At some point it came up this summer around the anniversary
of the Battle of Gettysburg that I didn’t know who actually won the battle –
this despite knowing that it was the anniversary of the battle.
That made me realize that I’m now pretty much a middle age man,
so that to go with the reading on the founders in the last couple of years, it
was my duty as an American to become an expert on the civil war.
And this book helped. Now I can knowingly make jokes about
Lincoln keeping McClellan as the head general too long when there were other
more talented and more decisive generals waiting in the wings.
I think that Keegan may be a little too close to some of the
nitty gritty here in the first 80% of the book, but that’s where he’s the best
so it makes sense that this is where he keeps his focus. (I’ve read other Keegan
like “The Face of Battle,” so I already knew I liked his style. That he does
get close to the day to day action and does it well is balanced out by the
later quintile where he starts to play economist and sociologist where he is
not as good. It sticks out in a bad way.
Overall, it was a worthwhile read.
And the winner of the Battle of Gettysburg? The union, of
course. Why else would Lincoln go give his address there?
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