Customer Reviews

The 83rd Pennsylvania Volunteers in the Civil War

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Prior to reading this book, my idea of torture was to be locked in a room with nothing to read but military books. Lucky for me that I stumbled on this book after searching for P.J. O'Rourke's latest and saw that he wrote the foreword. I was hooked about 20 pages in when it became clear that the author's intent was entirely different than the typical dissection of military battles and tactics that so many civil war books dwell upon. Through letters and journals of the soldiers of the 83rd, we see the war entirely from their perspective. Their day-to-day activities, their views about the war, and their emotional state during horrific losses, tedious marches, and adrenaline inducing victories. It never loses its feel of authenticity because the author, through obviously mind-boggling research, never has to guess what the men were thinking. This book never veers off in the unconvincing and awkward ways that some historical fiction does when authors try to "put themselves in the shoes" of someone who lived hundreds of years ago. Those attempts often ring false in ways that this book never does. Read this book and I guarantee you will not only think about Strong Vincent, Oliver Norton, Seth Waid, Amos Judson, and the other men of the 83rd long after finishing, but your esteem for what they accomplished will grow as well.

I had personal reasons for reading this book. . . an ancestor served with the 83rd and I'm researching materials to authenticate copies of letters the family has in its possession. It's extremely well-written, thorough. I particularly liked the history of northwestern Pennsylvania. I've read Judson's book and approve of the quotes the author used. I was a little disappointed that the narrative stops after Gettysburg but can understand the author's choice in ending at this point. I would rate this 5 star except for the poor proofreading/editing. This is a day when a "manuscript" goes from disk to print through a computer and too many little errors were allowed to remain in the text. . . not when it concerned facts, thankfully, and therefore is the reason I can give it a high rating, but the errors broke the harmony of the written word. Any CW buff would find this an "excellent read."

The 83rd PA Volunteers was organized in October 1861 and saw a great deal of hard combat before mustering out after Appomattox. Made up of recruits mainly from the northwest part of the state, its most glorious moments probably occurred on Little Round Top at Gettysburg, where in a desperate fight (alongside the fabled Joshua Chamberlain-led 20th ME) it helped stave off a Confederate attack. Schellhammer's history of the regiment is historically detailed yet excitingly told, and is one of the best regimental histories I've seen.

Schellhammer's strength lies in the fact that he never forgets he is writing about people, about men who fought and suffered, and not just about "events" that in some hazy way involved soldiers. He quotes often (but not too often) from soldiers' diaries and letters to make his account as humanly interesting as possible. Though he traces the regiment's complete Civil War itinerary, he is especially detailed when describing its actions on the Peninsula in the spring of '62, at Gaines Mill in June (where the regiment lost its first commander, Col. John McLane), at Malvern Hill a few days later, at Fredericksburg in December, and at Gettysburg (where its second commander, Col. Strong Vincent, was killed on Little Round Top). The 83rd lost about half its men to battlefield death, wounding, disease, or capture; 282 died in battle: only one other Union regiment (5th New Hampshire Infantry) lost more men killed in battle (295). Schellhammer writes with style and verve, and this book should find a welcomed place on anyone's Civil War shelf. Highly recommended.

The 83rd 's history was in many ways the history of the Eastern Theatre of the War Between the States. Great numbers of soldiers were recruited from this area and the casulty list is apalling by today's standards. This was a military democracy, officers were elected. Reading this book, one cannot fail to observe that the first and second commanding officers were killed in combat, the thrd, General O.S. Woodward, lost a leg after previously suffering severe arm injuries. officers led from the front and shared the dangers with their men. The book gives us the human details of the war and has a collection of excellent photos.

These aspects make it a valuable companion to the county and city histories which flourished just after the war and which are generally only available in county libraries. Additionally the dispersal of th veterans of the period to the newly available lands in western Missouri and south eastern Kansas scattered a good bit of the history which would be almost irrecoverable were in not for this effort and a number of others. Anyone doing research into the regiment, the events or the period will find a great tool here.

Let's cut to the chase. Michael Schellhammer's story of the 83rd Pennsylvnia in the Civil War is one of the two best small unit Civil War histories I've ever read. The only one that tops it is John Pullen's classic "20th Maine". For me, that's as high praise as I can offer, and it well deserves that praise.

Schellhammer's book began life as a primary source research project required for a degree in history at Mercyhurst College in 1984. Still fascinated by the subject years later, Schellhammer decided the unit deserved to have its story told in a full-scale book. He set out to do much more detailed and thorough research, unearthing a gold mine of soldier's letters, diaries and other invaluable primary source material in the process. It's these poignant glimpes into ordinary soldiers' lives during the Civil War, with their casual immediacy, that form the framework of the story. He used other primary sources in his research, including the inevitable Official Record, but these more official sources merely provide the backdrop needed to give the common soldier's experience their proper perspective. In addition, Schellhammer visited the battlefields trod upon by the 83rd to gain even more insight into exactly what the soldier's saw. When he describes combat, it's from the viewpoint of the men in the line of battle. As a combat veteran himself, Schellhammer movingly portrays the fear, exhaustion, anxiety and uncertainty volunteer troops felt as the tried to do their duty in a seething environment of exploding artillery, crackling muskets, whizzing Minie balls and smoke, smoke thicker than a Bay of Fundy fog, so thick it reduced a man's world to no more than the man directly beside him.

Through all this, Schellhammer does a fine job of explaining where the 83rd fit in to the larger picture of the particular engagement the were fighting in. His references to the larger operational picture are brief, concise and pertinent to his underlying story. He does not bog down in detailed analysis of which brigade moved where and why it moved when it moved. That's been done thousands of times before. But of course, this is one of the charms of his book. He doesn't try to teach us about the Peninsula Campaign, but rather show us how the ordinary soldier saw it.

The 83rd was formed from the towns and farms in the 5 northwestern Pennsylvania counties around Erie. Their steady progress to combat was marred by bureaucratic foul-ups, red tape, poor logistics and general ineptitude on the part of a system straining to handle something far more complex than it was equipped to manage. But the men persevered. They had their baptism of fire at Hanover Courthouse on the James Peninsula in the spring of 1862. They were part of the Union's V Corps, one of the stoutest fighting units in the Army of the Potomac, home of the only sizable force of Regular Army troops to fight in the Civil War. Surrounded by such hard, well-trained professionals, the 83rd had a lot to prove. Schellhammer shows us how the men learned the skills they needed to perform as a cohesive fighting force, something the Regulars already had down pat. Schellhammer's patience in explaining how men learned the complex maneuveres required of them by itself set's this book apart from it's peers. Who among us knows what "Companies in column of fours, by the right flank, March!" means, or how complex a move it really was? Schellhammer clearly explains it.

After illnesses whittled the 83rd down to a lean force, the 83rd went on to participate in most of the major engagements between the Army of the Potomac and Lee's tough Army of Northern Virginia. Life was mercilessly hard, even for men used to long hours of extremely hard work. It paid off in spades. The 83rd was part of the 1st Division's 3rd brigade, lead by their former regimental commander Strong Vincent, which found itself scurrying to occupy Little Round Top before the Rebel forces could get there on Day 2 at Gettysburg. The 83rd's left flank ran smack into the right flank of the 20th Maine. To me, there's something pleasantly odd that the two best small unit histories I've read involve those 2 regiments, tucked together cheek-by-jowl on the crest of that famous spot.

The 83rd went on to serve through the rest of the war, and there lies my only criticism of Schellhammer's book. For all practical purposes, it ends at Gettysburg. I was frustrated that it stopped there without telling us the rest of the story. But it's a minor gripe. We can hope he'll revisit the 83rd in the future. Throughout the book, Schellhammer has a rich, spare and tight writing style normally seen only in veteran journalists. There's humor, pathos, excitement and pain in his words, and so much more inbetween. I highly -- HIGHLY -- recommend this book to anyone who has even a passing interest in the Civil War. Get it, and you will be rewarded.