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Echoes of Thunder: A Guide to the Seven Days Battles
written by Matt Spruill
Studio : Univ Tennessee Press
by Univ Tennessee Press
Publisher : Univ Tennessee Press
Released : 2006-10-09
Availability : Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Number of Items : 1
EAN : 9781572335479
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 1 review)
List Price : $24.95
Our Price : $19.08
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Excellent Guide |
I am a battlefield walker, alone, in a group, with or without a guide. The best walks are in a group with a guide; however, that often is not possible. When a guide and a group are not possible, a good book is the next best thing. The problem is battle histories are not designed to walk you from point to point, outlining what happened and why it is important. Histories, even the best of them, often do not make a good battlefield guidebook.
Starting in 1987, The U.S. Army War College addressed this problem with a series of battlefield guides for military personal and battlefield walkers. The format is a combination of detailed instructions moving you from point to point, commentary in current military language on the action coupled with selections from first person accounts. A map for each stop, an overview map of the field and plenty of illustrations produce a very usable guide that provides a detailed view of the battle then and now.
The Seven Days always has been a difficult campaign for me to follow. The continuous movement, switching between the Union line of march and the Confederate fronts, while considering the overall political situation, causes me to lose the terrain details. I can follow Sears or Burton, understand what is happening but never seem to get the grip on the terrain that is possible at Gettysburg or Shiloh. Thanks to Matt Spruill III and IV, that problem is solved.
Echoes of Thunder is like seeing an old friend. The book uses the War College format, Matt Spruill III is the author of the Chickamauga guide, causing me to settle in for a good informative time. Each battle is a chapter in the book, with detailed instructions on how to move from field to field. For the first time, I started to grasp the movement of the armies while reading these instructions. Each battle is well represented with a number of stops, directions to each stop and a good narration of what we are looking at. The participants tell the story of the action at each stop. These first person accounts tell us more than any author could. Coupled with the author's narration, the two produce a good solid overview of the battle and the campaign, supplementing the study of the field.
This is a valuable and welcome addition to this series of battlefield guides. This book will provide you with a guide on the field or it will supplement reading about The Seven Days. In either case, you will have your own guide whenever you need one. I will look for you at one of the stops along the way.
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