All Roads Led to Gettysburg, Troy D. Harman
All Roads Led to Gettysburg, Troy D. Harman
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All Roads Led to Gettysburg
A New Look at the Civil War's Pivotal Campaign

Author: Troy D. Harman

Narrator: Tom Perkins

Unabridged: 8 hr 22 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: Tantor Media

Published: 03/14/2023

Synopsis

It has long been a trope of Civil War history that Gettysburg was an accidental battlefield. Troy D. Harman argues for a new interpretation: once Lee invaded Pennsylvania and the Union army pursued, a battle at Gettysburg was entirely predictable, perhaps inevitable.

Most Civil War battles took place along major roads, railroads, and waterways. And yet this perspective hasn't been fully explored when it comes to Gettysburg.

Moreover, once the battle started, Harman argues, the blue and gray fought tactically for the two creeks that mark the battlefield in the east and the west as well as for the roadways that led to Gettysburg from all points of the compass. This is a perspective often overlooked in many accounts of the battle, which focus on the high ground—the Round Tops, Cemetery Hill—as key tactical objectives.

Gettysburg Ranger and historian Troy Harman draws on a lifetime of researching the Civil War and more than thirty years of studying the terrain of Gettysburg and south-central Pennsylvania and northern Maryland to reframe the story of the Battle of Gettysburg. In the process he shows there's still much to say about one of history's most written-about battles.

About Troy D. Harman

Troy D. Harman has been a National Park Service ranger since 1984, including stints at Appomattox Court House National Historic Park, Mammoth Cave National Park, Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania National Military Park, and Independence National Historical Park. Since 1989 he has worked at Gettysburg National Military Park, where he has become one of the battlefield's most popular and engaging rangers, with a devoted following on PCN, the Pennsylvania Cable Network. Harman, who holds a doctorate in history from Lehigh University, has published numerous articles in various Civil War publications, has spoken to Civil War Round Tables and seminars around the country, and appears regularly on the Pennsylvania Cable Network. He is an adjunct professor at Penn State University. He lives near Gettysburg.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Kenneth

Like many I had always believed that the battle of Gettysburg happened around the town of Gettysburg because the Union troops needed shoes and the Confederate General Lee presumed it was a good a place as any other to attack. But the author shows beyond a doubt that both armies never spent more than......more

Goodreads review by Joseph

A fresh perspective on an often-overlooked aspect of the Gettysburg campaign, this volume fills a gap in Civil War literature. The author argues that Gettysburg wasn't a chance occurrence; the battle happened there because of the area's road, rail, and water connections. While I found the book to be......more

Goodreads review by Tim

An interesting take on the Battle of Gettysburg that I don't think quite hits the mark on it's arguments. The author argues that roads, railways and waterways played a much larger role in the Battle of Gettysburg than the conventional narrative of the battle gives credit to. I can certainly see the......more

Goodreads review by Joe

I enjoy Troy Harman’s revisionist takes on Gettysburg. Few can be said to have more knowledge than Harman on this particular subject. Here he dives into a much needed re-examination of the importance of roads, rail, and water in the Gettysburg campaign. In almost every major work on the battle with......more

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