Torn Families: Death and Kinship at the Battle of Gettysburg

By Michael A. Dreese
Illustrated, notes, bibliography, index, hardcover, 224 pp., 2007. McFarland and Company Inc., Box 611, Jefferson, NC 28640, $45 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Jonathan A. Noyalas
Jonathan A. Noyalas is a history professor at Lord Fairfax Community College in Middletown, Va., and the author or editor of four books on Civil War era history.

Review:
The 19th-century European author Thomas Carlyle wrote that "history is the essence of innumerable biographies." Michael A. Dreese's Torn Families: Death and Kinship at the Battle of Gettysburg aptly reminds us of the significance of Carlyle's observation.

Dreese uses a form of collective biography to illustrate how the Civil War's bloodiest battle impacted soldiers, their families and Gettysburg's townspeople who answered humanity's call to care for suffering soldiers. Drawing on a sizable body of primary documents - letters, diaries, pension and military service records - Dreese recounts 68 stories of courage, sacrifice and jubilation.

Torn Families is organized thematically into eight chapters. The first three discuss how the battle impacted families; how fathers, mothers, and sweethearts responded to the horrible news of a loved one's wounding or death. For example, in the second chapter Dreese examines the heart-rending story of the 142nd Pennsylvania's Lt. Andrew Tucker who died on July 5 from wounds received during the battle's first day.

As news of the battle reached Tucker's hometown of Lewisburg, his mother Margery learned of her son's wounding. Soon she mobilized a number of the town's citizens, packed up supplies, and headed to Gettysburg. With intentions of caring for her son she was grief-stricken when she was taken to her son's "freshly made grave and its wooden headboard upon which his name and regiment were carefully etched."

The succeeding four chapters deal broadly with the experiences of siblings. Here the author discusses the joy of sibling reunions and the sorrow of brothers cut down in the prime of life. Among the tragic stories is the horrible fate of twin brothers G.A. and W.C. Jones of the 5th Texas who were killed within minutes of each other while assaulting Little Round Top.

Dreese closes Torn Families with a short chapter about soldiers who found themselves fighting on ground they once played upon as children and their reunions with family.

Intertwined in the soldiers' stories are the heroic tales of area civilians who committed countless selfless acts to alleviate suffering.

Among Gettysburg's civilian heroes is Dr. John W.C. O'Neal who not only cared for the wounded, but also recorded the locations of burials in the battle's aftermath. This was important work as O'Neal provided closure to beleaguered families who came to southern Pennsylvania to claim a loved one's remains.

Although engagingly and soundly written Torn Families contains some minor flaws. In discussing perhaps one of the more famous brother stories of Gettysburg, the 15th Alabama's John and William Oates, the author writes that Gen. Evander Law's Alabamians attacked "against the right flank of the Army of the Potomac." It was of course the left flank - Little Round Top.

In his discussion of Charles and William Goldsborough, brothers who fought on opposite sides, Dreese spends some time describing the Second Battle of Winchester. He places the strength of Gen. Robert H. Milroy's Union force at "5,000" when in reality the force exceeded 8,000. Careful editing and simple math would have corrected this error as on the following page Dreese accurately states that "Milroy lost half of his command, reporting 4,443 casualties."

Torn Families will not provide any new interpretations on Gettysburg and the author does not intend this volume to do so. He states in the Introduction that "the following pages will not add to this growing genre." While not changing the historiography Torn Families enhances our understanding of Gettysburg from a more personal perspective.

Serious Gettysburg buffs who can never get enough of one of this nation's most epic battles will most certainly want to add Dreese's newest volume to their collection.