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Ten Civil War bloggers (including me) are listing their own top 10 Gettysburg books over the course of the three day anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. The idea is to take these lists and combine them into one comprehensive list which will serve as a nice "go to page" for those looking to get into the study of the Battle of Gettysburg. Feel free to add your own Top 10 Gettysburg books in the comments section here and at the link provided!

The bloggers participating include:

Ethan Rafuse of Civil Warriors
Mark Grimsley of Civil Warriors
Eric Wittenberg of Rantings of a Civil War Historian
Drew Wagenhoffer of Civil War Books and Authors
John Hoptak of The 48th Pennsylvania Infantry/Civil War Musings
Harry Smeltzer of Bull Runnings
Craig Swain of To the Sound of the Guns
Nick Kurtz of Battlefield Wanderings
Chris Wehner of Blog 4 History
Brett Schulte of TOCWOC - A Civil War Blog

Thanks for the info Brett. Have looked at the responses to date and haven't seen Gottfried's (sp?) Maps of Gettysburg listed yet. This was excellent reference material for my last (and future) Gettysburg battlefield tramps.

oldspec4 wrote:Thanks for the info Brett. Have looked at the responses to date and haven't seen Gottfried's (sp?) Maps of Gettysburg listed yet. This was excellent reference material for my last (and future) Gettysburg battlefield tramps.

I agree that book is excellent. I'm excited for the whole "Maps of..." series from Savas Beatie.

Agree re: the Savas Beatie maps series... I gotta have beaucoup maps to really understand the battlefield.

All,

Every bloggers' top 10 Gettysburg books list is posted now. Mine, which was the last, went up this morning:

Brett's Top 10 Gettysburg Books

Thanks for the very timely and informative link, Brett. I'm headed up there in a couple weeks and see some titles I may need to pick up before then. This will be my first visit to the new Visitor Center and with Gottfried's " The Maps of Gettysburg" along for the trip.

Not surprised at all to see Coddington and Pfanz on most of the lists; those are excellent at almost any level of study. Killer Angels too - maybe this will inspire you to read it?

One that you listed that I was surprised was not on more lists was the Bachelder Papers volumes; wow what a wealth of original source material he put together.

In fact, now that I look again at your list I would probably agree with your top 3 and would also have "Regimental Strengths and Losses" somewhere on my list.

I have the George R. Stewart "Pickett's Charge" but not any of the others mentioned. This and the "Retreat from Gettysburg" title seem to be on the most lists, so I'll probably look these up first.

Has anyone compiled a "score" for titles appearing on the most lists or based on rankings that certain bloggers did? That would be interesting.

Thanks again for the info!

Mike,

You're welcome! I'll be posting a "score" type blog entry this coming Tuesday which ranks every book mentioned in order from 1 to 57(!) I'll try to post a link to that blog entry here once it's live.

Thanks Brett, I figured something like that had to already have been done or in the works... look forward to you linking it here.

BTW I should maybe clarify, when I said

I have the George R. Stewart "Pickett's Charge" but not any of the others mentioned.

I of course meant no other books dedicated to the charge itself. In fact just last week my wife asked me when I was going to get rid of some of my "old" Gettysburg books. You'd think after 20 years she'd know better!

All, the combined list is now up:

Top 10 Gettysburg Books - Combined Bloggers's List