New In October From Savas Beatie---The Iron Brigade at Gettysburg

Those Damned Black Hats! The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign, Lance Herdegen, Savas Beatie Publishing, $32.95.

The Iron Brigade--an all-Western outfit famously branded as The Iron Brigade of the West--served out their enlistments entirely in the Eastern Theater. Hardy men were these soldiers from Indiana, Wisconsin, and Michigan, who waged war beneath their unique black Hardee Hats on many fields, from Brawner's Farm during the Second Bull Run Campaign all the way to Appomattox. In between were memorable combats at South Mountain, Antietam, Chancellorsville, Mine Run, the Overland Campaign, and the grueling fighting around Petersburg. None of these battles compared with the "four long hours" of July 1, 1863, at Gettysburg, where the Iron Brigade was all but wrecked.

Lance Herdegen's Those Damned Black Hats! The Iron Brigade in the Gettysburg Campaign is the first book-length account of their remarkable experiences in Pennsylvania during that fateful summer of 1863. Drawing upon a wealth of sources, including dozens of previously unpublished or unused accounts, Herdegen details for the first time the exploits of the 2nd, 6th, 7th Wisconsin, 19th Indiana, and 24th Michigan regiments during the entire campaign. On July 1, the Western troops stood line-to-line and often face-to-face with their Confederate adversaries, who later referred to them as "those damned Black Hats." With the help of other stalwart comrades, the Hoosiers, Badgers, and Wolverines shed copious amounts of blood to save the Army of the Potomac's defensive position west of town. Their heroics above Willoughby Run, along the Chambersburg Pike, and at the Railroad Cut helped define the opposing lines for the rest of the battle and, perhaps, won the battle that helped preserve the Union.

Herdegen's account is much more than a battle study. The story of the fighting at the "Bloody Railroad Cut" is well known, but the attack and defense of McPherson's Ridge, the final stand at Seminary Ridge, the occupation of Culp's Hill, and the final pursuit of the Confederate Army has never been explored in sufficient depth or with such story telling ability. Herdegen completes the journey of the Black Hats with an account of the reconciliation at the 50th Anniversary Reunion and the Iron Brigade's place in Civil War history.

"Where has the firmness of the Iron Brigade at Gettysburg been surpassed in history?" asked Rufus Dawes of the 6th Wisconsin. Indeed, it was a fair question. The brigade marched to Gettysburg with 1,883 men in ranks and by nightfall on July 1, only 671 men were still to be counted. It would fight on to the end of the Civil War, and do so without its all-Western makeup, but never again was it a major force in battle.

Some 150 years after the last member of the Iron Brigade laid down his life for his country, the complete story of what the Black Hats did at Gettysburg and how they remembered it is finally available.

Text From Publisher.

CWL: Certainly, one of the keys to understanding the battle is what exactly did happen on the first day that caused Lee to commit to fighting at Gettysburg on the second day. Gallagher gets at this issue in his The First Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership. The stand of the Iron Brigade was underestimated by Confederate commanders. In the many tales of Yankee valor at Gettysburg, the Iron Brigades' July 1 combat story is probably among the top five turning points for the Union Army in the battle.

Classic: From the Iron Brigade to the USCT

As If It Were Glory: Robert Beecham's Civil War Fom the Iron Brigade to the Black Regiments, Robert Beacham (author), Michael Stevens, (ed.)Rowan and Littlefield, 256 pp., index.

This classic (left) is coming out in paperback (right) this autumn. Glatthaar, African American soldier specialist, Herdegen and Nolan, Iron Brigade specialists, and McPherson, soldiers' motivation specialist, have heavily praised this work and rightfully so.

"This bold and refreshing memoir tears away at the growing shroud of myths during the postwar era of reconciliation. . . . For Beecham, like Abraham Lincoln before him, African-Americans made as good soldiers as any, and in Beecham's eyes, sometimes better."

Joseph T. Glatthaar, author of Forged in Battle: The Civil War Alliance of Black Soldiers and White Officers

"Robert Beecham's outstanding memoir is marked by insight and humor. He never forgot that he was marching to history's drum whether with the Iron Brigade at Gettysburg or on the drill field with his black regiment. This is a front-rank look at the American Civil War." Lance J. Herdegen, author of The Men Stood Like Iron: How the Iron Brigade Won Its Name

"An exceptional memoir by an unusually idealistic and sophisticated Iron Brigade soldier who fought from Bull Run to Gettysburg and who finished the war as an officer in a Black regiment. Beecham understood the war in terms of freedom and rejected the racist and counterfactual postwar myth of the Lost Cause. Highly recommended." Alan T. Nolan, author of The Iron Brigade: A Military History

"Beecham pulls no punches in this lively memoir of his service as a soldier in the famed Iron Brigade and as an officer of African-American troops. Unlike most Civil War memoirs, this one does not romanticize the war nor does it make any concessions to the Confederacy, which Beecham in 1902 considered to have been as wrong and baneful as he had four decades earlier when he gave four years of his life fighting for Union and freedom." James M. McPherson, author of The Battle Cry of Freedom

In this powerful and moving memoir, Robert Beecham recounts his Civil War experiences, both as an enlisted man in the fabled Iron Brigade and as an officer commanding a newly raised African American unit. Serving from May 1861 through the end of the war, Beecham saw action with the 2nd Wisconsin at Chancellorsville and at Gettysburg, where he was taken prisoner by the Confederates. After being exchanged, he was promoted to first lieutenant in a black regiment. Leading the men of the 23rd USCT in fierce fighting at the Battle of the Crater, Beecham was wounded, again captured, and after eight months in a Confederate prison, escaped. In addition to telling his exciting account, Beecham describes the daily life of the Civil War solider. His stories range from lively accounts of foraging expeditions to describing conditions in military hospitals. In his narrative, Beecham celebrates the ingenuity of the enlisted man at the expense of officers who are often arrogant or incompetent. He also chides the altered recollections of fellow veterans who remember only triumphs and forgot defeats. In one of the most powerful parts of his memoir, Beecham pays tribute to the valor of the African Americans who fought under his command and insists that they were "the bravest and best soldiers that ever lived." "As If It Were Glory" is an unforgettable account of the Civil War, unclouded by sentimentality and insistent that the nation remain true to the cause for which it fought.

(text supplied by the publisher)