Gettysburg--The First Day

For good reason, the second and third days of the Battle of Gettysburg have received the lion's share of attention from historians. With this book, however, the critical first day's fighting finally receives its due. After sketching the background of the Gettysburg campaign and recounting the events immediately preceding the battle, Harry Pfanz offers a detailed tactical description of events of the first day. He describes the engagements in McPherson Woods, at the Railroad Cuts, on Oak Ridge, on Seminary Ridge, and at Blocher's Knoll, as well as the retreat of Union forces through Gettysburg and the Federal rally on Cemetery Hill. Throughout, he draws on deep research in published and archival sources to challenge many long-held assumptions about the battle.

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Gettysburg--The First Day

For good reason, the second and third days of the Battle of Gettysburg have received the lion's share of attention from historians. With this book, however, the critical first day's fighting finally receives its due. After sketching the background of the Gettysburg campaign and recounting the events immediately preceding the battle, Harry Pfanz offers a detailed tactical description of events of the first day. He describes the engagements in McPherson Woods, at the Railroad Cuts, on Oak Ridge, on Seminary Ridge, and at Blocher's Knoll, as well as the retreat of Union forces through Gettysburg and the Federal rally on Cemetery Hill. Throughout, he draws on deep research in published and archival sources to challenge many long-held assumptions about the battle.

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Gettysburg--The First Day

Gettysburg--The First Day

by Harry W. Pfanz
Gettysburg--The First Day

Gettysburg--The First Day

by Harry W. Pfanz

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Overview

For good reason, the second and third days of the Battle of Gettysburg have received the lion's share of attention from historians. With this book, however, the critical first day's fighting finally receives its due. After sketching the background of the Gettysburg campaign and recounting the events immediately preceding the battle, Harry Pfanz offers a detailed tactical description of events of the first day. He describes the engagements in McPherson Woods, at the Railroad Cuts, on Oak Ridge, on Seminary Ridge, and at Blocher's Knoll, as well as the retreat of Union forces through Gettysburg and the Federal rally on Cemetery Hill. Throughout, he draws on deep research in published and archival sources to challenge many long-held assumptions about the battle.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780807871317
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date: 03/01/2010
Series: Civil War America Series
Edition description: 1
Pages: 496
Product dimensions: 6.10(w) x 9.20(h) x 1.30(d)

About the Author

Harry W. Pfanz is author of Gettysburg—The Second Day and Gettysburg—Culp's Hill and Cemetery Hill. He served for ten years as a historian at Gettysburg National Military Park and retired from the position of Chief Historian of the National Park Service in 1981.

Read an Excerpt

Introduction
Fredericksburg to the Potomac

Its drums were beating, its colors flying, as the 900 officers and enlisted men of the 26th North Carolina Regiment, "beaming in their splendid uniforms," filed from their camp at Fredericksburg, Virginia. It was a beautiful morning on 15 June 1863, and the 26th, with its three sister regiments of Brig. Gen. James Johnston Pettigrew's brigade, was heading off on its first campaign with the vaunted Army of Northern Virginia. "Everything seemed propitious of success," recalled a veteran in later years. It was heady stuff for the virtually unbloodied Tarheels who had been guarding the coastal areas of their native state from Federal invasion. But in a month their uniforms would be worn, and the North Carolinians would learn that war can be horror and hardship as well as beating drums and flaunted colors.[1]

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Introduction. Fredericksburg to the Potomac
Chapter 1. Ewell's Raid
Chapter 2. Lee's Army Concentrates
Chapter 3. Meade's Pursuit
Chapter 4. Meade and Reynolds
Chapter 5. Reconnaissance in Force
Chapter 6. Reynolds's Final and Finest Hour
Chapter 7. Cutler's Cock Fight
Chapter 8. McPherson Woods
Chapter 9. The Railroad Cut
Chapter 10. Noon Lull
Chapter 11. Howard and the Eleventh Corps
Chapter 12. Ewell and Rodes Reach the Field
Chapter 13. Oak Ridge
Chapter 14. Daniel's and Ramseur's Brigades Attack
Chapter 15. Daniel Strikes Stone
Chapter 16. Schurz Prepares for Battle
Chapter 17. Early's Division Attacks
Chapter 18. Gordon and Doles Sweep the Field
Chapter 19. The Brickyard Fight
Chapter 20. Heth Attacks
Chapter 21. Retreat from McPherson Ridge
Chapter 22. Seminary Ridge
Chapter 23. Retreat through the Town
Chapter 24. Cemetery Hill
Chapter 25. Epilogue
Appendix A. John Burns
Appendix B. The Color Episode of the 149th P.V.I.
Appendix C. Children of the Battlefield
Appendix D. Order of Battle
Notes
Bibliography
Index

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

Gettysburg—The First Day continues Harry Pfanz's superbly researched, beautifully written, and exquisitely detailed study of the battle. The three volumes now in print comprise a great classic, and the best Gettysburg material ever published.—Robert K. Krick, author of Stonewall Jackson at Cedar Mountain and Lee's Colonels

No one knows and understands the battle of Gettysburg better than Harry W. Pfanz. Since he joined the National Park Service as a historian in 1956, he has never been far from what for the public is America's best-known and most controversial battle. His credentials as a researcher, raconteur, and historian par excellence are attested to by his applauded books on the battle's second and third days. Now, thanks to Pfanz and the University of North Carolina Press, Gettysburg—The First Day fills a void and completes in masterful fashion a trilogy long needed and guaranteed to stand the test of time.—Edwin C. Bearss, Chief Historian Emeritus, National Park Service

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