"Newt Gingrich's "Gettysburg"" Topic

By the way... Anyone who tries to hijack this into a political discussion Re: Newt will have not only the DH, but ME to deal with! 8^) Let's try to stay on topic, shall we? You can whine and bitch about Newt on the CA boards all you want. Take the Newt-bashing there. Newt taught history at the college level, so if you must bash Newt, keep it at the historian and writing level, please.

Anyway, for those who were not aware, Mr. Newt and another historian wrote a novel in the style of "The Killer Angels" positing a Confederate victory at Gettysburg. I was curious to see just how they would handle it. I am as far as the first night, where Jeb Stuart clocks in a day early. Lee decides to slip away behind "that ridge over there" and hit the Union on their supply lines further south. That is as far as I got. I am looking forward to finishing it, and the sequel.

Interestingly, most wargames dealing with Getysburg are inadequate to handle something like this. Most miniature rules are at the level where you feel good that you can command a corps! Not only that, Gettysburg is a PROJECT! Imagine all the work that would go into assembling terrain on the board to "do" Gettysburg, and those damn Rebs just slink off the board! It would be bad manners of the highest order for a gamer to pull a stunt like that, after all the work the hosts put in!

Boardgames are just as bad. I remember one SPI campaign game, but it covered the whole area from Harrisburg to Fredericksburg. To do what Lee does in the novel would mean moving a stack out of the Union ZOC, and moving south. Big deal. Every boardgame of the actual battle covers the ground of the battle. Again, "pulling a Newt Lee" would result in ... nothing! The victory conditions would simply not apply! I admit that I have not played every single boardgame on the topic, though. Not even TSS! But I have played a few.

Anyway, who else has read it, and what do you think?
And, yes, I know that there is a sequel.

BTW, the cheap paperback is out now. That is what I just picked up.

The discussion should be about Forstchen, not Gingrich. I stopped reading Forstchen (not a huge sacrifice) when he prostituted himself to ghost-write for the former Speaker.

Allen

I read or should say listened to it and found it interesting. But I found to many problems with it on authenticity of units and weapons and such. Newt did not do his research very well there but everything else I enjoyed. Am I anal retenive or what!!!!!

P

I have not read it, but several people that have have said they really enjoyed the read (Newt or not).

I've read both books and enjoyed both. I'll continue to buy their books. And yes Forstchen is a major contributer as I recognize his writing style throughout the book - that is probably what makes them enjoyable.

Yes, there are problems and various nits to pick, but it's FICTION, so just go with the flow and have an enjoyable read.

Joe

Is "Grant Cleans up the Mess" the last one, or will there be a third book?

We played Gettysburg based on the scenario of Fire & Fury (with about 12 men). Two funny experiences: 1. the Southern generals still wanted to conquer Gettysburg in spite of the little military worth (at least on this table)and lost severely. 2. Pickett's Charge took place on Day Two and was a near run thing. Lee decided to withdraw at the end of this day. We hope to have a follow-up where Lee has the possibility to choose terrain in order to save his army crossing the Potomac, while Meade probably will be more willing to pursuit than he did in reality. So I am looking forward to this book. As a non-American I am afraid I don't really follow the remarks about Mr Gingrich...

Our club(The Jackson Gamers) did the Vicksurg Campaign about 20 years ago. We were meeting in an old fire station at the time & had lots of room & tables. We used topograhic maps & carefully reproduced each battlefield. Our terrain was not the best-green styrafoam & lots of lichen-but it worked & was accurate. The figures were mostly Minifig, Hinchcliffe, Airfix & Staddens. Grant still won. We went out to the actual battlefields afterwards.

"Grant Comes East" is the second book. I assume there will be a third book, but that will probably be based upon their sales record.

I've played SPI's Terrible Swift Sword several times and the result rarely came close to history. Just one small combat going one way or the other on Day 1 can change quite a bit. I seem to remember our battle lines in one game being 180 degrees off from history, with the Union Army stretching accross from Cemetery Hill to Seminary Ridge and defending that toward the north-west. Little Round Top was far to the rear of the Union lines.

RE: Gettysburg and board- / miniaatures- gaming
Good comments about most gamers not focusing on the strategic question of Gettysburg (i.e. is this town / ridge worth fighting for?). I suggest that there are a couple of reasons for this:

1) Lee was really fighting to destroy the AoP - didn't he say something to the effect of "the enemy is here, I'll fight him here"? Given that the battle was not really about possession of terrain, does the gamer really need to hash over the strategic value of the battlefield?

2) Gamers are all about doing better than the historical generals. Gettysburg holds a central interest in the US because it is one of the great defeats for a US force and one of the few defeats for one of this country's greatest generals. What better situation to try to out-general the past? Gettysburg presents the gamer with a specific puzzle to solve, and marching off to the south to make Meade withdraw isn't really solving the puzzle - it's making the puzzle meaningless. For the gamer, to be "better than Lee", you have to fight Gettysburg on the field where Lee chose to fight it, and I think that's the main reason why so many of us do make that choice.

RE: Gingrich (for Porthos) - Newt has to be considered a touch-stone for American politics in the 1990's. Like Bill Clinton, you either love him or hate him, view him as a lone shining light in the darkness, or the soul of the darkness itself. (Wonder what he'd think of that comparison...)

I could not find any pictures in the books!!!!! What is a book without pictures????

"What is a book without pictures????" LOL

Read and enjoyed both books. Believable and fairly well-written, and a ton of Fire & Fury or even JR III scenarios!

Does anyone do the Chamberlian loses Little Round Top and the Rebs march up the line?

Did a scenario a few years ago on the opposite end of the line. A huge federal disaster based entirely on the fact that for once in my life my dice were atomic hot and my opponets dice were polar cold. We stopped the game when I had rolled up 2 + Federal Corps and was starting on a 3rd.

Let us say a Conferate flanking move where the Federals lose either end of thier line quickly becomes a disengagement under fire exercise for the Federals.

The third volume is due out in June 2005. I enjoyed both books and am eagerly anticipating the third. I have a PhD in American history and have read and gamed the CW and gettysburg for 45 years - Avalon Hill's Gettysburg being my first game, circa 1960 - and I find the rationale for the ooks to be very convincing. If you are CW or alternate history enthusiast, you'll enjoy the books, as well-written and as persuasive as an alternate scenario can ever be.

For me, the key to believability in the book was recreating the thought processes of, e.g., Bobby Lee, and later of Lincoln and Grant etc. Lee decides early in the first book that with Stonewall dead he must adopt a more hands-on command style. This is an entirely plausible shift in Lee's thinking. Then, after the Rebs assault Cemetary Hill late on July 1 and bounce, Longstreet dissuades Lee from continuing to fight on the Gettysburg field by observing that the entire Army of the Potomoc can be assumed to be hurrying to Gettysburg. Surely, longstreet says, we can make use of that knowledge. Lee sees the beauty of that insight and comes up with a deep penetration modeled on 2nd Manassas campaign, with longstreet playing Stonewall. As I say, it strikes me as very plausible, and hence very enjoyable. Obviously the butterfly effect takes over, and the further away from reality the plot goes, the wider the rangof plausible outcomes. I can't predict how the third volume will end - more for the politics than the military, as readers will see when they finish GRANT COMES EAST - but I can scarcely wait.

I'm not that anal about the weapon details NG fudges, and I have no problem with NG as a historian or author, but I couldn't finish "Gettysburg", it just wasn't engageing and,I felt,in places; contrived. I read passages at random over at Borders from "Grant..." hopeing it got better. It did not. Why is it always Chamberlen, Vincent, Buford, etc ? Is it not possible that if things went differantly some other previously unknown officer would not have risen to the occasion?

Doc MCB - well stated! Enjoyed both books, waiting for the third. These books did expose me to more of Grant than the bulk of my earlier reading - without planning it, I apparently have been concentrating on the Eastern war thru G'burg, but very little of the rest of it. So I have now read a couple books on Grant, and find him to be as facinating as Lee, Jackson and Longstreet.
I think the authors have a definite Grant bias, but that's ok - what author doesn't?
I did enjoy reading about Herman Haptman (sp), the logistical genius who headed up the Union rail system. In the spirit of Idoites1's comment, here's a heretofore unknown character (to me) that deserves more than a mere mention.

i did not read it yet but now im going to go get it tommorow.thanks guys for not bringing up politics in this I WANT TO STAY OUT OF THE DOGHOUSE!

One additional point: there are a number of scenes, particularly in the second book, involving conversations between generals and politicians: Lincoln with several commanders, Grant with his Congressman, Lee with Judah Benjamin, and so forth. These ring true to me, and I credit Newt with that; I'm sure he knows how politicians think and talk.

I read the book and enjoyed it, but was amused that the authors had the Confederates do everything right (based on historical hindsight) while the Union does everything wrong. So you wind up with disintegration of the AoP. Another thing I was amused at was that for years I had wondered what would have happened if Longstreet had convinced Lee to do a far south hook followed by discovering the advantages of the Pipe Creek line and this is one of the main premises of the novel. I fully plan on reading the sequel. I also will go back and reread "1946" as I found that one to be even more of a hoot.

I began reading Gettysburg thinking I would hate it, but it turned out to be a pretty stirring book even if it was quite one-sided. The Union charge at Taneytown brought tears to my eyes.

His OFM-ness: [Newt taught history at the college level, so if you must bash Newt, keep it at the historian and writing level, please.]

Given that Newt's PhD was on Belgian education policy in the Congo from 1945 -1960 (from that well-known African studies school, Tulane), let's just say I think his Civil War expertise is suspect. My expertise? A PhD in military history from Texas A&M and over ten years teacching military history at the college level.

LOL. I guess that's a good non-CA/DH bash.

Which of course begs the question: "WHAT policy???" It must have been a short dissertation.

Apparently, Belgium had 307 pages worth of post-war Congolese education policy (including footnotes and bibliography).

Double spaced? Wide margins?

Hey OilHistorian, did you know Frank Vandiver?

doc mcb: I didn't know Vandiver personally. He was pretty much retired when I was at A&M in the '90s. Didn't even show up at departmental social gatherings.

John the OFM: the really weird thing is that Gingrich apparently took the PhD topic at the suggestion of his advisor (!!) and never returned to it (or anything even resembling it) after getting the degree. He was hired to teach *US* history at West Georgia - where he also taught environmental studies! Those old profs of mine were apparently right - up until the early '70s colleges would indeed hire any old warm body. I can't imagine Gingrich's credentials landing him a similar job today.

Another intrusive personal question for OilHistorian: do you happen to have anything to do with the east Texas oil museum at, I think, Kilgore or Gladewater?

I had a series of seminars with vandiver at Rice in the late 60's/early 70's; he was an excellent military historian.

OilHistorian, that sounds like the grad student in an anecdote Barbara Tuchman had in "Practicing History". This grad student was assigned an African (Belgian?) missionary by his advisor who "hadn't been done before". The student was getting nowhere, because he "didn't like him very much". You can see the love of history burning there, can;t you?

I haven't read the book but the premise sounds highly suspect. Its very unlikely that the AoNV could have done a right hook around the Union lines after day one of Gettysburg. One of the reasons Lee rejected Longstreet's grand tactical suggestion was that it was logistically impossible. One of the problems modern gamers have in adjudicating historic decisions is that we rarely consider all relevant matters. Gettysburg is really a question of whether Lee can beat the AoP in detail before it fully concentrates. Once the full Union army is in place the battle is, for all practical purposes, over. Even an end run doesn't really change the basic numbers.

I have to say the thing I found most irritating about the book was to have conversations "lifted" from the original Confederate participants and put into the mouths of their Union opposite numbers.

For me I could not quite suspend belief. It was an okay read but little more.

If you want a really good Civil War novel then try "Unto This Hour" by Tom Wicker about 2nd Manassas. This was probably the book that did more than any other to get me back into wargaming.

Regards
Malcolm

Okay, the third volume, NEVER CALL RETREAT (I think), is out. It's quite good, I think pretty convincing, although the "peacock tail of probability" has spread pretty wide by this time. Has anyone else read it? Whaddayathink?

Just started reading this book and decided to resurrect the topic to ask: Has anyone gone so far as to create F&F scenarios based upon the events in the book? I am thinking about Buford vs Hood at the river crossing near Tanneytown.

Not being overly knowledgeable on the ACW, I can not pick apart the book for technical accuracy but so far its a decent read. Although a far prefer The Killer Angles.

>>Newt taught history at the college level, so if you must bash Newt, keep it at the historian and writing level, please.<<

Briefly. He quit before he got fired. He knew he wasn't going to get tenure because he hadn't published anything, nor done any serious research. He carried a chip on his shoulder against the whole profession ever after, and imagined that he had been singled out and martyred because of his political views. It wasn't pretty.

>>But I found to many problems with it on authenticity of units and weapons and such. Newt did not do his research very well there but everything else I enjoyed.<<

And there ya go.

But at least he has found success in fiction.

I read the trilogy a couple of years ago. The 1st one was pretty good; the other two not. Their scenario became increasingly unbelievable. I don't remember enough about it now to give a detailed critique.

I enjoyed the hell out of the books. I listened to all of them while painting my troops. Yeah there are some problems but what a ride!

I'm generally not a big fan of "alternative history" books because I can't divorce myself from the knowledge of what actually happened. Historical fiction, on the other hand, is more easily assimilated because the fictional episode is taking place within the context of what actually happened (an example being the Sharpe series or Killer Angels).

So I probably won't be reading the Gingrich books.

Like a wargame, an alternative history book explores what might have happened IF…. But the author needs a VERY good grasp of the personalities and styles of all the historical characters.

I am currently reading the 3rd book and am already trying to figure out how to do the custer vs stewart at the bridge scenario. As I said before I can't comment on the technical expertise of the authors but I am enjoying the read. As for being far fetched in some areas, however some actual events of the civil war are pretty far fetched in their own right.

I have often thought of doing the Gettysburg book as a wargame. I thought that you could use a convention to do it right. First night, Buford trying to hold the bridge (Using Johnny Reb). Second day have both the Tanneytown and Pipe Creek/Union Mills battles raging on two tables (blind to each other and using Fire and Fury)) with the Confederate objective at Tanneytown to push troops through to Union Mills while maintaining the communications line. Whatever troops get through to Union Mills, the Confederates could put into action. The Union would have to allocate units to both tables as well. I think it would make a great game.

>"I think the authors have a definite Grant bias…"<

On the contrary, one of my gripes was that I thought they didn't understand or appreciate Grant enough; he would not sit around doing nothing for weeks!

Like Grumpygamer, I listened to the first book while painting ACW troops. Others in our group kept recommending the books, but I avoided them because I don't like alternate history. They even played the first day at Pipe Creek using Fire and Fury.

That said, I found the book to be very entertaining. The authors emphasize that they consider their work 'dynamic' history rather than 'alternate' history. The story starts with the premise that Lee decides to become more involved in tactical decision making on the first day, leading to an assault on Cemetary Hill that is bloodily repulsed. Therefore, Lee is more open to Longstreet's argument to go around the Union position. The authors try to sketch out the likely course of events stemming from that premise.

What I liked about it was the excitement it generated when I didn't know what was coming next, which is another of the authors' stated purposes. I also liked some of the subtle scenes, like the irony of the historically pro-Confederate Shriver family assisting Lee's efforts to grab the good ground.

I don't know if I will ever create scenarios from the books' events (too much real history to recreate), but IMHO, the drama in the actions and battles would make for some fun games.

Mark