Customer Reviews

Gettysburg July 3 1863: Union: The Army of the Potomac (Order of Battle)

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Osprey Order of Battle series presents the military enthusiast with a microanalysis of famous battles, in this case devoting six volumes to the pivotal three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. This 11th volume in the series (the Gettysburg books do not appear sequentially) is devoted to the deployment of the Union Army of the Potomac under General Meade on July 3, 1863, while the 10th volume does the same for the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia. This book provides comprehensive organization diagrams, an analysis of operational objectives, and most importantly where each unit was at what point during the final day of this pivotal battle, including both the "tooth" combat elements and the vital "tail" support troops. The operational analysis is quite excellent and surprisingly concise, albeit more so from the Confederate perspective than the Union, especially with regards to Pickett's Charge. This volume includes dozens of detailed maps, charts and photographs, which should serve to impress the vast majority of readers interested in this pivotal Civil War battle.

While all this detailed information will be on great interest to those who want to study what happened in Gettysburg in minute detail, I really think the chief utility of this particular volume is for the war gamming enthusiast who wants to give Pickett's Charge a second chance at taking the Bloody Angle on Cemetery Ridge. I have used these books to create a brigade level version of the Battle of Gettysburg using Sierra's Civil War 2 computer game and I suspect it would be of even greater use to those who have the massive Gettysburg board game. However, from the Union perspective I have discovered that once Pickett's Charge has been broken, you can stage a counterattack by Meade in hopes of destroying Lee's Army and effectively ending the Civil War in time for the Fourth of July. After all, Grant was taking Vicksburg at the same time and there would have been nothing to stop Meade from moving on to Richmond at that point. The Order of Battle books meet their objective in providing the most detailed information ever published about the great battles of history. In addition to Gettysburg this series has also covered the French & Indian War Battle of Quebec in 1759 and the World War II German counter-offensive at the Battle of the Ardennes in 1944. My prediction would be that they will turn to the Battle of Waterloo next, but we shall see (who would have predicted they would do the Battle of Quebec?).