Readers will close the book with a full understanding of why a veteran New Yorker spoke for the survivors of both armies when he wrote, "Strong men of the regiment sobbed like children."
The fighting on the first day at Gettysburg on July 1, 1863, was unexpected, heavy, confusing, and in many ways, decisive. Much of it consisted of short and often separate simultaneous engagements or "firefights," a term soldiers often use to describe...