Seen The Glory: a novel of The Battle of Gettysburg
By John Hough Jr.
(October 2009 Civil War News)

Novel, 420 pp., 2009. Simon & Schuster, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020, $25 plus shipping.

Seen The Glory is the story of brothers Luke and Thomas Chandler who are from Martha’s Vineyard in Massachusetts. Both intelligent and well educated they chose to join the Union Army in order to fight against slavery. At home, their father was a physician, their mother dead, and the family was assisted by a free black woman, Rose.

The boys enlisted following the fiasco at Fredericksburg, joining the 20th Massachusetts Infantry, also known as the Harvard Regiment, due to the number of officers in the ranks who had attended that bastion of higher education.
As indicated by the title, the book focuses on the campaign and battle of Gettysburg where the regiment was sorely bloodied.

The story wanders back and forth between Martha’s Vineyard and the campaign and battle. The family protects Rose’s integrity, as she is disliked or ignored by the island’s populace.

This protection grows into love for both Luke and Thomas. Luke, being the oldest, ends up with the prize, though for just a short time.

On the field both boys wonder about their ability to see the elephant but both perform as soliders should. The author goes into some good detail about how the soldiers lived and got along  (or didn’t).

The description of the battle on July 3 is excellent. I’m not going to say anything about the ending except to indicate that it is kind of a shocker.

Author John Hough has does his homework, placing the regiment in the right places at the right times and describing the actions it took part in. This reviewer only found a couple of glitches and they were not enough to take away from the overall story.

The writing is crisp a vivid and I don’t remember seeing a typo. Personally I would have liked to have seen a little less loving and a lot more shooting.

Does this volume do for the 20th Massachusetts what The Killer Angles did for the 20th Maine? No, but it still tells a very good story. For all you Civil War novel buffs out there I highly recommend this book.

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.