Stand to It and Give Them Hell: Gettysburg as the Soldiers Experienced It from Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top, July 2, 1863 by John Michael Priest (review)

Abstract

Book Notes liberties with his source material, adding dialogue and details not found in the original. For example, Priest records a July 1 exchange between foreign observer Arthur Fremantle and Henry T. Harrison, Longstreet’s alleged spy. In Priest’s version, Harrison— the “fi lthy scout”— regales Fremantle with tales of being with the “bluebellies in or near Gettysburg” just a few days before (10). Th e source material is Fremantle’s Th ree Months in the Southern States, which Priest cites; but in the original version, Fremantle never names the individual to whom he was speaking or the state of his hygiene. On another occasion, Priest summons the words of Pvt. Th eodore Gerrish of Company H, Twentieth Maine. In describing the struggle for Little Round Top, Priest depicts Gerrish fi ghting near the left wing of the regiment on Vincent’s Spur, hearing the excited cries at the onset of battle and watching “the ranks rapidly thin around him” as the fi refi ght reached its crescendo (274). Priest’s description draws on Gerrish’s 1882 memoir, which includes an account of the regiment’s service on July 2. Overlooked is the fact that Gerrish wrote of Gettysburg in the third person, having been absent from the regiment that day. Stand to It and Give Th em Hell is replete with such issues, many of which could have been avoided with a more conservative pen and some checking of sources. Th e unique approach of the book is partially to blame. It would be easier to overlook mistakes of minutiae, or the occasional license taken in the cause of vivid narrative, had the sole intent of the book been diff erent. In off ering no new interpretation and in grinding no ax, the merit of Priest’s book rests on his ability to depict accurately the Battle of Gettysburg from the collected, remembered minutiae of its humblest participants. In this, it falls short. Christopher M. Gwinn Gettysburg National Military Park John Michael Priest. Stand to It and Give Th em Hell: Gettysburg as the Soldiers Experienced It from Cemetery Ridge to Little Round Top, July 2, 1863. El Dorado Hills, ca: Savas Beatie, 2014. 528 pp. Hardcover, $32.95. isbn 9781611211764.