“What new could there be to say about the afternoon of the third day of the fight of Gettysburg, the most scrutinized battle in American history? Plenty, if it is examined with a microscope, as Phillip Thomas Tucker does impressively in Pickett's Charge: A New Look at Gettysburg’s Final Attack… The book is most interesting for the bright nuggets of information Tucker presents as he unfolds the attack minute by minute, foot by foot… The account is a mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces that, seen whole, amounts to a fascinating picture of what probably was the most important moment of the Civil War.” – The New York Times Book Review
"[Pickett's Charge] contains much to interest and provoke Civil War enthusiasts." —Kirkus
"Takes issue with many long-held assumptions and analysis of the famous attack and seeks to revise many of the long-held misconceptions about Lee's plans, the course of the attack, and the ultimate reasons for its failure... Overall, the author does a workman like job." -New York Journal of Books
"In his almost minute-by-minute account of the most famous infantry charge in history, Phillip Thomas Tucker provides a thoughtful and challenging new look at the great assault at Gettysburg, from planning to aftermath. Not afraid to lay blame where he thinks it belongs, Tucker is fresh and bold in his analysis and use of sources. Even though any reader knows in advance the outcome, still Pickett's Charge maintains suspense to the sound of the last gun." -William C. Davis, author of Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—The War they Fought, the Peace they Forged
"No action in the Civil War is more iconic than the misnamed 'Pickett’s Charge,' and yet few episodes of this most-studied of wars is in need of more enlightened and enlightening reexamination. Phillip Thomas Tucker’s magisterial Pickett’s Charge: A New Look at Gettysburg’s Final Attack replaces 150-plus years of uninterrogated mythology with meticulously researched history to give us a new and long-overdue understanding of what tradition dismisses as Robert E. Lee’s most tragic error in pursuit of a 'Lost Cause.' Tucker persuasively argues that Pickett’s Charge, though failed in its execution, actually reveals Lee at his most masterful. This book is one of a handful essential to gaining a full strategic and tactical appreciation of both Gettysburg and the war in which it was the turning point." —Alan Axelrod, author of The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War’s Cruelest Mission and The 20 Most Significant Events of the Civil War
"Phillip Thomas Tucker cuts through the myths and misconceptions that surround Pickett's charge to offer a fresh defense of Robert E. Lee and a probing examination of what happened that fateful afternoon. The result is a thought-provoking and eye-opening study of this pivotal moment in American history." —Louis P. Masur, PhD. Distinguished Professor of American studies and History, Rutgers University, and author of The Civil War: A Concise History
"In nearly all recent surveys, Americans list the Battle of Gettysburg as the most recognizable and most important of all battles in our history. And, when asked what they know about Gettysburg, to top of that list is Pickett’s Charge. When pressed a little harder, if they know anything about the charge, most will say it was a disaster, that General Lee didn’t know what he was doing, that there was no way it could have succeeded, and so forth. Relying heavily on the combatants’s first-hand accounts, Phillip Thomas Tucker cuts away the myths and offers a fresh new interpretation that challenges long held views of the story. Rather than seeing Pickett’s Charge as foolhardy, Tucker considers Lee’s plan as a stroke of genius, and that, had a few things gone differently, could well have ended the war in favor of the Confederacy." —Robert K. Sutton, former Chief Historian, National Park Service
“What new could there be to say about the afternoon of the third day of the fight of Gettysburg, the most scrutinized battle in American history? Plenty, if it is examined with a microscope, as Phillip Thomas Tucker does impressively in Pickett's Charge: A New Look at Gettysburg’s Final Attack… The book is most interesting for the bright nuggets of information Tucker presents as he unfolds the attack minute by minute, foot by foot… The account is a mosaic of thousands of tiny pieces that, seen whole, amounts to a fascinating picture of what probably was the most important moment of the Civil War.” – The New York Times Book Review
"[Pickett's Charge] contains much to interest and provoke Civil War enthusiasts." —Kirkus
"Takes issue with many long-held assumptions and analysis of the famous attack and seeks to revise many of the long-held misconceptions about Lee's plans, the course of the attack, and the ultimate reasons for its failure... Overall, the author does a workman like job." -New York Journal of Books
"In his almost minute-by-minute account of the most famous infantry charge in history, Phillip Thomas Tucker provides a thoughtful and challenging new look at the great assault at Gettysburg, from planning to aftermath. Not afraid to lay blame where he thinks it belongs, Tucker is fresh and bold in his analysis and use of sources. Even though any reader knows in advance the outcome, still Pickett's Charge maintains suspense to the sound of the last gun." -William C. Davis, author of Crucible of Command: Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee—The War they Fought, the Peace they Forged
"No action in the Civil War is more iconic than the misnamed 'Pickett’s Charge,' and yet few episodes of this most-studied of wars is in need of more enlightened and enlightening reexamination. Phillip Thomas Tucker’s magisterial Pickett’s Charge: A New Look at Gettysburg’s Final Attack replaces 150-plus years of uninterrogated mythology with meticulously researched history to give us a new and long-overdue understanding of what tradition dismisses as Robert E. Lee’s most tragic error in pursuit of a 'Lost Cause.' Tucker persuasively argues that Pickett’s Charge, though failed in its execution, actually reveals Lee at his most masterful. This book is one of a handful essential to gaining a full strategic and tactical appreciation of both Gettysburg and the war in which it was the turning point." —Alan Axelrod, author of The Horrid Pit: The Battle of the Crater, the Civil War’s Cruelest Mission and The 20 Most Significant Events of the Civil War
"Phillip Thomas Tucker cuts through the myths and misconceptions that surround Pickett's charge to offer a fresh defense of Robert E. Lee and a probing examination of what happened that fateful afternoon. The result is a thought-provoking and eye-opening study of this pivotal moment in American history." —Louis P. Masur, PhD. Distinguished Professor of American studies and History, Rutgers University, and author of The Civil War: A Concise History
"In nearly all recent surveys, Americans list the Battle of Gettysburg as the most recognizable and most important of all battles in our history. And, when asked what they know about Gettysburg, to top of that list is Pickett’s Charge. When pressed a little harder, if they know anything about the charge, most will say it was a disaster, that General Lee didn’t know what he was doing, that there was no way it could have succeeded, and so forth. Relying heavily on the combatants’s first-hand accounts, Phillip Thomas Tucker cuts away the myths and offers a fresh new interpretation that challenges long held views of the story. Rather than seeing Pickett’s Charge as foolhardy, Tucker considers Lee’s plan as a stroke of genius, and that, had a few things gone differently, could well have ended the war in favor of the Confederacy." —Robert K. Sutton, former Chief Historian, National Park Service
2016-05-31
A popular historian deconstructs "the greatest assault of the greatest battle of America's greatest war."Judging by the battlefield remains of combatants uncovered in 1996 or the 2014 Medal of Honor President Barack Obama bestowed on an artillery officer who helped thwart the Confederate assault, the real-world aftermath of Pickett's Charge continues to unfold. Certainly, controversy persists among Civil War historians about precisely what happened on July 3, 1863, when Robert E. Lee went for broke and the "high tide of the Rebellion" was repulsed. Tucker (George Washington's Surprise Attack: A New Look at the Battle that Decided the Fate of America, 2014, etc.) tracks the assault from the opening, unprecedented artillery bombardment to the end, where "the foremost attacker of Pickett's Charge was killed near the open crest of so much strategic importance." Determined to spotlight some hidden or neglected truths, he dots this narrative with various pieces of odd information, including, for example, the curious tendency of soldiers armed with bayonets during the intense fighting to eschew their use in favor of clubbing each other with muskets. The author also pauses to add a list and description of soldiers severely wounded in the groin and testicles. He comments on the precise nature of the terrain the attackers traversed, the disproportionate influence of Virginia Military Institute graduates within Pickett's division, the considerable number of Irish and Germans among the Confederates, and the diversity of their backgrounds, facts at odds with the romanticism about "the very flower" of Southern culture and refinement that perished that day. More than anything, Tucker aims to pierce the myth that Lee's plan was doomed. He argues that given the South's need to strike a decisive blow, Lee's tactics, a complex mix of artillery, infantry, and cavalry, were sound, that in spite of subordinate officers' failures of leadership, communication, and execution, the assault came excruciatingly close to succeeding. Blemished by repetitive prose and a needlessly bumptious tone, Tucker's narrative nevertheless contains much to interest and provoke Civil War enthusiasts.
