After nightfall ended the vicious fighting on July 2, 1863, Union soldier John Day Smith reported: “There was not much sleep that night. The cries of the wounded men, lying between the lines, suffering with pain and burning with fever were most pitiful.” Smith left his position, carried water for a “poor fellow calling for help,” and found a 17-year-old Confederate soldier shot through one lung. The dying boy told Smith that he was the only child of a widowed mother and had run away from home to join the army. Smith knelt by this young soldier, praying for him and trying to offer comfort. At dawn, he returned and found the boy lying as he had left him, “his eyes glazed in death, looking up into the morning sky, yet not seeing nor caring.”
Smith then wrote: “The poor mother waiting at the lonely hearthstone never knew what had become of her only child … Other mothers, heartbroken, all over the country, waited in vain for the coming of the boy who never returned. Such is war.”
The Big Picture
In his Author’s Note to “Voices From Gettysburg,” Mr. Guelzo writes that while living and teaching in Gettysburg he learned “there was no substitute for listening to the voices of those who had been at Gettysburg in 1863, whether soldiers or civilians.” Like all good guides, however, he steers readers through these many reminiscences. His clear-eyed commentary at the beginning of each section, his solid grasp of military tactics and strategy of that era, and his familiarity with the battlefield’s topography give greater meaning to accounts from so long ago.
His pre-battle chapter, “The Commanders,” provides different takes on the character and performance of Robert E. Lee and George Meade. While reading Mr. Guelzo on these two very different generals, we become aware that they shared one circumstance in common at Gettysburg: defaults in command structure.
Lee’s victory at Chancellorsville in May came at a high cost. He lost his most trusted general, Stonewall Jackson, and many of his officers died or were wounded. Consequently, Lee was under enormous pressure to restructure his Army of Northern Virginia.
The Storytellers
In addition to the Civil War, Mr. Guelzo has a passion for classical music. He has written on both American and European classical music, and studied the lives of conductors like Toscanini. In “Voices From Gettysburg,” he plays conductor and choir director, arranging what might have been a cacophony of voices into a chorus of narrative history.
Here as well are the impressions of a boy from Gettysburg, Albertus McCreary, whose home lay within Confederate lines. He and his family could feel the shock and vibrations of cannon fire, and “the sharp snap of bullets through the trees in the yard kept us well keyed up.” He reports the Confederate troops as being “ragged and dirty, and they had very little to eat.” When the Southern troops gathered around his house begin to cheer, the boy learned that Robert E. Lee and his staff were passing by. “He looked very much the soldier, sitting very erect in his saddle with his short-cropped beard and his Confederate gray.”
Handle With Care
As Mr. Guelzo points out, historians must take special precautions when using primary sources like personal anecdotes and reminiscences. Many of the stories in “Voices From Gettysburg” were recorded nearly 40 years after the battle in public addresses, history books, and magazines. Are the speakers trustworthy? Do their powers of recollection really remain so acute that they can recite portions of a conversation from so long ago?
Though it’s certainly true that our memory can play tricks on us, we should remember that the war years left an indelible mark on these combatants. In life-and-death moments on a battlefield, the adrenaline-charged senses may absorb unforgettable impressions that in more mundane circumstances wouldn’t be recalled within a week’s time.
A Time to Honor and Remember
Near the end of “Voices From Gettysburg,” Mr. Guelzo writes: “Gettysburg today remains the focus of debate, reinterpretation, and remembrance. It is understood variously as the pivot on which the Civil War turned, as the foremost American example of historic preservation, as the rebirth of American democracy, and as a historical showcase for reenactments, tourism, and even merchandise.”
When speaking of the dead in his address at Gettysburg, Abraham Lincoln said: “That from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”
This Memorial Day, when we remember those who gave their lives in the service of our country, that Gettysburg resolution is one we should all make our own.
