Sickles at Gettysburg

Sickles at Gettysburg
Author: James A. Hessler
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Total Pages: 505
Release: 2009-06-25
Genre: History
ISBN: 1611210453

“Sickles is as dividing a figure in Civil War history as there is. In his masterful work . . . Hessler . . . puts him out there with all his wrinkles” (Confederate Book Review). Winner of the Robert E. Lee Civil War Roundtable of Central New Jersey’s Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award Winner of the Gettysburg Civil War Roundtable’s Distinguished Book Award By licensed battlefield guide James Hessler, this is the most deeply-researched, full-length biography to appear on this remarkable American icon. No individual who fought at Gettysburg was more controversial, both personally and professionally, than Major General Daniel E. Sickles. By 1863, Sickles was notorious as a disgraced former Congressman who murdered his wife’s lover on the streets of Washington and used America’s first temporary insanity defense to escape justice. With his political career in ruins, Sickles used his connections with President Lincoln to obtain a prominent command in the Army of the Potomac’s 3rd Corps—despite having no military experience. At Gettysburg, he openly disobeyed orders in one of the most controversial decisions in military history. Hessler’s critically acclaimed biography is a balanced and entertaining account of Sickles colorful life. Civil War enthusiasts who want to understand General Sickles’ scandalous life, Gettysburg’s battlefield strategies, the in-fighting within the Army of the Potomac, and the development of today’s National Park will find Sickles at Gettysburg a must-read. “The few other Sickles biographies available will now take a back seat to Hessler’s powerful and evocative study of the man, the general, and the legacy of the Gettysburg battlefield that old Dan left America. I highly recommend this book.”—J. David Petruzzi, coauthor of Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg

Gettysburg's Peach Orchard

Gettysburg's Peach Orchard
Author: James A. Hessler
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2023-03-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 9781611216752

One of the most influential actions of the second day of battle at Gettysburg occurred nearly one mile west of Little Round Top in farmer Joseph Sherfy's peach orchard. Hessler and Isenberg combine the military aspects of the fighting with human interest stories in a balanced treatment of the bloody attack and defense of Gettysburg's Peach Orchard.

Dan Sickles

Dan Sickles
Author: Edgcumb Pinchon
Publisher: Pickle Partners Publishing
Total Pages: 486
Release: 2017-01-12
Genre: History
ISBN: 1787208206

This incredible tale of dashing Dan Sickles (1819-1914)—Civil War general, lover of the Queen of Spain, avenging husband who killed his wife’s paramour—has all the action and romance of a novel. It provides the first full-length portrait of a colorful American figure who loved to play the hero, and often was one. Here’s how the story of Dan Sickles begins: “WHEN HE FIRST OPENED HIS EYES in a modest New York home October 20, 1819, the skyscape beyond the Battery was fretted with the spars of hundreds of tall sailing ships. President Monroe was in the White House, Queen Victoria-to-be still in the nursery.... “When, May 3, 1914, those eyes—keen, gray, recalcitrant—closed for the last time, a stupendous one-hundred-year cycle almost had run its course. Woodrow Wilson was busying himself with the New Freedom at home, the Familyhood of Nations abroad. George V and Wilhelm Hohenzollern were exchanging cousinly notes. British dreadnaughts nosed unobtrusively toward Scapa Flow. German cruisers clotted at Kiel.... “Ninety-four years of America’s turgid adolescence! And some fifty of them spent in the thick of national affairs.... “Down the roaring decades that blent a score of polyglot peoples to a new breed, thrust Mexico across the Rio Grande and Colorado, Canada beyond the Columbia, the West out to mid-Pacific, his was a stormy, dramatic figure in Congress, on the battlefield, at the courts of Madrid and St. James’s, in the palacios nacionales of Colombia, Panama, Peru....”

Sickles the Incredible

Sickles the Incredible
Author: W. A. Swanber
Publisher: Butternut & Blue
Total Pages: 433
Release: 1991-06-01
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781879664029

-- A problem child for all his 94 years. -- A Tammany politician so involved with women that he worried even Tammany. -- A diplomat who insulted Queen Victoria. -- A presidential aspirant, then a killer tried for murder. -- The general who won (or almost lost) the battle of Gettysburg. -- The soldier who laid away his lost leg in a coffin. -- The butt of the most vicious abuse in American newspaper history. -- The Yankee ambassador who took over Spain, carried on an affair with the deposed Queen Isabella, finally lost his own political shirt. -- The genius who smashed Jay Gould's railroad conspiracy. -- The millionaire who went broke on women and Wall Street. -- The adventurer who was often wrong, often right, but never dull.

American Scoundrel

American Scoundrel
Author: Thomas Keneally
Publisher:
Total Pages: 420
Release: 2002
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 9781740510837

Charming and ambitious, Dan Sickles literally got away with murder. His protector was none other than the President himself, the ageing James Buchanan; his political friends quickly gathered round; and Sickles was acquitted. His trial is described with all Thomas Keneally's powers of dash and drama, against a backdrop of double-dealing, intrigue and 'the slavery question'. Enslaved, in her turn, by the hypocrisy of nineteenth-century society, his wife was shunned and thereafter banned from public life. Sickles, meanwhile, was free to accept favours and patronage. He raised a regiment for the Union, and went on to become a general in the army, rising to the rank of brigadier-general and commanding a flank at the Battle of Gettysburg - at which he lost a leg, which he put into the military museum in Washington where he would take friends to visit it. Thomas Keneally brilliantly recreates an extraordinary period, when women were punished for violating codes of society that did not bind men. And the caddish, good-looking Dan Sickles personifies the extremes of the era: as a womaniser, he introduced his favourite madam to Queen Victoria while his wife stayed at home; as minister to Spain, he began an affair with the queen while courting one of her ladies in waiting; and in his later years, he installed his housekeeper as his mistress while his second wife took up residence nearby. The brio with which Thomas Keneally tells the tale is equal to the pace and bravado of Sickles's life. But, more than this, AMERICAN SCOUNDREL is the lens through which the reader can view history at a time when America was being torn apart. This book resonates with uncomfortable truths, as relevant now as they were then.

Defending the Union Left Flank

Defending the Union Left Flank
Author: B. Thomas Kopac
Publisher:
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2009-02
Genre: Gettysburg, Battle of, Gettysburg, Pa., 1863
ISBN: 9781608131808

The Battle of Gettysburg continues to capture the interest of people. The magnitude and scale of the battle draws thousands of visitors to the National Military Park each year. The area of greatest interest is the Union left flank. Devilas Den, the Wheatfield, and Little Round Top are some of the most highly visited areas of that hallowed ground. It was here that the fiercest fighting took place. Defense of this area was given to General Dan Sickles. Sickles failed to follow orders and committed one of the greatest blunders of the war. Failure to secure Little Round Top was a costly error for the Army of the Potomac. Separating his corps from the army and creating a vulnerable salient, Sickles almost lost the Battle of Gettysburg. This book is an in-depth look at the life and military career of this highly controversial general and his actions at the Battle of Gettysburg.

Gettysburg--The First Day

Gettysburg--The First Day
Author: Harry W. Pfanz
Publisher: UNC Press Books
Total Pages: 493
Release: 2011-07-01
Genre: History
ISBN: 0807898406

For good reason, the second and third days of the Battle of Gettysburg have received the lion's share of attention from historians. With this book, however, the critical first day's fighting finally receives its due. After sketching the background of the Gettysburg campaign and recounting the events immediately preceding the battle, Harry Pfanz offers a detailed tactical description of events of the first day. He describes the engagements in McPherson Woods, at the Railroad Cuts, on Oak Ridge, on Seminary Ridge, and at Blocher's Knoll, as well as the retreat of Union forces through Gettysburg and the Federal rally on Cemetery Hill. Throughout, he draws on deep research in published and archival sources to challenge many long-held assumptions about the battle.

Cain at Gettysburg

Cain at Gettysburg
Author: Ralph Peters
Publisher: Macmillan + ORM
Total Pages: 461
Release: 2012-02-28
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1429968478

Winner of the American Library Association's W. Y. Boyd Award for Excellence in Military Fiction Two mighty armies blunder toward each other, one led by confident, beloved Robert E. Lee and the other by dour George Meade. They'll meet in a Pennsylvania crossroads town where no one planned to fight. In this sweeping, savagely realistic novel, the greatest battle ever fought on American soil explodes into life at Gettysburg. As generals squabble, staffs err. Tragedy unfolds for immigrants in blue and barefoot Rebels alike. The fate of our nation will be decided in a few square miles of fields. Following a tough Confederate sergeant from the Blue Ridge, a bitter Irish survivor of the Great Famine, a German political refugee, and gun crews in blue and gray, Cain at Gettysburg is as grand in scale as its depictions of combat are unflinching. For three days, battle rages. Through it all, James Longstreet is haunted by a vision of war that leads to a fateful feud with Robert E. Lee. Scheming Dan Sickles nearly destroys his own army. Gallant John Reynolds and obstreperous Win Hancock, fiery William Barksdale and dashing James Johnston Pettigrew, gallop toward their fates.... There are no marble statues on this battlefield, only men of flesh and blood, imperfect and courageous. From New York Times bestselling author and former U.S. Army officer Ralph Peters, Cain at Gettysburg is bound to become a classic of men at war. At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

The Gettysburg Cyclorama

The Gettysburg Cyclorama
Author: Chris Brenneman
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Total Pages: 226
Release: 2015-05-19
Genre: History
ISBN: 1611212642

Thousands of books and articles have been written about the Battle of Gettysburg. Almost every topic has been thoroughly scrutinized except one: Paul PhilippoteauxÕs massive cyclorama painting The Battle of Gettysburg, which depicts PickettÕs Charge, the final attack at Gettysburg. The Gettysburg Cyclorama: The Turning Point of the Civil War on Canvas is the first comprehensive study of this art masterpiece and historic artifact. This in-depth study of the history of the cyclorama discusses every aspect of this treasure, which was first displayed in 1884 and underwent a massive restoration in 2008. Coverage includes not only how it was created and what it depicts, but the changes it has undergone and where and how it was moved. Authors Chris Brenneman and Sue Boardman also discuss in fascinating detail how the painting was interpreted by Civil War veterans in the late 19th Century. With the aid of award-winning photographer Bill Dowling, the authors utilized modern photography to compare the painting with historic and modern pictures of the landscape. DowlingÕs remarkable close-up digital photography allows readers to focus on distant details that usually pass unseen. Every officer, unit, terrain feature, farm, and more pictured in the painting is discussed in detail. Even more remarkable, the authors reveal an important new discovery made during the research for this book: in order to address suggestions from the viewers, the cyclorama was significantly modified five years after it was created to add more soldiers, additional flags, and even General George Meade, the commander of the Union Army! With hundreds of rare historic photographs and beautiful modern pictures of a truly great work of art, The Gettysburg Cyclorama: The Turning Point of the Civil War on Canvas is a must-have for anyone interested in the Battle of Gettysburg or is simply a lover of exquisite art.

The Second Day at Gettysburg

The Second Day at Gettysburg
Author: David Schultz
Publisher: Savas Beatie
Total Pages: 553
Release: 2015-10-30
Genre: History
ISBN: 1611210755

“Emphasize[s] the role of Winfield Scott Hancock . . . [and] the Second Corps in plugging the gap and saving the day for the Union.” —Gettysburg Magazine On the afternoon of July 2, 1863, Lt. Gen. James Longstreet struck the Union left flank with a massive blow that collapsed Dan Sickles’ advanced position in the Peach Orchard and rolled northward, tearing open a large gap in the center of the Federal line on Cemetery Ridge. Fresh Confederates from A. P. Hill’s Corps advanced toward the mile-wide breach, where Southern success would split the Army of the Potomac in two. The fate of the Battle of Gettysburg hung in the balance. Despite the importance of the position, surprisingly few Union troops were available to defend Cemetery Ridge. Major General Winfield S. Hancock’s veteran Second Corps had been whittled from three divisions to less than one after Gibbon’s division was sucked into earlier fighting and Caldwell’s command was shattered in the Wheatfield. With little time and few men, Hancock determined to plug the yawning gap. Reprising Horatio at the Bridge, the gallant commander cobbled together various commands and refused to yield the precious acres in Plum Run ravine. The swirling seesaw fighting lasted for hours and included hand-to-hand combat and personal heroics of which legends are made. The Second Day at Gettysburg expands on David Shultz and David Wieck’s critically acclaimed earlier work The Battle Between the Farm Lanes. This completely revised and expanded study, which includes new photographs, original maps, and a self-guided tour of the fighting, is grounded in extensive research and unmatched personal knowledge of the terrain.