Gettysburg by Newt Gingrich and William Forstchen

Gettysburg, a novel by former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and science fiction writer William Forstchen, begins with an old man, weary of war and worn out by life’s tragedies, riding his horse near the encamped Army of Northern Virginia in the Cumberland Valley. It is late June, 1863, and the Confederates are on the march north, to destroy the Union Army of the Potomac once and for all and end the war that has been raging for over two years.

The man is Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, known affectionately as “Marse Robert”, loved by his men, respected by both sides. He has already seen more death than he would care to think. His daughter. His “strong right arm” Stonewall Jackson. Uncounted numbers of men in gray who have given their lives by his command. And there will be more, he knows, before the peace is won.

One can be forgiven if Gettysburg is meant to cover the same ground that Michael Shaara did in his outstanding Killer Angels. But Gingrich and Forstchen have another purpose in mind. They are not writing a history novel, but an alternate history.

The fact that Gettysburg is alternate history is not really apparent until the scenes depicting the morning of the second day of the battle. In the history in which we live, Lee sent Longstreet’s Division against the left flank of the Union Army. Thanks largely to the heroic stand of the 20th Maine Regiment under Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain, that attack was repulsed. But Lee, thinking that it was a near run thing, hurtled Pickett’s Division against the Union center with the horrific results history has recorded.

But in the novel, Lee listens to another strategy proposed by General Longstreet. Fix the Union Army in place by a small part of the Army of Northern Virginia. Take the bulk of the Confederate Army south, swing round, and cut off the Union Army from its supply lines. That was what Stonewall Jackson would have done.

In real history Lee rejected Longstreet’s proposal. In the novel, he accepts it.