The Gettysburg Diaries: War Journals of Two American Adversaries [Hardcover]

Mark Nesbitt (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Gramercy (February 5, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 051723078X
• ISBN-13: 978-0517230787
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,208,080 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A fascinating juxtaposition, February 24, 2008

By 

doc peterson (Portland, Oregon USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Gettysburg Diaries: War Journals of Two American Adversaries (Hardcover)

Nesbitt's _Gettysburg Diaries_ presents a fascinating juxtaposition of the battle from the perspective of a Confederate soldier (Thomas Ware, 15th Georgia) and a Union soldier (Franklin Horner 12th Pennsylvania Volunteer Infantry). Both diaries are previously unpublished, and both soldiers fought near each other on the second day of the battle, providing a novel (no pun intended) perspective on the battle of Gettysburg.

The diary entries are relatively short, and provide only a fraction of the book, which I was not suspecting. The majority of the book details the travels of both soldiers as they circuitously marched through Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania before both arriving at Gettysburg. Nesbitt, in fleshing out the experiences of these two young men, provides much detail about the daily lives of soldiers (both North and South), as well as information about the "larger picture" of battle - which, of course, the enlisted men had no idea. The context is helpful and made for an interesting back story to both the experiences of Horner and Ware.

Naturally the diary entries for the days in which the soldiers were actively engaged in fighting were thin, and Nesbitt does a solid job of providing some idea of how, where and why these two were fighting where and when they did. The afterword regarding the whereabouts of both soldiers was also interesting.

I give it four stars, as I had hoped and assumed there would be more in their diaries than was presented. Without Nesbitt's additional information, the book would be all of maybe two dozen pages. This is no fault of the author, and in fact I appreciated and even enjoyed his treatment of the subject and the volume of information about military life at that time. It just wasn't quite what I had expected.

In the final analysis, I would recommend this for the serious Civil War buff or for those with a burning desire to visit or follow the marching routes of either of these units. For armchair historians or those seeking detailed, first-hand accounts of the battle, I can't recommned.