by Patrick Brennan and Dylan Brennan
El Dorado Hills, Ca.: Savas Beatie, 2025. Pp. vi, 222.
Illus., maps. index. $37.50. ISBN:1611217296
Completing an Innovative Use of Images Telling the Story of GettysburgThe final volumes of the Brennans’ three-volume study of the Gettysburg campaign and its niche in history makes extensive use of hundreds of images of soldiers, places, battles, and more, all in color. The original black and white photographs and engravings have been electronically rendered into color, while paintings of the events are rendered in their original colors. This approach rather "invigorates" our perception of the events, giving us a more realistic mental image of what the people places, and events actually looked like.
Every page has one or more images, and often clear, well-constructed maps, that provide close ups of many moments of the clash between Union and Confederate troops. The first volume covered the opening of the campaign, from the Battle of at Brandy Station on June 9, 1863, to the fighting at Gettysburg on July 2nd. The second volume, covers events from the 2nd through the final act at Falling Waters on the 14th. This final volume, with eight chapters and an index, but no bibliography, carries the history of the battlefield and the national military park from the end of the battle through the eve of World War II. This covers the major reunions of 1888 and 1913, the establishment of the National Cemetery, the monument movement, the creation of Camp Colt in 1918, the Marine Corps reenactment of 1921, and the final reunion on the 75th anniversary in 1938 with President Franklin D. Roosevelt in attendance.
One of the most interesting parts of the book is the discussion of how it came to be, as a sort of family project, involving not just Patrick and Dylan. Some other family members collected and digitized images, removing modern intrusions, while others navigated the complex world of digital rights, designed the look of the maps, and carefully critiqued every image, to draw out what might be learned from it. Then, “the Brennans used an artificial intelligence based computerized color identifier to determine the precise color of uniforms, flesh, hair, equipment, terrain, houses, and much more”, wrapping it all up with a well-researched account of the Gettysburg Campaign.
This reviewer was thrilled and amazed by the inventiveness, audacity, and dedication that went into this living color work that follows Billy Yank and Johnny Reb through the battle, and recommends it highly.
---///---
Our Reviewer: David Marshall has been a high school American history teacher in the Miami-Dade School district for more than three decades. A life-long Civil War enthusiast, David is president of the Miami Civil War Round Table Book Club. In addition to numerous reviews in Civil War News and other publications, he has given presentations to Civil War Round Tables on Joshua Chamberlain, Ulysses S. Grant, Abraham Lincoln, the Battle of Gettysburg, and the common soldier. His previous reviews here include, The Cassville Affairs, Holding Charleston by the Bridle, The Maps of Second Bull Run, Hell by the Acre, Chorus of the Union, Digging All Night and Fighting All Day, The Confederate Resurgence of 1864, Building a House Divided, Feeding Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, A Grand Opening Squandered, “No One Wants to be the Last to Die”, A Campaign of Giants, The Battle for Petersburg, Vol. 2, The Sixth Wisconsin and the Long Civil War, Gettysburg: The Tide Turns, The Second Manassas Campaign, and Fighting for Philadelphia: Forts Mercer and Mifflin, the Battle of Whitemarsh, and the Road to Valley Forge, Exceptionalism in Crisis, The 14th New York State Militia in the Civil War, Volume 1, and From Camp David Douglas to Vicksburg.
---///---
Note: Gettysburg In Color, Sacred Ground, 1863-1938: Volume 3, is also available in e-editions.
StrategyPage reviews are published in cooperation with The New York Military Affairs Symposium
www.nymas.org