Protecting the Flanks: The Battles for Brinkerhoff's Ridge and East Cavalry Field, Battle of Gettysburg, July 2-3, 1863 (Discovering Civil War America)

Award-winning historian Eric J. Wittenberg has written a comprehensive sudy of the critical actions on Brinkerhoff's Ridge and East Cavalry Field, fought on July 2 and 3, 1863. In these actions, Union Brig. Gen. David M. Gregg's Second Cavalry Division fought two protracted and important actions along the Union right flank. The fight for Brinkerhoff's Ridge, although relatively small in numbers, prevented the legendary Stonewall Brigade from participating in the Confederate assaults on Culp's Hill, perhaps tipping the balance in the struggle for the hill. Wittenberg presents a new and controversial theory for why Maj. Gen. JEB Stuart's Confederate cavalry appeared on Cress Ridge on East Cavalry Field on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. After a long and bloody dismounted fight, Brig. Gen. George Armstrong Custer's Michigan Cavalry Brigade helped to repulse a massed mounted charge by three brigades of Southern horsemen, securing the Union right flank, and helping to clinch the Northern victory at Gettysburg. Wittenberg weaves the stories of soldiers together with a keen understanding of the terrain and presents a compelling story that features six fine maps by John C. Heiser and forty illustrations. The book also includes a driving tour guide of the Brinkerhoff's Ridge and East Cavalry Field battlefields that includes an additional twenty photographs of modern-day views of these sites. This book is a must for all Gettysburg and cavalry buffs. Volume One of the Discovering Civil War America series.