If the South Won Gettysburg

© 1980 by Mark Nesbitt (concept by Paul S. Witt – whose signature is in the copy of the used book I bought)

This is a neat little book I bought down in Hilton Head last August on vacation, purely based on the cover artwork:

How could I resist a book such as this!

Anyway, it’s a short read – 197 pages, the last 26 being appendices: tactics, technology, the Confederate Constitution, army corps organization charts, and an index. I read it over two nights. In fact, I couldn’t put it down, really, and that’s always a bonus for a guy like me who has a thousand books on deck to read. It makes reading fun. Yes, this was a fun book.

According to his bio, Nesbitt first read about Gettysburg when he was eight. He eventually worked as a ranger at the battlefield for four years and has been passionate about it ever since. It shows. This little book is probably the best moment-by-moment play-by-play of the battle I’ve read. In short vignettes of half-a-page to a page-and-a-half, he clearly explains the lead-up to the Pennsylvanian invasion, the thinking of the generals, war councils, troop movements, and the actual combat. It was so simple to follow along I was actually amazed.

The best thing, though, is that it’s a mix of fact and speculation. And the demarcation line between the two is seamlessly crossed. I didn’t notice it, though, truth be told, it’s probably been five years since I read anything about Gettysburg, so the details of the battle have been lost to the mists of memory. That rusty creaky file cabinet between my ears. Perhaps I should have read up on the battle before reading If the South Won Gettysburg, but it didn’t take away from my enjoyment of it. Actually it was kind of challenging: where, exactly, in the battle does Nesbitt move from fact to fiction?

My guess is the final day. There’s no Pickett’s Charge, the cliché-tagged “high watermark of the South”, Lee’s failed attempt at smashing the Union line on Cemetery Ridge and the Round Tops using 18th-century tactics in a war quickly moving into the early 20th-century. So it must’ve occurred before then. There’s mention of Longstreet’s pincer plan, much like the movement used by Stonewall Jackson to win at Chancellorsville, being approved (I think) by Lee instead of declined, thus setting up the South’s killing blow – Jeb Stuart’s unimpeded cavalry ride south to assault, and ultimately take, the capital city of Washington.

Then the speculation flows. Lincoln and his cabinet flee the city, but no other northern city will take him. He winds up in Canada. Britain recognizes the Confederacy. But what interested me more was what could have happened further down the timestream. For instance, the authors believe slavery would have died out fifteen or so years after Southern independence for economic reasons which they explain. Also, due to big-E economics, the South would not suffer the morass of depression that an FDR-led North muddled in (due in large part that it was led by FDR – my conclusion, not the book’s). The continental United States would fracture into five nations: the USA, the CSA, the Republic of Texas, the Rocky Mountain States, and the Republic of California.

However, we don’t see the North supporting the Central Powers in the Great War (and possibly Nazi Germany) that I’ve read speculated elsewhere, nor do we see a Southern astronaut plant the Stars and Bars in the Sea of Tranquility.

But to me the best part of the book is the five short pages on Civil War tactics in the Appendix. How were battles fought? Strange, but in the two dozen or so books I’ve read on the subject, battlefield tactics were never straightforward explained to me. And now, care of If the South Won Gettysburg – 

1) Gain the high ground. If the enemy attacks, he’ll be tired climbing up after you. Also, easier to hide your reserve forces while he must show all his.

2) Remember when gaining the high ground not to silhouette yourself against the skyline.

3) Clear a field of fire in front of your position so the enemy must advance over open ground.

4) Create obstacles before your position to break the enemy’s formation while not giving him a chance of seek cover from your fire.

5) A position with a stream or river running before it is a bonus, as the enemy must advance through it and may be unable to return fire while doing so.

6) Secure your flanks – the “ends” of your line of firing. If you have a company of a hundred men in two lines, they have an alternating 50 weapons to fire with straight ahead. But if the enemy can attack the flank (the “side” of your line), you will only have at first two weapons to turn and fire upon him until and unless you reform the line. Securing the flank meant placing it against a hill or in the woods or at a river or water source where the enemy can’t get at it easily.

So, lots of interesting stuff packed into a small book you can read in two quick nights. Definitely worth seeking out.

Grade: solid A.