The Gettysburg Battlefield: The Union Regimental Commanders Who Were Casualties in the Battle
By Ethan F. Bishop
(December 2008 Civil War News)

Illustrated, bibliography, index, 343 pp., 2008. Heritage Books, 100 Railroad Ave. #104, Westminster, MD 21157, $32 plus shipping.

Reviewer: Blake A. Magner
Blake A. Magner is the Book Review Editor of Civil War News. He makes his living as an editor, writer, cartographer and photographer of Civil War history. He is author of At Peace With Honor: The Civil War Burials of Laurel Hill Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Review:
Readers of Gettysburg history pretty much know what happened to the higher-level commanders in the battle. But what about the regimental commanders? Ethan Bishop in his new volume answers such questions, providing us with an excellent overview of the wounding and deaths or capture of the men who led regiments during the fighting.

The volume is divided into sections giving information on the brigades’ arrival on the battlefield as well as their movements during the fighting. The author follows this with information on regimental commanders who became casualties.

Each of these sections contains the commander’s name and unit, age, a brief biography, where he was wounded and later treated, the regimental monument site, the date of death of each commander and where he was interred. Many sections are expanded with photographs of the wounding site, where the commander was treated and cemetery monument where available.

 Not every individual has a complete listing of this information, in many cases simply because it is not available. The information contained in the volume includes the wounding of such notables as John Bigelow, Frederick Cavada, Alonzo Cummings, Augustus V. H. Ellis, Louis Francine, Charles E. Hazlett, Harrison Jeffords, Patrick O’Rorke and Paul Revere, just to name a few.

There are a couple of mistakes in the book, with the author having Col. Chapman Biddle being buried in Laurel Hill Cemetery in Philadelphia and also across the street in St. James the Less Cemetery in the same city (he is buried in Laurel Hill). In addition he has Jeffrey D. West writing Gettysburg: Day Three. It is actually Jeffry D. Wert. There may be more, but this reviewer did not find any and feels that the volume was well researched and written.

The book closes with an Order of Battle which lists the corps, brigades and regiments, listing the regimental commanders and their woundings.

This is the first volume in a series to be written by the author. The Union Regimental Commanders is an excellent resource on the regimental commanders who became casualties during the battle. I would recommend it to all readers of CWN and Gettysburg buffs as a whole.