Gettysburg Day 2 In Soldiers’ Word Reviewed by Jason M. Frawley
“Stand to It and Give Them Them Hell”: Gettysburg as the Soldiers Experienced it From Cemetery Ridge Ridge to Little Round Top, July 2, 1863. By John Michael Priest. Maps photos, notes, index, 528 pp., 201
Gettysburg is one of the most over-studied topics in American ap history. Massive tomes and concentrated essay collections have been published on each of the three day
of the great battle, and literally sands of books and articles have o been written on the overall cam- t paign. Despite the crowded field, both ambitious academics and eager enthusiasts continue their efforts
leave their marks on Gettysburg’s historiography. While the prospects may seem co dim for saying anything new about
recently published his second mono graph on Gettysburg. His first was Into the Fight: Pickett’s Charge a
Gettysburg (2002). His most recent installment is “Stand to It and Give tysburg as the Solienced it From Cemetery Round Top, July 2,
A retired high school history Priest has published a books on other Civil War campaigns and battles, and according to Edwin C. Bearss, he has distinguished himself as the Ernie TPyle of Civil War soldiers, given his his is unlike any other Gettysburg book you will ever read. Instead of a dry recitation
facts, “Stand to It and Give Them Hell”: Gettysbur penchant for presenting history from the Soldiers Experienced it from Cemetery Ridge to
Round Top, July 2, 1863 chronicles the desperate
marching, fighting, command decisions, and sufferi their perspective. as depicted in the letters, memoirs, diaries, and
postwar recollections of the men from both armies who struggled to control that “hallowed ground.” T Priest’s rank-and-file approach invaluable methodology uses the words of those who lived these events to paint a rich tapestry of per continues in “Stand to It and Give courage, cowardice, failures, and triumphs. John Michael Priest, dubbed the “Ernie Pyle” the Civil War soldier by legendary historian Edwin Them Hell.” As he notes on the T FROM
C. Bearss, wrote this book to help readers 2, 1863 understand and experience, as closely as possible book’s opening page, this “is the stothrough the written word, the stress, exhaustion, suffering, and sheer terror of that fateful day in Pennsylvania. Readers of all interest levels will ry of what happened from Cemetery deeper appreciation of the personal sacrifice made privates and generals alike. The hundreds of word portraits are supported Ridge to the Round Tops on July 2, by 58 detailed original maps, most on the regiment level. In addition to illustrating the tremendous 1863, from the perspective of the troop congestion in the Wheatfield, the Peach Orchard, and Devil’s Den, they accurately establis
by regiment or by company, the extent of the Feder men who fought there.” skirmish line from Ziegler’s Grove to the Slyder farm, and portray the final Confederate push again Priest makes it clear that he began the Codori farm and the center of Cemetery Ridge,
against which three Confederate divisions (in what popularly known as Pickett’s Charge) would his work “with no specific goal or unsuccessfully attack on the final day of fighting July 3.
“Stand to It and Give Them Hell” is a book ab thesis in mind except to learn more combat as seen through the eyes of those who waged it. There is no glamour here, and no adventure. No about the action as seen through the are there accusations, axes to grind, or second-
guessing from the comfort of an easy chair. Instea Priest’s most ambitious book offers the brutal, he eyes of the men who were there,” wrenching story of a slice of America’s greatest b as described by those who marched, fought, bled, and he has “no proverbial ‘axe to and died there. These are their stories, and ones will long remember. grind,’ no cause to defend, and no underlying agenda.” While some readers will be disfind that the book is by a compelling thesis, ke for a stirring narrative mmon soldiers’ experiences
he southern end of the battlefield d day of fighting at Getch to be fair is Priest’s . Somewhat disorienting is Priest’s n to break up his chapters into
vignettes. For example, Chapter Eight, a 37-page chapter that from 4 p.m. to 5 p.m., into 29 subsections. The
ile such an approach might on the silver screen given f commonly employed film
transitions, it could make for a be wildering read for the uninitiated. “Stand to It and Give Them Hell” is packed with great information an wonderful anecdotes, but someone relatively new to Gettysburg should probably start with something less dense and with fewer abrupt shifts the narrative. One thing that is very evident i Priest’s passion for his subject. H attention to detail, demonstrated
er is also quite impressive as even cursory glance through his bibliogr
Again, while readers should prob ably begin their journey into the
study of Gettysburg with Allen C. Guelzo’s Gettysburg: The Last In-
ton’s The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command (1968), and while
one may prefer the organization and style of Harry W. Pfanz’s exhaustiv
Gettysburg: The Second Day (1998) if interested in those specific eve there is much to appreciate about a to learn from “Stand to It and Give Them Hell,” especially pertaining t the common soldiers’ experience.
Jason M. Frawley, Ph.D., is a history professor at Tarrant County College, Northwest Campus, in Fort Worth, Texas. He most recently published a chapter on the Battle of Port Gibson in Steven E. Woodworth and Charles D.
March 29-May 18, 1863, and he continues to conduct research
Confederate soldiers and Union civilians during the Gettysburg Campaign.
By Stephen Davis Yellow fever, Pathol. A dangerous often fatal, infectious febrile dise
of warm climates, due to a filterabl virus transmitted by a mosquito. Yellow fever in the United States was not a Southern phenomenon; it struck the capital, Philadelphia, in 1793. But the disease provoked widespread scares in Southern coastal cities throughout the nineteenth century. A yellow fever outbreak in New Orleans in 1853 killed nearly 8,000 people.
In 1867 another, much slighter epidemic struck New Orleans, which by that time had become home to ex-Confederate general John Bell Hood. And not only to Hood, but to a whole slew of other former high-ranking Confederates. G. T. Beauregard arrived a month after the war. Simon B. Buckner joined the staff of the New Orleans Crescent in October 1865 and later became a commission merchant. Jo-
Hood’s cavalry at Atlanta, managed a hardware and carriage business.
James Longstreet became a cotton factor; Braxton Bragg arrived in ear ly 1867 and also found work. Randall Gibson, who had led a brigade in Hood’s army, arrived in the city practice law. New Orleans had been prewar home to Richard Taylor and Harry Hays; they both came back as well. There were many ex-Confederates living in New Orleans, all strugglin to make a living. At first Hood foun work in Texas land speculation, then turned to buying and selling cotton. In 1869 he turned to insurance, a calling which allowed him a comfortable income throughout most of the 1870s. In April 1868, Hood married Anna Marie Hennen, the well-educated daughter of a prominent Louisiana family. The couple moved into a nice home in New Orleans’ fashionable Garden District and started a family Did they ever. After their first child, Lydia, born in May 1879, ten more came in just a decade. As their family grew in size, the number of the Hoods’ children became the talk of New Orleans. After the birth of the third set of twins in October 1876, a resident of the city wrote the former general, expressing his appreciation of “your most laudable and successful endeavors to increase
View of the Hennen family tomb in Me Orleans. the population, and thereby indirect to add to the general prosperity of State.”1 The last of “Hood’s brigade”—as some dubbed the familial brood—as
A few months later fever struck New Orleans. The Hoods determined not
to leave the city—a fateful decision On August 22 Hood’s wife fell ill
and died two days later. A grieving Bell (as he signed his loving letter
to Anna) remarked that he expected to “be taken and go down.”2
day, the 28th, he told his physician Dr. Samuel Bemiss, “Doctor, if you cannot overcome the enemy, do not try any experiments.” Later that day there seemed to be some improvement in his condition. “Doctor,” he told Bemiss, “I believe that we have routed the enemy.”3 In this, however, Hood was wrong. Shortly after his eldest daughter Ly ia died of the fever at noon of the 29th, Hood became delirious. Like Jackson and others, his mind re-
those stores taken from my own commissary,” he once called out.4 He
regained lucidity enough to explain his hope that veterans of the Hood’s Texas Brigade Association might see to the care of the ten surviving children. Then he slipped back into unconsciousness. The New Orleans Picayune claimed that in his last hours the dying soldier was “giving orders to his columns engaged in the battle flame and smoke.”5 At 3:30 in the morning of August 30 Hood died. He was 48. Today a visit to New Orleans’ Metairie Cemetery leads one to the Hen nen family mausoleum, at which one reads the simple inscription (which, by the way, misspells Hood’s birthplace of Owingsville, Kentucky): GEN. JOHN BELL HOOD, C.S.A. BORN IN OWENSVILLE, KY. JUNE 29, 1831 DIED AUGUST 30, 18796 The general is buried there with his wife Anna, daughter Lydia, and three of the ten Hood “orphans” who were taken in by foster parents afte the parents’ deaths: Ethel Genevieve
In recent years memorializers hav placed a plaque there, dedicated on August 30, 2003. Its text, written by Stephen M. (“Sam”) Hood of Huntington W.Va., reads:
A small granite stone, also of rec mausoleum, thus inscribed:
But the half of brave Hood’s The rest was lost in ho Both limbs and fame he sca
Yet still, though mangled, wa For ever ready with h War left him nothing whole—
General John Bell Hood, C.S.A. hn Bell Hood was born June 29, 1831, in Owingsville, Kentucky, and was reared in Mt. Sterling, Kentucky. After graduating from West int in 1853, he served in the elite U.S. 2nd Cavalry Regiment on the
Texas frontier. In 1861, he joined the Confederate Army. He was
romoted to brigadier general in 1862 and commanded the renowned Hood’s Texas Brigade under Gen. Robert E. Lee at the important
Confederate victories at Gaines’ Mill (Seven Days Battles) and 2nd Manassas (Battle of 2nd Bull Run). He held the critical Confederate
left flank at Miller’s Cornfield at Antietam, after which he was promoted to major general by Thomas J. “(“Stonewall”) Jackson. In
Chickamauga, Georgia, Hood was again severely wounded and lost
his right leg. Promoted to lieutenant general by Gen. James ongstreet, he returned to duty in 1864 in North Georgia under Gen. Joseph Johnston, as corps commander. He succeeded Johnston as ommander of the Army of Tennessee and was temporarily promoted to full general in July 1864. In November, in an unsuccessful tempt to draw Union Gen. William T. Sherman from his March to the Sea, Hood led the Army of Tennessee in an invasion of that state. After decisive defeats at Franklin and Nashville, he retreated to Tupelo, Mississippi. In January 1865, he resigned command. surrendered to Union authorities at Natchez, Mississippi, on May 31 865. After the war, Hood set up residence in New Orleans, where on ril 30, 1868, he married Anna Marie Hennen, with whom he fathered 1 children. He died of yellow fever on August 30, 1879, within days
of his wife and eldest child. Seven families in 5 different state
adopted the surviving orphans. Hood was buried in the Garden strict’s Lafayette Cemetery, but was moved to this location in 1927.
ennen family tomb where Hood and some of his relatives are interred.
General John Bell Hood (El Dorado Hills CA, 2015), 21
John P. Dyer, The Gallant Hood (Indianapolis, 1950),
315 (“Hood’s brigade”); Ri ard M. McMurry, John Bell
down”). “Death of Gen. J. B. Hood, New Orleans Picayune, Aug. 31, 1879. Dyer, Gallant Hood, 318. “Death of Gen. J. B. Hood. Richard Owen, & James Owen, Generals at Rest: th Grave Sites of the 425 Off Confederate Generals (Ship pensburg PA, 1997), 96. Brian Craig Miller, John B
