The Colors of Courage Gettysburg's Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War's Defining Battle

by Creighton, Margaret S

• ISBN13: 9780465014576
• ISBN10: 0465014577
• Edition: Reprint
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2006-07-04
• Publisher: Basic Books

Summary

In the summer of 1863, as Union and Confederate armies converged on southern Pennsylvania, the town of Gettysburg found itself thrust onto the center stage of war. The three days of fighting that ensued turned the tide of the Civil War. In The Colors of Courage, Margaret Creighton narrates the tale of this crucial battle from the viewpoint of three unsung groups-women, immigrants, and African Americans. A historian with a superb flair for storytelling, Creighton draws on memoirs, letters, diaries, and newspapers to bring these individuals to life and to convey their vital contributions to this pivotal moment in American history. A stunningly fluid work of original history, The Colors of Courage fundamentally revises the history of the Civil War's most remarkable battle. Book jacket.

Author Biography

Margaret S. Creighton is Professor of History at Bates College. The author of Rites and Passages: The Experience of American Whaling, and co-editor of Iron Men, Wooden Women: Gender and Seafaring in the Atlantic World, 1700-1920. She lives in Yarmouth, Maine.

Table of Contents

Introduction	vii
Maps	xxi
The Gettysburg Campaign, 1863 (Chronology)	xxv
PART ONE
Prologue: The Lay of the Land	3	(6)
CHAPTER ONE An Afternoon in the Badlands	9	(24)
CHAPTER TWO The Season of Disbelief	33	(16)
CHAPTER THREE Desolation's Edge	49	(22)
PART TWO
CHAPTER FOUR Flying Thick Like Blackbirds	71	(26)
CHAPTER FIVE Bold Acts	97	(26)
CHAPTER SIX The Wide Eye of the Storm	123	(22)
PART THREE
CHAPTER SEVEN The Aftermath	145	(18)
CHAPTER EIGHT The Seesaw of Honor; or, How the Pigpen Was Mightier than the Sword	163	(22)
CHAPTER NINE Women and Remembrance	185	(22)
CHAPTER TEN Making a Living on Hallowed Land	207	(26)
Afterword	233	(4)
Notes	237	(56)
Bibliography	293	(16)
Acknowledgments	309	(4)
Index	313