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Originally Posted by SteveFromNY
I remember standing at the left flank of the Union line right where the 20th Maine was stationed and imagine Longstreet's Alabama unit coming up the hill. Quite moving, and something I would not have really appreciated unless I read the book.
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I think one thing that struck me after reading this book and revisiting G-burg was how small an area it was. I'd visited before and seen a ton of movies about it. I'd seen the dioramas/light shows that they have in so many battle sites but you really don't appreciate how close the opposing forces were. There were over 150,000 guys there in an area really smaller than TV between 466 and 466A, certainly 466 and 44. Literally 3 days of hell that could well have changed the world.
Manassas was the same way. The history books and the Errol Flynn type movies make it seem like these guys were miles apart when actually their camps were within a few hundred yards of each other at times. This was really up close and personal.