Buy on Amazon
View on Biblioguides
The Landmark series for children, both American and World, is a wonderful, with few exceptions, collection of books written in the 1950s and 1960s and published by Random House. The publisher chose well-known authors, some of whom were novelists and some of whom had not written for children before, and had a historical consultant for each title to make sure that the writing was accurate. There are 122 American Landmark books and 63 World Landmark books. The reading level is fairly broad, intended for upper elementary to early high school levels. The books were intended to convey sound history or biography but in such a manner as to not detract from the intrinsic interest of the story, as history textbooks often do, but to bring out the fascination and drama of the history or historical character being discussed. History is at heart a series of stories, especially at this level, and should be told as such. For the overwhelming majority of the 185 titles, this effort was successful.
Number 23 in the American Landmark book series is Gettysburg, by MacKinlay Kantor. I think that this may be the only pivotal battle in American history that can be referred to by only its name, not “The Battle of Something.” and everyone knows what is meant. I grew up in Pennsylvania, so of course the battle of Gettysburg in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, was seen as the pivotal battle of the American Civil War, which in some respects it was. But what is often overlooked is that the city of Vicksburg, Mississippi fell to General Grant on about the same day, July 4, 1863. While Gettysburg was indeed the pivotal battle of the Eastern Theater of the Civil War, Vicksburg was the pivotal battle of the Western Theater of the same war. In any event, this review is about Gettysburg, not Vicksburg!
MacKinlay Kantor was a journalist and novelist who won the 1956 Pulitzer Prize for his novel Andersonville, which was set in the infamous Confederate prison camp. His experiences seeing the liberated concentration camps in Germany at the end of World War II prepared him to write this powerful novel. Kantor was a good selection by Random House to write Gettysburg, since he was an accomplished author who knew how to tell a good story and he knew a lot about the Civil War. In almost any war, unless a battle is fought at a major city, which fixes the battle’s location, major battles don’t just happen. There are always many events and choices that lead up to a giant clash of armies. Gettysburg shows all that and also gives a background for the war that helps the reader understand the significance of the battle. However, the role of the personal is not neglected – generals, politicians, and common soldiers are human, with all their human virtues and faults.
My family and I have often visited the Gettysburg battlefield and toured the town. Probably the most famous event of the battle was Pickett’s Charge, the ill-fated attempt by General Robert Lee to win the battle on the final day. General Pickett’s name is associated with the charge since his division made up most of the 15,000 attacking Confederate soldiers. When our boys were little, we watched them, with their Confederate hats hanging on their toy sabers, running across where Pickett’s charge ended up at the Union lines. Our daughters were Union sympathizers and we had to warn the children during our Civil War unit study not to re-fight the Civil War at our dinner table! The American Civil War is indeed over but its profound effects are still lasting – Gettysburg helps the reader to understand a key piece of this history. I hope everyone can visit the battlefield someday but at least they can read this Landmark book.
I want to recommend two further possibilities for the reader who becomes fascinated by the history that is told in the Landmark book, Gettysburg. There is a wonderful movie, also called Gettysburg, which dramatizes the story of the battle by focusing on Colonel Joshua Chamberlain and his 30th Maine regiment, whose gallantry saved the day for the Union at the defense of the key position of Little Round Top. For those who want to go beyond a simple re-telling of the battle’s events and understand the importance of generals’ choices, there is a trilogy of books by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen (Gettysburg: A Novel of the Civil War, Grant Comes East, and Never Call Retreat), about how the Civil War might have gone if Lee had retreated at Gettysburg instead of carrying out Pickett’s Charge. Gingrich and Forstchen are both history professors and accomplished writers. Gingrich was also the Speaker of the House of Representatives and Forstchen is a successful writer of speculative fiction.