Lost Triumph: Library Edition

"In Lost Triumph Tom Carhart gives us a fresh look at one of the most pivotal moments in American history - the Battle of Gettysburg in the summer of 1863. It was the decisive moment when the Union forces repelled perhaps America's greatest commander - the brilliant Robert E. Lee, who had already thrashed a long line of Federal opponents in the preceding days - just as he was poised at the back door of the nation's capital. It was a time when the fortunes of Lee, President Lincoln, the Confederacy, and the Union hung precariously in the balance. It is a story frozen in the collective American memory as the turning point of the Civil War." "Conventional wisdom has held to date, almost without exception, that on the third day of the battle, Lee made one profoundly wrong decision. Lee launched "Pickett's Charge," employing only a fifth of his total forces, across an open field, up a hill, against the heart of the Union defenses. Most history books have reported that Lee just had one very bad day. But there is much more to the story. This is the first book that offers an entirely new interpretation of the battle." "Carhart revisits the historic battles Lee taught at West Point while he was superintendent there, those he believed were the essential lessons in the art of war - the famous victories of Napoleon, Frederick the Great, and Hannibal. The author also reveals what they can tell us about Lee's real strategy, and how the daring of an unproven young general, George Armstrong Custer, frustrated the Confederacy." Lost Triumph suggests Robert E. Lee had a heretofore undiscovered strategy at Gettysburg that, if successful, could have changed the outcome of this monumental conflict.