Historic Photos of Gettysburg [Hardcover]

John S Salmon (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 206 pages
• Publisher: Turner (May 1, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596523239
• ISBN-13: 978-1596523234
• Product Dimensions: 10.1 x 10.1 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #966,274 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent photo anthology, but with a few caveats, July 9, 2007

By 

Scott Mingus "Scott L. Mingus, Sr." (York County, PA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Historic Photos of Gettysburg (Hardcover)

John S. Salmon has assembled an excellent collection of some of the most famous photographs of the historic Gettysburg, Pennsylvania battlefield and town, most taken with a couple of decades after the July 1863 battle. Included are some of the very best photographs, including some of the studies of dead soldiers, pictures of the key buildings and locations, early battlefield monumentation, and the various reunions of the veterans. The book is a very useful addition to the Civil War library and would make a fine "coffee table book" for display and browsing. The photo collection is varied and insightful, and the breadth of the pictures selected allows the reader to get a good feel for early photography at the battlefield and environs.

The author includes brief captions for the photos, and that is where I have some minor issues with the book. Hopefully in a second edition, some glaring errors in these captions will be corrected. For example, Zacharia Taney should be Zephaniah according to most local accounts (page 25); a barn on page 84 is portrayed as the Nicholas Codori farm (recent research has shown that this photo is actually a different barn, one that was behind the Dobbin House closer to town), and on page 74, the author incorrectly states that a grave belongs to W. Williams, Company B, 24th Michigan Cavalry should be the 24th Michigan Infantry. There are a few other nagging little nits as well in other captions.

That being said, the photos are the prize of the book. It is easily on the of the best anthologies of Gettysburg photographs in terms of overall scope. The poorly researched captions are not enough of a distraction to prevent me from recommending this book, especially if corrected in a second edition.

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Most interesting photos taken shortly after the battle through the 50th and 75th anniversaries, June 20, 2007

By 

Craig Matteson (Saline, MI) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Historic Photos of Gettysburg (Hardcover)

We have all seen the usual photos of Gettysburg. Little Round Top, Big Round Top, the fiftieth anniversary handshake across the stone wall, and so forth. However, this collection has a couple of hundred photographs that include pictures taken within days and weeks of the actual battle. Rather than seeing a movie reconstruction, we can see the stone walls piled up or the fieldworks created by the soldiers themselves.

The text of the book, by John S. Salmon, is also quite helpful. He helps us understand how some of the more famous shots of, say, a sharpshooter's body behind stone wall created for the battle, was actually a constructed shot. In another, a terribly damaged corpse was said to be that of a soldier killed by artillery, but the author says that subsequent analysis indicates that he was probably killed by rifle fire and his body damaged by rummaging hogs. His text about the fiftieth and seventy-fifth reunions is also very helpful and quite interesting.

The pictures are printed in a large format and reward close observation. We can see detail and things in these pictures that we don't get from any dramatization of these events. They make a wonderful resource in addition to and as a complement to the many great words written about this very important battle in the history of the Civil War (or whatever you prefer to call that war).

What a fascinating book!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A 'must read' title for all Civil War enthusiasts and students., July 8, 2007

By 

Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Historic Photos of Gettysburg (Hardcover)

A former archivist at the Library of Virginia and retired from a career as a staff historian with the Virginia Department of Historic Resources, John S. Salmon draws upon the photographic archives of the Library of Congress, the Pennsylvania State Archives, and the Gettysburg National Military Park Library to compiled "Historic Photos Of Gettysburg". The result is an impress 216-page compendium of historic and period photographs visually documenting the American Civil War conflict known as the Battle of Gettysburg and fought out between the Army of the Potomac (Union forces led by Major General George G. Mead) and the Army of Northern Virginia (Confederate forces led by General Robert E. Lee) from July 1 to July 3, 1863 in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. This three-day engagement is considered by Civil War historians to have been the bloodiest battle of the entire four year conflict. The battle was a turning point in the Civil War and stopped Lee's invasion of the North. With captions and text by historian John Salmon, "Historic Photos Of Gettysburg" features some two hundred black-and-white photographs (many of them published here for the first time), making this unique volume a critically important addition to community and academic library American Civil War Studies reference collections, and a 'must read' title for all Civil War enthusiasts and students.