Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (Civil War America) Summary and Reviews

Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (Civil War America)
by Kent Masterson Brown

Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (Civil War America)
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Book Summary Information

Author: Kent Masterson Brown
Edition: Hardcover
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2005-04-04
ISBN: 0807829218
Number of pages: 528
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press

Book Reviews of Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (Civil War America)

Book Review: Great account but miss the major point
Summary: 4 Stars

I am behind the curve ball here as I write this review after so many good ones have already been written. Like most of the other reviewers, I enjoyed reading this book and learned quite a good deal about this aspect of the Gettysburg campaign that haven't been touched previously. I thought the author wrote well, did his research and gave the Civil War historians all over a great service. The way many of us looked at Lee's retreat and Meade's pursuit have changed forever after we read this book.

But I cannot help but to believed that the author have drawn a wrong conclusion about the campaign. Call me a traditionalist but outside of saving his supply trains and the fruits of his forging, Lee left Pennsylvania with very little else. His army was in tattered, he have forever lost any sort of strategic initiative and he will be on the defensive until the war's end. His successful retreat enabled him to fight on but not to victory. Only because Meade's army was equally damaged as Lee's did he escaped. But Meade's army was rebuilt, reinforced, resupplied and regroup. Lee's army after Gettysburg was the shadow of its former greatness and that too was grinded down. Brown is wronged and rest of us who happened to be "traditionalist" in nature is right, Gettysburg was the last major hurrah of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Never again will Lee threaten the Army of Potomac with devastating defeat of any kind...tactical ones yes but nothing that will change the course of war. Best way to look at this would be this: if in late July of 1863, God came to Lee and gave him a choice between having his army back before Gettysburg in exchange for all the supplies he has taken from Pennsylvania, he would take that exchange in a heartbeat!!! Nothing could replaced what was lost at Gettysburg, not all the cows, horses, wagons and other material that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania have to offer could do that.

This book is great piece of work on the subject but the author drew a wrong conclusion. Retreat is an army in defeat, not of victory and no matter how rosy it turned out well for General Lee, he lost something far more important at Gettysburg then anything he could have saved in this retreat. I am bit surprised the many of the reviews written on this book haven't caught on to this yet.

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