<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"    Read the Esquire Gettysburg Reenactment series in its entirety here. And now that the Gettysburg series has concluded and because I always planned on giving you the sources, a brief annotated bibliography for those who want to do a little more reading on their own. It&amp;#039;s broken down into three categories of successively more impressive obsession. Read these at your own risk. Category: Casual This grouping is for somebody who is generally interested in the Civil War, and wants to know a little bit more. They books are well documented, but not obsessively so. Some are a little long in the tooth now, but still a good read. By and large they are written for a &amp;quot;general&amp;quot; and not specialist audience, and so are quite accessible.  The Gettysburg Campaign, Albert Nofi: When written in 1988 I would have called this the definitive &amp;quot;entry level&amp;quot; book. Even today, with some (maybe .005% of the material) now out-of-date due to more recent scholarship, it&amp;#039;s still a good bet. If your only exposure to Gettysburg has been through my essays, and you plan to go there yourself, read this slim, light,(get the paperback) and very easy to understand book first. Then sit back for a week of light reading, full of sidebars on places and personalities. When you Get to Gettysburg you will know more than 90% of those who visit, just from this one slim volume.  The Gettysburg Nobody Knows, and anthology edited by Gabot Boritt: I actually hesitated between placing this here, or in the &amp;quot;dangerously obsessed&amp;quot; category. I put it here because while the chapter authors collected in this anthology (most of whom have entire books on this list) are top of the line serious scholars, here the format allows them to be a little easier to read. Plus, because it is an anthology, it is a good way to &amp;quot;dip your toe&amp;quot; into the work of more serious scholars and decide for yourself if you are interested. But you should read it after Nofi, if you do not know at least a little about the Civil War.  Vicksburg Is The Key, William L. Shea and Terrence J. Winschel: Simple, straightforward, campaign history. I was impressed with this book when I first wrote and academic review of it years ago, and I continue to think it is a really first rate work. Not just because the scholarship is great, but because it is still very readable for people not familiar with the war, or the war in the West.  A Bohemian Brigade, The Civil War Correspondents, Mostly Rough, Sometimes Ready, James Perry: I have to admit that this one is just fun, which allows me to overlook some of the significant flaws that I, as one of the truly obsessed, spot immediately, but which probably would not matter to most of you.  Category: Borderline Obsessive Gettysburg, A Battlefield Guide, Mark Grimsley and Brooks Simpson: Simply stated, this is the best battlefield guide there is of the many that are floating out there. If you go, follow this guide and you will not be disappointed.  The Last Full Measure, The Life and Death of the First Minnesota Volunteers, Richard Moe: Want to know more about those 300 seconds? Moe&amp;#039;s work is solid, if a little workmanlike. But it does help with this one (as with any regimental history) to know about the war in general before you dig into the specifics.  Service With the Sixth Wisconsin Volunteers, Rufus Dawes: The words, from the man himself. Rufus somewhat obviously survived the rest of the war and was a part of that great post-war collection of memoir-writers. Of course, if you read the memoirs of one of the survivors of the 14th Brooklyn, they will contend that the whole charge was their idea! Ahhh, history, how I love your contradictions.  The Iron Brigade, A Military History, Alan Nolan: This is pretty much the definitive brigade &amp;quot;biography.&amp;quot; Although a little long in the tooth now, I am unaware of any other work about the Iron Brigade that exceeds Nolan&amp;#039;s. (Though if somebody out there does know about a better one please post in the comments.)  Early Photography at Gettysburg, William Frassanito: This is a fascinating work about which I could have written an entire essay. Frassanito has several books out now, all well illustrated, in which he examines the photos taken all over the battlefield and figures out where, exactly, each shot was made. One of my favorite works to carry around with me when I am walking the battlefield itself.  Gardner&amp;#039;s Photographic Sketch Book of the Civil War, Alexander Gardner: Alex Gardner was one of the first and best of the Civil War photographers. During the war he set up what amounted to a &amp;#039;fly-away team&amp;#039; from his assistants to follow in the wake of the Union Army and photograph the locations over which so much blood was spilled. Want to know what Fredericksburg looked like just after the battle? Antietam? Gettysburg? This is your one-stop-shop.  Cushing of Gettysburg, Kent Brown: I did not talk about Lieutenant Alonzo Cushing, but if you have an interest in the final moments of the Pickett-Pettigrew Charge, you might want to read about this young man who gave the last full measure of his own devotion.  These Honored Dead, How the Story of Gettysburg Shaped American Memory, Thomas Desjardin: Utterly magnificent. No two ways about it. Buy this book if you want to understand how Gettysburg became GETTYSBURG.  Category: In Need Of An Intervention Gettysburg, The First Day, Harry W. Pfanz Gettysburg, The Second Day, Harry Pfanz Gettysburg, Culp&amp;#039;s Kill and Cemetery Hill, Harry W. Pfanz OK, Pfanz deserves a section of his own here because, well, he has written three door-stoppers that exhaustively cover the first two days of the battle. For my money you really need to already be an expert on the battle, and the war, to get your money&amp;#039;s worth out of these. And, I admit, I have noted a couple of minor inaccuracies or spots where Pfanz made a definitive judgment on an issue that I think the historical record does not support as absolutely proven. That being said, these are great resources.  Pickett&amp;#039;s Charge \u2013 The Last Attack at Gettysburg, Earl Hess: Hess was trying to bring back old-fashioned &amp;quot;guns and trumpets&amp;quot; style military history here. Not for him any of that namby-pamby stuff about memory and myths. No, he wanted to create just a straightforward who-what-when-where account, and in this he mostly succeeded. (You will note, in this section I am somewhat harsher in my evaluations of the books. That is because at this level of obsession, absolute accuracy and academic quality counts more than in the more casual works.)  The Damned Red Flags of the Rebellion, The Confederate Battle Flag At Gettysburg, Richard Rollins: Believe it or not, there has been a substantial literature disputing the damned flags\u2026so of course, somebody had to eventually write a book on the topic. I got this one myself when I entered into a debate with some neo-Confederates, just to be sure that I had the best available information on this absolutely meaningless point of trivia. But if trivia is your gig, baby, go with this.  Pickett&amp;#039;s Charge! Eyewitness Accounts, ed Richard Rollins: Just as the title indicates, this is a straightforward collection of first-hand accounts. (And believe me, this is far from all of them.) Rollins does a good job separating the wheat from the chaff here, and if you already know about the battle and are planning to go to Gettysburg and walk the route of one, or both, divisions, this is a fun book to read from just before you set off across those fields.  Pickett&amp;#039;s Charge in History and Memory, Carol Reardon: Carol is a good friend, but more importantly, she is one of (if not the) pre-eminent historians of the charge, and the battle overall. She also has a new book out, which was launched at the Battlefield bookstore, on the 150th anniversary itself. I have not read it yet (Carol, where&amp;#039;s my copy?), but I can tell you now, you need this book. In fact, you need ALL of her books, so just go to Amazon.com and type in &amp;quot;Carol Reardon.&amp;quot; Then buy everything.  Pickett&amp;#039;s Charge, A Microhistory of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863, George Stewart: Ahhh, hmmm, yes\u2026what to tell you about Stewart? Well, this was definitely, and for a long time, &amp;quot;the&amp;quot; book to have on the charge. Of course, being written in 1959, some of the material is extremely dated. What is worse, as Carol Reardon once said to me when I was a newly-minted professor, &amp;quot;Stewart never met a source he didn&amp;#039;t like.&amp;quot; Which, historian-to-historian, is about as damning a thing that you can say. I only include it here because, inexplicably, it continues to sell and you will probably run across it somewhere.  The Battle of Gettysburg, Frank Haskell: Frank Haskell was there, at the point where the rebels crossed the low stone wall on the third day. Then, just a couple of days later, he wrote a 17-page letter to his brother telling him everything. Wow. Just wow. I mean as a source this has everything a historian wants. It is written in the immediate wake of the fight, before memory faded or was modified by others. It is written not for publication (originally), but as a personal letter to a sibling. It contains all the ins-and-outs, and lays it out regardless of politics or favor (because it was originally written as a personal account).  The Third Day at Gettysburg and Beyond, ed. Gary Gallagher: Gallagher is one of the most prominent Civil War historians and here he presents a collection of essays from other historians about several aspects of the battle and the campaign.  Writing &amp;amp;amp; Fighting the Confederate War, ed William Styple: Styple has collected here the whole of the dispatches from one of the most prominent rebel journalists, and it is fascinating to see the war through that lens. Want to understand why Gettysburg was not immediately seen as a disaster? You need look no further. Most southern newspapers could not afford to send a dedicated reporter to accompany Lee, so they relied upon the reports from the Richmond newspapers. Read the articles that were written during and immediately after the battle, although for obvious reasons not published for some time after that because Lee did not have radios. Lee was not &amp;quot;beaten,&amp;quot; in this version, he was &amp;quot;moving west and then south for eminently practical logistical reasons, having accomplished all of his goals\u2026&amp;quot; Only weeks later, as Lee&amp;#039;s army got back across the Potomac and the casualty lists started coming out did the full scale of what had happened weeks earlier begin to sink in. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/news-politics/news/a25518/bateman-gettysburg-bibliography-071613/>