To Gettysburg and Beyond: The Parallel Lives of Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Edward Porter Alexander

From Manassas to Appomattox, Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain and Edward Porter Alexander fought in nearly every major eastern battle of the Civil War. Tested by the savagery of combat, Chamberlain mastered the soldier's art and rose to become one of the best of the Union's frontline infantry commanders. Alexander, artillerist and engineer, indispensable aide to Lee and Longstreet, built a reputation as one of the most brilliant officers of the Confederacy. Fast-paced, full of the feel and texture of battle, To Gettysburg and Beyond is also very much a personal story of the two men. Chamberlain, from rustic Maine beginnings, is a nineteenth-century archetype: a romantic fighting the first of the world's modern wars while straining to interpret the carnage through the idiom of the knightly joust, ennobling and clean. Alexander, of the Georgia planter class, viewed war with a clear, cold eye, casting a long glance forward to our own dismal century. Their lives subsequent to the war are emblematic of the American society that emerged from the most deadly conflict in this nation's history.