Gettysburg: The Last Invasion by Allen C. Guelzo is a work of nonfiction about the battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Guelzo writes about the human and environmental impact of this battle, and its importance as a tipping point in American history. Guelzo provides an idea of the massive amount of blood spilled during this iconic battle, accomplishing something new in a topic that has already been so vastly explored by historians over the last one-hundred-plus years.
The battle itself took place over the course of three days at the beginning of July 1863, over the fifteen-square-mile town of Gettysburg. The battle was fought by over 160,000 soldiers, which included somewhere in the vicinity of 10,000-30,000 slaves forced to fight for the Confederate army. Between both the Confederate and Union armies, a reported 5,747 people died during the battle of Gettysburg, with an additional 27,229 wounded and over 9,500 missing or captured. The battlefield wasn’t the only place where soldiers died though; fourteen percent of those men wounded died over the few months following this harrowing battle.
Guelzo combines graphic and emotional details to provide a detailed account of the battle. Guelzo himself is a Lincoln scholar. He
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According to Guelzo, Lee should have technically won the battle of Gettysburg. Even though Guelzo is no fan of Lee, he has little but admonition for Meade as well, stating that he was cautious and reactive, leading to his ineffectiveness. He also takes issue with the claim that others have made that the Civil War was the first modern or total war, stating that it was in line with nineteenth-century warfare and so was neither. He points out in support of this claim that the rifled musket was inaccurate and destructive. The amount of blood spilled in the battle of Gettysburg was, according to Guelzo, not a product of any modern