A Concise Guide to the Artillery at Gettysburg
By Gregory A. Coco

Illustrated, glossary, softcover, 103 pp., 2007 second edition. Colecraft Industries, 970 Mt. Carmel Rd., Orrtanna, PA 17325, $9.95 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Jay Jorgensen
Jay Jorgensen is an attorney and municipal court judge in New Jersey. He is the author of Gettysburg's Bloody Wheatfield and The Wheatfield at Gettysburg: A Walking Tour. He also received his Master’s Degree in Military History - Civil War Studies from American Military University.

Review:
Colecraft Industries has published the second edition of A Concise Guide to the Artillery at Gettysburg. The book is written by Gregory A. Coco and was first published in 1998.

A well known and respected Gettysburg historian, Coco is the author of 16 books and several articles on the Civil War. He is a Licensed Battlefield Guide at the Gettysburg National Military Park.

True to its title, this book is indeed a concise guide to the Gettysburg artillery. There is an overview of the engagements of the Army of the Potomac as well as that of the Army of Northern Virginia. However, these accounts are very general in nature.

Detailed battle actions are not the purpose of this book. Rather, readers are given a corps by corps overall explanation of what units were engaged and how they fared during the battle. Most accounts for the corps units are two or three pages in length.

A section of the book provides a listing of all the units engaged, along with their respective strengths, casualties and armaments.

Finally, the author includes a description of the types of artillery guns present during the battle, as well as the ammunition used.

This book is a good handbook for people who are out walking the terrain at Gettysburg. It allows quick reference to general knowledge of the action. However, since the book’s original publication several books dealing with greater study of the artillery at Gettysburg have been published.

Readers seeking more in-depth knowledge would do well to consider reading Philip Cole’s Civil War Artillery at Gettysburg or Brad Gottfried’s The Artillery at Gettysburg. Nevertheless, Coco’s book is a nice companion piece to those works.