The Events that Lead Up to the Battle of Gettysburg: Book by Tom Streissguth

The Battle of Gettysburg by Tom Streissguth, explains the events that lead up to the Battle of Gettysburg. In this story it explains how the fighting started, Altogether the battle only lasted three days but there were three thousand one hundred lives lost. This book goes over how the Battle was set up and the events that occurred when the attacks happened. The author wants the readers to really feel the events that happened over the three-day span of this battle.

The first life we lost was Major General John Reynolds, on pages 7 and 8 it explains to us how General Reynolds died In the book it says “Riding up behind second Wisconsin was John Reynolds and his Infantry. He was eager to follow up second Wisconsin's success with an attack on Archer's other regiments to the west. Reynolds turned back toward Gettysburg to see if reinforcements were on the way. A Confederate bullet struck him in the neck. Reynolds fell from his horse dead. It was the first day of the battle of Gettysburg.” This quote explains that Reynolds was on his way to Gettysburg to see if reinforcements were on the way when a bullet came out of nowhere and randomly struck him in the neck and killed him due to this the fighting happened and the Battle started. On July 1st, 1863 scattered fighting had broken out so John Buford sent a message to General Reynolds who commanded and entire wing and three infantry cops from the union army and he marched them to Seminary ridge where he left them when he got shot when they found out the loaded their guns and started the fighting. Another major event that took place was on June 28 1863 George Meade took command of the army of Potomac just three days before the Battle, not only did Meade manage that but his victory at Gettysburg turned the tide of the civil war in the east. On June 26th many Pennsylvania men decided to block the road to Gettysburg after seeing strange people on their land and around them, meanwhile, most of the men that stood there had zero experience with the military so if you think about it, they probably were not a lot of help. Later that same afternoon, Early's division had marched into the town of Gettysburg but the could tell that the town was not a military objective and General lee had no intention of holding it, on the other hand, his goal was the state capital, Harrisburg and he wasn't letting anything stop him from getting there.

This book really helps the reader understand why the battle started and what the people who were involved in the battle wanted. It also helps us understand the viewpoint of not only the author but people like General Reynolds or George Meade who went through many struggles to fight for their lives. This book starts out by telling us about the first day of the battle and then goes on to tell us about how the battle was set up and about how it was like a sneak attack on the people of Pennsylvania but then they found out and blocked all the people from going to Gettysburg. This book also tells us how 3,000 horses died during the battle so the other 100 people were traveling by foot. After telling us about the horses this book tells us about how two guys named Dr. E.B. Spencer who was a confederate surgeon, and Henry Harrison who was a spy happened to be in Gettysburg on the morning of June 30th when they spotted union troops moving North so they hurried back to report to Henry Heth who was one of the Hills division commanders. They were the first people to see the troops of Reynolds I Corps who were approaching from the south.

This story really goes into detail about the events that occurred during this tragic battle some more of those events that happened are things like how all women were barred from the military service on both the union and the confederate sides. Although that did not stop several women from dressing up and fighting in disguise at the battle of Gettysburg. It says in the book on page 41 “On the confederate side, five female soldiers had been discovered. One was wounded on the battlefield and lost her leg in a Pennsylvania hospital. Thomas Reed, a union soldier in the same hospital, described her in a letter home: “ I must tell you that we have a female secesh [Confederate soldier] here. She was wounded at Gettysburg but our doctors soon found her out.” Two other women fighting for the confederacy were killed on the third day of battle.” This quote helps explain that just because they were women and they were not allowed to fight they still did whatever it took to be able to fight that way they could try to save their home and even though they knew their lives were on the line they didn't care which shows that even though the battle was a complete surprise everyone that was involved in the fighting went to great lengths to try to save not only Gettysburg but Pennsylvania in general.

Gettysburg is said to be haunted because as one of the deadliest battles in the world's history, Gettysburg has managed to inspire many supernatural legends as well as many rumors since 1863 when the battle occurred. Gettysburg college which at the time was Pennsylvania college is said to contain the ghosts of many soldiers who were brought in wounded and soon died. Not only is the college said to be haunted but phantom footsteps and voices are claimed to be heard in many people's private homes that are scattered around the battlefield.

So in conclusion The Battle of Gettysburg by Tom Streissguth is an amazing book about how all these amazing people risked their lives for people like us. Tom is an amazing writer that tried really hard to show the reader every possible detail he could of why the Battle was started and who started it. The book also goes to great lengths to show us what the people who didn't know about the battle do to it being a surprise attack went through when they had to prepare. This book helps us understand what the families who had to leave because they had children or they had a wife in the family and the wife couldn't fight in the war. Ultimately I think this book is overall a really good book that deserves to be read by anyone out there interested in the Battle of Gettysburg or interested in Battles or fighting at all.