Coddington

I've been taking my book "The Gettysburg Campaign; A Study in Command" by Edwin Coddington to work with me just about every day. Slowly but surely, I have been going through the notes at the end of the book.

First thing that I should say about this book is that even though I love the subject matter, I find the book very, very dry. There is just no excitement. Everything is presented in a matter of fact manner. Now, with that said, I LOVE this book. Unbelievable isn't it??? I have never read this book through from cover to cover....but I have read every single chapter in this book a number of times. This book is considered the "Bible" of the Licensed Battlefield Guides.

One of the juicy treats that you can find in this book is at the end of it: 200+ pages of notes about the body of the text. Reading the book and the notes at the exact same time is really hard and I admire anyone who is able to do it. What I have been doing is reading a chapter and then going into the back and reading the notes on that particular chapter. There are some real gems in these notes. The footnotes of history are almost better than the history itself.

Right now, I'm reading about the advance of the armies with them heading into Gettysburg. They are working their way slowly towards battle. The details of the advancement of these armies is wonderful. I can almost follow each corps from each army work their way north. Here is a little bit from Chapter 6: "Preparations to meet the invasion were by no means confined to the large cities, and people in the rural areas of Pennsylvania also took measures to protect their property if and when the rebels should come their way. As early as June 15 Couch had warned the residents of the Cumberland Valley of the possibility of a Confederate advance, and he advised the farmers to run off their horses to places of safety. Many banded together and sent hundreds of their best animals to the mountains or across the Susquehanna. Others his them in obscure nooks on their property. In desperation one farmer sought to save his bid gray from seizure by putting him in the basement of his house which was quite a feat. Other livestock, food supplies, harness's, wagons, and similar items were secreted in lofts and haystacks, for everyone feared the rebels would appropriate all they saw for their own use, and what they could not use they would destroy. Shopkeepers in the small towns, equally worried about what the Confederates would do, began to ship their most valuable merchandise to Harrisburg and other cities farther east."

This is interesting stuff.....and this isn't exactly a dry part of the book, but it is a good example of what the book is like.

For those of you who like to learn about the Battle of Gettysburg, I highly recommend this book. If you find that you can't sit down and read the entire book....cover to cover, then do it like I do: a chapter at a time....over the course of a few months. But by all means, read this book!