Carol Reardon does a good job of documenting the war over the battle from the original memories up to the most recent literature and films on the subject. She begins by pointing out that the experience of each participant was limited to the field of vision of each individual, requiring the piecing together of many individual memories in order to assemble the puzzle.

The first public reports of the battle in newspapers were so fragmented that it took weeks before a consensus was reached as to which side had won. Some early reports spoke of a glorious Confederate route of the Yankees. In time, reality sank in and reports turned into a search for a scapegoat on whom to lay the blame for Virginia's glorious failure. Pickett's Charge soon became a highpoint of Virginia's martial glory to be defended from all attackers. Suspicion soon focused on troops from other states, prominently North Carolina, and other commanders, who were said to have failed to provide needed support. This led to a rival claims that troops from North Carolina and other states had done their share and, according to some observers, actually established a high water mark surpassing that established by Pickett's troops at The Angle. I was surprised to learn that not all of the troops in the Charge were under the command of General Pickett. Even the moniker of "Pickett's Charge" came under repeated attack. Squabbles among Confederate heros led to disputes among union troops as to who deserved credit for having stopped the charge. The title of decisive action of the battle of the war was challenged by veterans of Little Round Top and other actions during the battle.

Not only was Pickett a hero of Virginia, but, as the soldier most closely identified with Richmond, his memory benefited from the historical scholarship originating in that city. His funeral attracted renewed attention to the Charge and his widow served, for many years, as a focal point for Pickett devotees.

Through the years, conflicts raged over the location of the markers which so serenely tower over the battlefield today. Commemorations at quarter century intervals renewed rivalries and animosities for a century.

The controversial Gen. Longstreet keeps coming up throughout the book.

Even recent books and films continue to present the "spins" which have been twirling since the days immediately after battle. After many intervening wars, Pickett's Charge remains a subject of great controversy.

Each reader is left to formulate his own answer the original question, why have all other charges paled in comparison to Pickett's Charge in public memory and history? My answer is that it was a major attack, resulting in heavy casualties, which was a significant determinant of the outcome of the war. Its veterans and partisans engaged those of other actions on the fields of scholarship and literature. Clashes of egos as great as the clashes of arms continued to keep and even raise the Charge in public imagination.

Read this book. You will enjoy it. Then write your own review with your answer to the question.

The tenor of this book came as a surprise to me. I had always viewed Pickett's Charge as an ill conceived, vain attack, the only redeeming virtue of which was the heroism of the Confederate troops as they marched to slaughter. I had always viewed Pickett as a goat, rather than a hero. The only excuse which I saw for Pickett was that he only carried out orders for which he was not responsible. I learned that my view is far conventional wisdom.

Carol Reardon does a good job of documenting the battle over the battle from the original memories up to the most recent literature and films on the subject. She begins by pointing out that the experience of each participant was limited to the field of vision of each individual, requiring the piecing together of many individual memories in order to assemble the puzzle.

The first public reports of the battle in newspapers were so fragmented that it took weeks before a consensus was reached as to which side had won. Some early reports spoke of a glorious Confederate route of the Yankees. In time, reality sank in and reports turned into a search for a scapegoat on whom to lay the blame for Virginia's glorious failure. Pickett's Charge soon became a highpoint of Virginia's martial glory to be defended from all attackers. Suspicion soon focused on troops from other states, prominently North Carolina, and other commanders, who were said to have failed to provide needed support. This led to a rival claims that troops from North Carolina and other states had done their share and, according to some observers, actually established a high water mark surpassing that established by Pickett's troops at The Angle. I was surprised to learn that not all of the troops in the Charge were under the command of General Pickett. Even the moniker of "Pickett's Charge" came under repeated attack. Squabbles among Confederate heros led to disputes among union troops as to who deserved credit for having stopped the charge. The title of decisive action of the battle of the war was challenged by veterans of Little Round Top and other actions during the battle.

Not only was Pickett a hero of Virginia, but, as the soldier most closely identified with Richmond, his memory benefited from the historical scholarship originating in that city. His funeral attracted renewed attention to the Charge and his widow served, for many years, as a focal point for Pickett devotees.

Through the years, conflicts raged over the location of the markers which so serenely tower over the battlefield today. Commemorations at quarter century intervals renewed rivalries and animosities for a century.

The controversial Gen. Longstreet keeps coming up throughout the book.

Even recent books and films continue to present the "spins" which have been twirling since the days immediately after battle. After many intervening wars, Pickett's Charge remains a subject of great controversy.

Each reader is left to formulate his own answer the original question, why have all other charges paled in comparison to Pickett's Charge in public memory and history? My answer is that it was a major attack, resulting in heavy casualties, which was a significant determinant of the outcome of the war. Its veterans and partisans engaged those of other actions on the fields of scholarship and literature. Clashes of egos as great as the clashes of arms continued to keep and even raise the Charge in public imagination.

Read this book. You will enjoy it. Then write your own review with your answer to the question.

These are some of the bare-boned facts about Pickett's charge. General George Pickett, a subordinate of General Longstreet, commanded the right wing of the Confederate assault leading troops from Virginia. The left wing of the assault was under the command of Generals Pettigrew and Trimble from the Corps of Confederate General A.P. Hill. The assault force on the left included troops from North Carolina, Tennessee, Alabama, and elsewhere in the South. There was also a small column to the right of Pickett's troops that included soldiers from Florida and Georgia.

Professor Carol Reardon's study, "Pickett's Charge in History and Memory" (1997) eloquently explores how and why the events of the third day at Gettysburg have assumed legendary, heroic status among so many Americans over the years. Professor Reardon gives only the briefest account of the battle itself and focuses instead on the many imponderables and uncertainties in the historical record. She has some important things to say about skepticism regarding the initial battlefield accounts, some of which were written many years after the event when memories had turned and faded. She has even more important things to say about how and why Pickett's charge became and remains a subject for contention and about why many people still find it a climactic moment of the Civil War and of American history.

Professor Reardon describes how Virginians and North Carolinians fought between themselves about which troops had been braver and had carried more of the brunt of the failed assault. She discusses how the Charge became legendary as the "High Water Mark of the Confederacy" and how its repulse became viewed as sealing the fate of the Confederacy. Beginning in the mid-1870s Union and Confederate Veterans met on the Gettysburg Battlefield to relive their memories of the Charge. The former enemies had reconciled and become friends. Pickett's Charge became a symbol of the valor, the heroism, and the common bond of soldiering shared by the troops on both sides. The memory of Pickett's charge helped reunite the United States. It also, unhappily, promoted a "Lost Cause", romanticized view of the Old South and tended to draw the Nation's attention away from the issues of slavery and of race relations that had precipitated the Civil War.

I found Professor Reardon's descriptions of the reunions at Gettysburg between veterans in 1877 and 1913 the most moving and interesting part of the book, as they showed clearly the symbolic character that Pickett's Charge had assumed. Pickett's Charge became an emblem of the nature of the Civil War and of the subsequent reconciliation between North and South.

Professor Reardon also devotes more attention to the Union side of the line than is sometimes accorded in studies of the Charge. Interestingly, she points out that Union veterans of the first and second days of Gettysburg -- the soldiers in Sickle's Third Corps, the defenders of Culp's and Cemetery Hills, among others, sometimes felt slighted at the attention lavished on the third day of the Battle at the expense of their contributions.

In recent years, perhaps under the influence of Scharra's novel, "The Killer Angels" the Union defense of Little Round Top under Joshua Chamberlain and the 20th Maine have rivalled Pickett's Charge in accounts of the climactic moment of the Battle. Professor Reardon does not address this revival of interest in Little Round Top. It would be interesting to explore it in a manner analogous to her treatment of the Charge.

I think many modern accounts of the Charge tend to emphasize its futility, the highly remote chances it had of success, and the tremendous loss of life that followed in its wake. This is a more modernistic approach to the Charge than the approach based upon a shared valor and heroism that Professor Reardon discusses. The modern sensibility has affected again the way Americans view the Charge.

Professor Reardon has written a thoughtful meditation of Pickett's charge and its interpretation and reinterpretation over the years. She views her subject seriously and with reverence. She concludes her book with the words of a Gettysburg veteran writing in 1908 (p.213): "Tradition, story, history -- all will not efface the true, grand epic of Gettysburg."

Ms Reardon won me over with her eye for the telling detail when she pointed out that the terrain prevented both Union and Confederate soldiers from a panaromic view of the battlefield.The rolling hills prevented the Union troops from seeing large parts of the charge. Meanwhile, a gentle ridge split the attacking Confederates in half. Ms Reardon ruefully notes that numerous historical accounts from both sides provide intimate details of things that were not visible from the participant's location.

Ms Reardon quotes a grizzled veteran who summed it all up when he said,"Picketts Charge has been so grossly exaggerated and misrepresented as to give some color to the oft-repeated axiom that 'history is an agreed-upon lie'."

No matter what the outcome, American lives were lost during a bitter struggle at a time when brother fought against brother. This book, unlike others that try to de-bunk the stories and battle statistics, goes to the heart of the matter. Truly remarkable and most enjoyable to read!

This book is well worth reading and rates as one of the top Civil War books needed on your library shelf.

Well done!