Gettysburg: The True Account of Two Young Heroes in the Greatest Battle of the Civil War

Gr 7 Up—To enhance his account of this momentous battle, Martin draws on the memoirs of Tillie Pierce and Daniel Skelly, teen witnesses, as well of those of soldiers and officers who fought in it. He opens with Pierce's account of the Confederate advance on Gettysburg in the days preceding the fighting and then describes General Lee's strategy for a Confederate invasion of Union territory, the convergence of the armies around Gettysburg, the details of the three-day battle, and the devastation and carnage it left behind. He closes with analysis of Lincoln's Gettysburg Address and the importance of the battle and battlefield in American memory and identity. A postscript tells about the post-Civil War fates of major civilian and military characters. Martin writes well, integrating details with an accounting of human costs to combatants, townspeople, and the nation. He is objective about the conflicting war aims of the opposing sides and admiring of the bravery and sacrifices of the soldiers in both armies. Period photos and highly detailed maps supplement the text. Although this book includes Pierce's and Skelly's experiences, it is much more focused on the fighting than Tanya Anderson's Tillie Pierce: Teen Eyewitness to the Battle of Gettysburg (21st Century, 2013), which concentrates more on how townspeople and Pierce reacted to and survived the battle. Although superficially similar, the two books' perspectives are very1 different.—Mary Mueller, Rolla Public Schools, MO