Civil Warriors

Nine years ago today…

Actually, this list makes no pretense of being authoritative, in the sense of representing some sort of objective appraisal of the most important works on the battle. They’re simply the ones that have most strongly influenced my understanding of Gettysburg.  I offer them roughly in the order that I encountered them.

1. Bruce Catton, The Battle of Gettysburg (1963).  Checked it out from my junior high school library at age 13.  It was so vivid and I read it so closely that for years thereafter it formed my basic template for understanding the battle.  Last autumn I ran across a first edition — for four dollars! — at The Horse Soldier in Gettysburg.  I was thrilled.

2.  Edwin B. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign:  A Study in Command (1968).  Purchased a copy at the Gettysburg NMP Visitor Center on June 9, 1973.  The first book on the battle I ever owned.  I paid $15.00 for it, which for a 13-year old was a lot of money — and as it turns out, would have been a lot of money for a 50-year old professor.  Adjusting for inflation,  fifteen bucks in 1973 dollars comes to almost 72 bucks in 2008 dollars.  It was and remains the best single-volume study of the campaign.

3.  William A. Frassanito, Gettysburg:  A Journey in Time (1975).  Not sure when I came across this, but surely it was during my salad days.  An extraordinary study of the Gettysburg photographic evidence base.  I never again saw historical photos as mere illustrations, but rather as documents.  Plus it was wicked cool to learn how photographers dragged around corpses to compose the images they sought.

4.  Michael Shaara, The Killer Angels (1974).  Encountered the novel at age 15.  Totally captivating.  Would have devoured it in a single sitting were it not for school, chores, etc.  Even then I could see some historical inaccuracies (the presence of a slave recently imported from Africa — WTF? — and the idea that “there is no good ground south of here” — there’s loads of good ground south of Gettysburg), but The Killer Angels formed my introduction to Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and challenged my pre-conceptions about James Longstreet.  And Shaara’s taut prose style taught me a lot about good writing.  Still a very good introduction to the battle — the Army War College’s Center for Strategic Leadership assigns it as preparatory reading for strategic leadership staff rides.  But one should also read the antidote, D. Scott Hartwig’s excellent A Killer Angel’s Companion (1996).

5.  The Haskell Letter (1863).  Highly influential first-person account of the battle that really supplies a “you are there” feel.  Available in numerous places, perhaps most authoritatively in Frank L. Byrne and Andrew T. Weaver, eds. Haskell of Gettysburg:  His Life and Civil War Papers (1989).

6.  Jay Luvaas and Harold W. Nelson, eds.  The U.S. Army War College Guide to the Battle of Gettysburg (1986).  When I first saw this in a book store I just didn’t get it — it looked like a very thin tissue of commentary connecting excerpts from the Official Records.  But in December 1993 I took it out on the battlefield and it absolutely changed my life.  Hitherto I had been at best semi-literate in my understanding of battlefields.  I could connect the terrain and events only in very rough terms and was in most respects what Ed Bearss derisively calls “a plaque reader.”  The genius of the guide is not the text but the locations to which Luvaas and Nelson direct the reader.  When you read the book from those carefully selected spots, you see the battlefield through new eyes and with a depth of understanding you’ll never get from conventional books.  I saw ways to improve on the concept.  This eventuated in the battlefield guide series that Brooks, Steve Woodworth and I co-edit, and frankly I think our Gettysburg guide is better.  But without the Luvaas / Nelson guide our series would surely not exist.  Very much a case of standing on the shoulders of giants.

7. Harry W. Pfanz, Gettysburg:  The Second Day (1987).  This appeared in book stores at the same time I began my PhD studies, so naturally I regarded it with the complete contempt of a typical graduate student.  A 600-page book on one day of the battle?  Get the hell out!  I literally didn’t touch it until the Luvaas / Nelson guide whetted my appetite to understand the details of the battle.  When I did, I found it to be an incredibly detailed yet lucid and accessible guide to the most complex and important aspect of Gettysburg:  Longstreet’s assault.  Pfanz went on to publish Gettysburg:  Culp’s Hill and Cemetery Hill (1993) and Gettysburg:  The First Day (2001). Both are good, but The Second Day is a real keeper.  PS - I had a similar change of heart about Gary W. Gallagher’s wonderful series of edited volumes on Gettysburg, which as a grad student I also sniffed at as being too narrow and too redolent of “drums and trumpets” history (more true of the earlier than later volumes).  They are now collected in two books:  Three Days at Gettysburg:  Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership (1999) and The Third Day at Gettysburg and Beyond (1994).  They’re indispensable for serious students of the battle, but I doubt I would have read them had I not first read Pfanz.

8. Earl J. Hess, Pickett’s Charge:  The Last Attack at Gettysburg (2001).  The best study of the engagement by one of the best Civil War military historians.  Carol Reardon’s Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory (1997) is excellent, as Ethan rightly notes, but deals only in part with the attack itself, and had less impact on me than it might have done otherwise because I had elsewhere received my introduction to public memory.

9.  Jim Weeks, Gettysburg:  Memory, Market, and American Shrine (2003).  For years I visited the battlefield but paid scant attention to the town and had disdain for the souvenir shops, etc.  But gradually I’ve come to love the town, the sub-culture, and all the schlock.  In time I may even buy a ticket to one of those ghost tours.  To understand Gettysburg as a slice of Americana, there’s no better guide than this scholarly but compulsively readable study.

10.  Margaret S. Creighton, The Colors of Courage:  Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War’s Defining Battle (2005).  Just when you think you know pretty much everything about Gettysburg, Creighton comes along and adds an unexpected and fresh dimension.  Full disclosure:  I’ve not yet finished reading it.

A few weeks ago, Brett Schulte over at TOCWOC proposed a joint project in which folks from across the Civil War blogosphere propose their top ten Gettysburg books. Foolishly, I agreed to participate (I say “foolishly” not because I do not think this a worthy idea, but because of the opportunity it offers to cause offense to others while exposing my own ignorance) and, more foolishly, agreed to lead off. I am, though, wimping out of putting them in any order of merit on the grounds that it is just too hard, given the differences that make it hard to strictly compare, say, a battlefield guide with a collection of essays. I will, however, provide some explanation for my choices.

I would naturally have someone begin their studies with one of the single-volume histories. Stephen Sears’s is at the top of the list for the general reader (although for someone who blanches at its heft or needs more pictures, I might substitute Steve Woodworth’s short history or Craig Symonds’s American Heritage history); for the advanced student, Edwin Coddington’s work is still the best full study of the campaign. In addition to being a great read, The Killer Angels is an essential work for understanding, if not the battle (although it is pretty good in that respect), why it is so much easier to find a t-shirt or print of a certain Maine colonel than it is to find one of the commander of the Army of the Potomac, or why there are so many more people visiting Little Round Top than Culp’s Hill.

To fully understand the battle you need to visit the battlefield and have a good guide in hand. Obviously, I am more than a bit prejudiced here, but Mark’s and Brooks’s was the first one I ever actually bought and I have been so satisfied with it that I have seen no need for any other—except for the obviously necessary revised edition they are currently working on. I also have a strong affinity for essay collections. I like the eclecticism of Gabor Boritt’s 1999 collection to go with the military-oriented volumes Gary Gallagher edited in the 1990s. With these works under their belt, the student of Gettysburg will have more than enough to get a really good understanding of what happened.

Now comes the hard part. With only two places left, what of all the specialized studies? Carol Reardon’s book on Pickett’s Charge is a no-brainer, as it is one of the best books on any Civil War topic to appear in the past few decades (as evidenced by the legion of folks–yours truly included–who have jumped on the history and memory bandwagon since it appeared). So many works, but only one spot left. . . . I will fill it with Kent Masterson Brown’s study of the retreat but ask me five minutes later and I may tell you something different.

So, to recap (in alphabetical order by author):

Gabor S. Boritt, ed., The Gettysburg Nobody Knows (1999)

Kent Masterson Brown, Retreat from Gettysburg: Lee, Logistics, and the Pennsylvania Campaign (2005)

Edwin B. Coddington, The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (1968)

Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The First Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership (1992)

Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Second Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership (1993)

Gary W. Gallagher, ed., The Third Day at Gettysburg and Beyond (1994)

Mark Grimsley and Brooks D. Simpson, Gettysburg: A Battlefield Guide (1999)

Carol Reardon, Pickett’s Charge in History and Memory (1997)

Stephen W. Sears, Gettysburg (2003)

Michael Sharra, The Killer Angels (1974)

So much left off here, obviously. My approach has been with an eye on the principle that the first priority is getting the reader an overall understanding of the campaign and battle and an introduction to some of the controversies. Then they can move on to works by Harry Pfanz, Eric Wittenberg, Richard Sauers, Thomas Desjardin, and others who are conspicuous by their absence here.

Let the debate begin! The permanent host page for the overall project is here.

I guess no matter how hard you try to resist, at this time of year the mind of the Civil War enthusiast invariably turns to that wonderful little crossroads town in Pennsylvania and the great campaign and battle of June-July 1863. Last summer, it was Ted’s program in Chambersburg (discussed here) that ensured Gettysburg would have a prominent place in my mind. This year three events are serving this purpose and keeping me from focusing my efforts outside the classroom on the Richmond-Petersburg Campaign of 1864-65, which is where my collaborator on the staff ride guide and publisher no doubt agree they should be. On the other hand, as illustrated on the right, it doesn’t look like Charles is have any better luck in his efforts to resist the lure of Gettysburg.

Anyway, the first of these events (although I know in mentioning it I run the risk of being banned from Eric’s blog for shameless self-promotion) is a panel discussion Wednesday night at the Kansas City Public Library, co-sponsored by the CGSC Foundation, on Gettysburg, a sequel to the program on Lincoln I moderated at KCPL in February. Two of the other three participants will be familiar to followers of this blog as collaborators in staff rides documented here, here, and here. Here are the details:

A panel of military historians will discuss the significance of the Battle of Gettysburg on Wednesday, July 1, at 6:30 p.m. at the Central Library, 14 W. 10th St.

Moderator Wilburn E. Meador Jr., an instructor at the U.S. Army Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, sets the scene, explaining the events of the Civil War leading up to the Battle of Gettysburg, which began 136 years ago on July 1, 1863.

Ethan S. Rafuse, associate professor of Military History, U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, and author of Robert E. Lee and The Fall of the Confederacy, 1863-1865, discusses the actions of the Army of Northern Virginia, in the days leading to Gettysburg.

Christopher S. Stowe, associate professor of Military History, U.S. Army Command & General Staff College, Ft. Lee, Virginia campus, is presently writing a history of General George G. Meade and discusses the actions of the Army of the Potomac in the days leading to Gettysburg.

Terry Beckenbaugh, assistant professor of Military History, U.S. Army Command and General Staff College, Ft. Leavenworth, Kansas, historical essayist in the Encyclopedia of the American Civil War and a scholar on the right wing of the Army of the Potomac, discusses the conduct of the Battle of Gettysburg, and why its outcome was more important to the Union cause than many people realize.

Admission is free. A 6 p.m. reception precedes the event. Click here or call 816.701.3407 to RSVP. Free parking is available in the Library District Parking Garage located at 10th and Baltimore.

The event is co-sponsored by the Command and General Staff College Foundation.

The second event that has July 1863 on my mind will be a good follow up to this program, namely a trip to Gettysburg on 9 July with a group of staff riders from Fort Belvoir.

The third is participation in a blogger collaborative project proposed by Brett Schulte a few weeks ago. This deserves a post of its own, which will appear tomorrow.

Accompanied by two guests associated with the CGSC Foundation, Stuart and Marty Cooke of North Carolina, we had linked up with the night before, Terry, the students, and I began our second day of the execution phase of the staff ride at Cemetery Hill. There we discussed and analyzed Lee’s plans for the Battle of Antietam and paid our respects to Old Simon. The next stop was the Pry House, where we debated whether McClellan’s plan for the battle and execution of it was truly magnificent or merely outstanding. (A trick question, of course, for everyone knows–at least if they have got the right guide–that the answer is “both”. )

We then did the fights for the East Woods, Cornfield, and West Woods, which so enthralled MAJ Eldridge and MAJ Perry that they briefly forgot which army they belong to.

After lunch, we spent about an hour at the visitor center and Dunker Church, then did Bloody Lane.

We then went over to Burnside’s Bridge, with highlights including a Flex Sapper gun show while Terry struck a Napoleonic pose in front of the Burnside Sycamore.

After discussing the fate of Burnside’s afternoon attack, it was on to the square in Sharpsburg, where I methodically prepared and, casting aside any regard for my own safety, boldly led the day’s final charge.

We did the post-ride integration phase in two parts. First, thanks to the hospitality of the good folks at the George Tyler Moore Center for the Study of the Civil War in Shepherdstown, WV, the morning after the ride we were able to do an hour and a half long discussion of the campaign in the parlor of the historic Shindler House. Denise Messinger was a wonderful hostess and made up for the absence of the center’s distinguished director, who was leading a group around some insignificant battlefield located about an hour and a half to the north whose name escapes me at the moment. (I understand there is a really good guide for it available, though.) Then, since our flight did not take off from Dulles until late in the afternoon, Terry and I decided in response to popular demand to give the students (and ourselves) a couple of hours in Harpers Ferry to poke around and get lunch.

The second part of the integration phase was done in the classroom when we got back to Fort Leavenworth. It consisted of a continuation of the discussions we had at the Shindler House and a course AAR. For preliminary reading for this lesson, we assigned Carol Reardon’s “From the Antietam to the Argonne,” from Gallagher’s 1998 anthology on the Maryland Campaign, which enabled us pick up where we had left the integration phase in Shepherdstown; namely, discussing how soldiers use battlefields to improve their understanding of their profession. We also analyzed the place of the current operating environment in the evolution of warfare by drawing from Carol’s essay what officers in the pre-World War I army were looking for and got out of studying Antietam and comparing that with the issues the officers have and will be wrestling with in their careers.

Despite the logistical headaches associated with putting this thing together on short notice, this was one of the most, if not the most satisfying and enjoyable experiences I have had during the five years I have been at Fort Leavenworth. Not only were the material and scenary great (not to mention the weather, which I had to call in some serious chits to arrange), but Terry was a terrific collaborator in preparing and executing the course. Stu and Marty were terrific guests as well, and, most importantly, the students were uniformly outstanding; engaged, informed, and great to be around at Fort Leavenworth, during the long days on the battlefields, and afterward.

Part 1 - Part 2

After completion of the prep phase of the course, we headed to Virginia and after an evening settling in at our hotel just outside Leesburg, began the execution phase of the ride by heading north on Rte 15 early in the morning of 18 May. The student readings for the staff ride itself were (of course) from this guide.

Terry and I initially planned to cross the Potomac River at White’s Ferry and then conduct the first stand there at the left bank of the Potomac. However, in the course of the recon we conducted the previous day, we found the ferry closed and decided to make Landon House in Urbana, Maryland, the first stop.

Landon House worked very well as a location for doing the strategic and operational overview, as well as the first week of the campaign that was punctuated by the cavalry skirmishes at Urbana and Hyattstown. (It was perhaps not the best spot, though, for countering one student’s contention that this campaign was “ALL about the BOOTY.”) After Landon House, we made our way over to the Best Farm at Monocacy National Battlefield, where we covered the campaign from Urbana to September 13, naturally focusing our analysis on Special Orders No. 191. South Mountain was next, which we began at the Reno Monument at Fox’s Gap.

We then drove by Mt. Tabor Church and did the climb up Dahlgren Road (which rarely fails to illicit admiration from the officers for what Hooker’s men accomplished in overcoming that terrain) en route to the Old South Mountain Inn and the stand at Turner’s Gap, where Terry led the discussion.

We then had lunch at the Washington Monument and did a group photo there. From left to right below: Rob Bashein, Cloyd Smith, David Eldridge, Lawrent Silvawe, me, Paul Yuson, Eddie Perry, Terry, Bill Freeman, and Sean Price.

We then headed south to Burkittsville and Gathland Park to do the fight for Crampton’s Gap.

Harpers Ferry was next. We discussed the operations there from Bolivar Heights (the view below is of the town from the heights) before heading down to the town itself for what the students deemed a far from satisfactory amount of time to see all it had to offer. We then went up to Shepherdstown to check into our hotel there and link up with some folks affiliated with the CGSC Foundation, who would be accompanying us as we did the Battle of Antietam the next day.

Part 1 - Part 3

A few months ago, I was asked on rather short notice to put together a staff ride elective for students in the Command and General Staff College’s 2009-01 class. Fortunately, I was allowed to choose which campaign I wanted to use for the course and decided we would do the 1862 Maryland Campaign. After a lot of painful hoop-jumping to pull together the logistics for it, Dr. Terry Beckenbaugh and I managed to get eight officers (six Army, one Air Force, one Malawi) safe and sound to and from the battlefields of Maryland and West Virginia.

Before the actual two-day ride, we did a two week prep phase. The first week consisted of three class meetings in which we discussed the following subjects based on the following readings:

Lesson 1: The Civil War, Causes and Course

James M. McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), xv-xvi

William L. Barney, “Civil War (1861-65): Causes,” in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, edited by John W. Chambers II (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999), 126-28

Herman Hattaway and Ethan S. Rafuse, “Civil War (1861-1865): Military and Diplomatic Course,” in The Oxford Companion to American Military History, 128-34, OR Williamson Murray, “The Industrialization of War,” in The Cambridge History of Warfare, edited by Geoffrey Parker (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 223-39

William W. Freehling, “Why Civil War Military History Must Be Less Than 85 Percent Military,” North & South 5 (February 2002), 14-24

Lesson 2: The Civil War Soldier: Experience and Motives

Sharon S. MacDonald and W. Robert Beckman, “Tactics,” in Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, edited by David S. Heidler and Jeanne T. Heidler (Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2000), vol. 4: 1915-19.

Albert Castel, “Mars and the Reverend Longstreet: Or, Attacking and Dying in the Civil War,” in Winning and Losing in the Civil War (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1996): 119-32.

Mark Grimsley, “In Not So Dubious Battle: The Motivations of American Civil War Soldiers,” Journal of Military History 63 (January 1998): 175-88.

D. Scott Hartwig, “Who Would Not Be a Soldier: The Volunteers of ’62 in the Maryland Campaign,” in The Antietam Campaign, edited by Gary W. Gallagher (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 143-68.

Lesson 3: The War in 1862

McPherson, Crossroads of Freedom, 3-94

Ethan S. Rafuse, “Culture and Cavalry, Discourse and Reality: Some Observations on the War in the East,” North & South 10 (January 2008), 73-86

The second week consisted of students delivering briefs on various Union and Confederate commanders (McClellan, Hooker and Mansfield/Williams, Burnside and Reno, Sumner and Franklin on the Union side; Lee, Jackson and Hood, D.H. Hill and McLaws, Longstreet and Stuart on the Confederate) who figured prominently in the Maryland Campaign. The students were given the following guidance on preparing their briefs:

Each student will be assigned one or more of the major participants in the Maryland Campaign who they will provide a short (about 15 minute; one or two Power Point slide max) brief to the rest of the class on. The brief will cover the individual’s life and military career up to the Maryland Campaign, and offer some insights into his character. It will also provide background on the units they led during the Maryland Campaign.

You should be able to find all the information you need to put together a satisfactory brief on your subject(s) in general reference works on the Civil War. Those listed below can be found in the reference section of the Combined Arms Research Library here on post. Of course, you should feel free to go beyond these sources in the course of your research if you wish to do so.

SUGGESTED SOURCES:

Mark Boatner, The Civil War Dictionary (1959)

Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Gray: Lives of the Confederate Commanders (1959)

Ezra J. Warner, Generals in Blue: Lives of the Union Commanders (1964)

David S. and Jeanne T. Heidler, eds., Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, 5 vols. (2000)

Part 2 (forthcoming)

76th Annual Meeting of the Southern Historical Association
Charlotte, North Carolina
November 4 - 7, 2010

The Program Committee invites proposals for single papers and entire sessions. According to SHA policy, no one who appeared on the previous two programs, those at New Orleans and Louisville, should be part of the program in Charlotte. The make-up of proposed sessions are subject to revision and adjustment by the Program Committee.

Because the chances of single-paper proposals being accepted are relatively small, full session proposals are strongly encouraged. Individuals interested in using the SHA website to organize a session with others of like interest may send an e-mail to Gloria Davis that includes one’s name, e-mail address, and proposed paper topic. She will post this information on our website, which anyone may then consult to find compatible co-panelists. Click to view proposed paper topics.

All 2010 proposals must be submitted electronically. Click to access proposal forms.

The deadline for proposals is September 15, 2009.

If you are interested in submitting a session for the Latin American and Caribbean Section, please visit their web site.

CALL FOR PAPERS: The Society of Civil War Historians will host a conference from June 17 through 19, 2010, at the Marriott Richmond in Richmond, Virginia. The SCWH welcomes panel proposals or individual papers on the Civil War era, broadly defined. The goal of the conference is to promote the integration of social, military, political, and other forms of history on the Civil War era among historians, graduate students, and professionals who interpret history in museums, national parks, archives, and other public facilities. The deadline for receipt of proposals is September 15, 2009. Proposals should include a title and abstract for the papers (approximately 250-300 words) and a short curriculum vitae of participants. Panel submissions should have an overall title and statement about the thrust of the session. Submit all proposals to Dr. William Blair, Director, Richards Civil War Era Center, The Pennsylvania State University, 108 Weaver Building, University Park, PA 16802. (814) 863-0151. Email RichardsCenter@psu.edu. Website: http://www.richardscenter.psu.edu. Final decisions on panels will be made at the annual meeting of the Southern Historical Association in Louisville. The program committee consists of J. Matthew Gallman, chair, assisted by Carol Reardon, Wendy Venet, Aaron Sheehan-Dean, and Thavolia Glymph.

The organizers of the 2009 Mid-America Conference on History, which is sponsored by the University of Oklahoma and will be held at the Embassy Suites Hotel in Norman on 1-3 October 2009, have extended their call for papers to 30 June 2009. They also are looking for volunteers to chair sessions and comment on papers.

In 1977, the Department of History at Southwest Missouri State University established the Mid-America Conference on History as a biennial conference. In 1980, the University of Kansas asked to host the conference on alternate years and soon Oklahoma State University and the University of Arkansas also became conference hosts on a rotating basis. From the beginning, the Mid-America has drawn nationally (usually from more than thirty states) even though most of the attendees are from the Midwest. The conference has been marked by continual growth in recent years but the atmosphere of a small conference remains. From the outset, the Mid-America has drawn historians in all stages of their careers. Junior and senior faculty, graduate students, and independent scholars have all been invited to share some aspect of their work at the conference.

The Mid-America is also one of the few regional conferences accepting papers and sessions in all areas. Recent conferences have included presentations on topics as Civil War strategy and leadership, the industrial espionage activities of the Pinkerton Detective Agency in the early 20th century, and a panel on academic publishing designed to help graduate students and newly minted PhDs find the most appropriate outlets for their work.

Over the years some of the nation’s leading historians have been on the conference programs, including Stephen Ambrose, John Blassingame, Douglas G. Brinkley, James MacGregor Burns, William C. Davis, Eugene Genovese, Asunción Lavrin, Steven F. Lawson, William Leuchtenburg, James McPherson, H. Wayne Morgan, Mark E. Neely, and Ann Firor Scott.

Contact:
Dr. Robert Griswold, Coordinator
Mid-America Conference on History
Department of History
University of Oklahoma
403-A Dale Hall Tower
Norman, OK 73019
rgriswold@ou.edu

More information can be found here: http://www.ou.edu/midamerica2009/

What the fashionable visitor is bringing home from the Antietam Battlefield bookstore this season:

Real men and women do Antietam.

(Photos by J.M. Cooke)

More on last week’s adventure to come.

Missed this on Strange Maps until now. The dots represent 1860 cotton production (each dot equals 2,000 bales). The shaded counties represent voting results in the 2008 presidential election.  The correlation is fascinating.

For details, see From Pickin’ Cotton to Pickin’ Presidents on Strange Maps.

It would be interesting to see the same overlay with previous elections — at least those since the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

I’ve begun a Facebook album devoted to photos of the process involved in updating Gettysburg: A Battlefield Guide.