Reardon. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997. Pp. x, 285. $29.95.) While prominent scholars such as Herman Hattaway, Charles Regan Wilson, Thomas L. Connelly, and Gaines M. Foster have written about Confederate veterans the question of how Southerners coped with defeat has attracted far less attention than the Civil War itself. Carol Reardon's Pickett's Charge in BOOK REVIEWS23I History andMemory is therefore a welcome addition to an important field. Her study of how a particular event assumed such a prominent place in American culture will interest not only specialists in the Civil War and the South but anyone concerned with the process by which human events become a partofmemory and written record. Her work will be particularly rewarding reading for any graduate student in history, regardless of fields of specialization. The Civil War was marked by dozens of major battles, many of which included charges just as daring and dangerous as the one Robert E. Lee's Confederates made on July 3, 1863. Reardon explores why Gettysburg came to be regarded as the turning point of the Civil War and Pickett's Charge the high tide of the Confederacy. Even more fascinating is her examination of how an assault force drawn from two army corps, containing regiments from Virginia, North Carolina , Alabama, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Florida, came to be remembered and celebrated almost exclusively in terms of George E. Pickett's Virginians. Reardon begins by discussing the surprising limits of our knowledge of this famous event, analyzing the numerous caveats that should be attached to the reports, letters, diaries, and recollections that form the historian's resources. Drawing upon scholars such as Michael Kämmen, Reardon also notes how emotion and selective memory shaped the way Northerners...