A Strange and Blighted Land -- Gettysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle
by Gregory A. Coco
Walt Whitman once wrote, "The real war will never get in the books." He may have felt differently had he ever read A Strange and Blighted Land -- Gettysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle. An exhaustive compilation of first-hand accounts of the Gettysburg battlefield in the days, weeks, and months following the fight, this book goes a long way toward capturing the true pity and terror of the Civil War.
Gregory Coco goes beyond the usual
sources to bring us little-known accounts from soldiers and civilians, doctors
and nurses, Good Samaritans who came to help the wounded and the dying, and
callous souls who came to gawk and profit from the most gory spectacle ever
seen on the continent. The result is a heartbreaking story of the human misery
caused by war.
While sometimes harrowing to read, the book offers a wealth of detail on how the town of Gettysburg, a small hamlet of 2,400 people, coped with the enormous problem of burying 7,000 dead and caring for 20,000 wounded men abandoned by both armies. Coco tells us about the initial burial trenches on the fields and farms where the struggle took place, then takes us on a tour of the vast hospitals that surrounded Gettysburg. You will learn about Camp Letterman, a unique central Army hospital where the most seriously injured men, both Union and Confederate, received tender, humane care.
The author discusses how both armies coped with the large number of prisoners taken during the battle and chronicles their sometimes surprising experiences. Finally, he describes the citizens' drive to clean up the town, create Gettysburg National Cemetery, and send the Confederate dead home in the decade after the battle.
This is a splendid book about one of the most terrible events in our nation's history. I highly recommend it for anyone who seeks to understand the battle of Gettysburg and the human cost of the Civil War.
A Strange and Blighted Land -- Gettysburg: The Aftermath of a Battle is available from Thomas Publications, P.O. Box 3031, Gettysburg, PA 17325. Please contact them for details.
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