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The Complete Gettysburg Guide: Walking and Driving Tours of the Battlefield, Town, Cemeteries, Field Hospital Sites, and Other Topics of Historical Interest
Winner of The Army Historical Foundation Distinguished Writing Award, for Reference, 2009.
Some two million people visit the battlefield at Gettysburg each year. It is one of the most popular historical destinations in the United States. Most visitors tour the field by following the National Park Service's suggested auto tour. The standard tour, however, skips crucial monuments, markers, battle actions, town sites, hospital locations, and other hidden historical gems that should be experienced by everyone. These serious oversights are fully rectified in The Complete Gettysburg Guide, penned by noted Gettysburg historian J. David Petruzzi and illustrated with the lavish, full-color photography and maps (70) of Civil War cartographer Steven Stanley.
Complete, detailed, and up-to-date, The Complete Gettysburg Guide: Walking and Driving Tours of the Battlefield, Town, Cemeteries, Field Hospital Sites, and other Topics of Historical Interest includes:
- Detailed driving and walking tours of the entire battlefield (including obscure sites that even veteran visitors miss or never hear about);
- A tour of every identified field hospital site for both armies;
- Tours of the National Cemetery and the town's Evergreen Cemetery;
- A tour of the town of Gettysburg, including sites of historical interest before and after the battle;
- Outlying battlefields including the June 26, 1863 skirmish site, East Cavalry Field, South Cavalry Field, Hunterstown, Hanover, and Fairfield;
- And a special tour of the various rock carvings on the battlefield, many of which were created by returning veterans and pre-date most of the monuments.
Every student of Gettysburg, novice and expert alike, will want to learn from, enjoy, and treasure The Complete Gettysburg Guide. No visitor to Gettysburg will want to be without it.
Some two million people visit the battlefield at Gettysburg each year. It is one of the most popular historical destinations in the United States. Most visitors tour the field by following the National Park Service's suggested auto tour. The standard tour, however, skips crucial monuments, markers, battle actions, town sites, hospital locations, and other hidden historical gems that should be experienced by everyone. These serious oversights are fully rectified in The Complete Gettysburg Guide, penned by noted Gettysburg historian J. David Petruzzi and illustrated with the lavish, full-color photography and maps (70) of Civil War cartographer Steven Stanley.
Complete, detailed, and up-to-date, The Complete Gettysburg Guide: Walking and Driving Tours of the Battlefield, Town, Cemeteries, Field Hospital Sites, and other Topics of Historical Interest includes:
- Detailed driving and walking tours of the entire battlefield (including obscure sites that even veteran visitors miss or never hear about);
- A tour of every identified field hospital site for both armies;
- Tours of the National Cemetery and the town's Evergreen Cemetery;
- A tour of the town of Gettysburg, including sites of historical interest before and after the battle;
- Outlying battlefields including the June 26, 1863 skirmish site, East Cavalry Field, South Cavalry Field, Hunterstown, Hanover, and Fairfield;
- And a special tour of the various rock carvings on the battlefield, many of which were created by returning veterans and pre-date most of the monuments.
Every student of Gettysburg, novice and expert alike, will want to learn from, enjoy, and treasure The Complete Gettysburg Guide. No visitor to Gettysburg will want to be without it.
304 pages, Hardcover
First published May 1, 2009
About the author
J. David Petruzzi
7 books2 followersJ. David Petruzzi is an award-winning Civil War cavalry historian. He is the author of many articles for a wide variety of publications, and has written or co-authored several books.
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
November 16, 2009
As promised, this is THE complete guidebook to Gettysburg with an extensive tour of the current battlefield and town. It is more extensive than any guidebook you will get from the Visitor Center.
I'm not sure if one is available but this book begs for a CD version you can play in your car to follow while driving around.
I'm not sure if one is available but this book begs for a CD version you can play in your car to follow while driving around.
November 4, 2017
Very informative, easy to follow. It will be put to good use.
March 8, 2017
Darn good book. I made dozens of trips to the Gettysburg battlefield with my family; unfortunately my father tended to visit the same darn places time after time! Currently I don't live close enough to Gettysburg to make a day trip to the battlefield, but the next time I'm in the area, this book is coming with me! Mr. Petruzzi points out monuments and places of interest that I wasn't aware of, including small actions just off the main battlefield such as Hunterstown and Fairfield.
July 25, 2014
In the annals of Gettysburg works, to which there are many, there are also a collection of guides which have been published throughout the years. This guide on Gettysburg is a little different than some of the others because of where it takes you. In The Complete Gettysburg Guide, J. David Petruzzi and Steven Stanley take us to the battlefield, but they also take us to the field hospitals, the cemeteries and the other locations pertinent to the Gettysburg Campaign. With a few other interesting tidbits of information, the detail presented in this work truly makes it the complete guide to the Gettysburg Campaign.
J. David Petruzzi is an award winning Civil War cavalry historian and the author of many articles for many different magazines. He has coauthored books with Eric Wittenberg called Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg and with Michael Nugent and Wittenberg called One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863. He has recently authored The Gettysburg Campaign in Numbers and Losses with Steven Stanley. Steven Stanley is a local Gettysburg graphic artist specializing in historic map sets and battlefield photography. He has created some of the best maps in the industry and has work with Petruzzi before on Gettysburg. For this work, he is credited with maps and photography.
Among the slew of Gettysburg guides, the biggest difference this one brings to the table is the locations it covers. The usual is performed with the first, second and third day of battle, but they also deal with Brinkerhoff’s Ridge, Hunterstown and Fairfield. These are locations many other guides do not even venture. Petruzzi offers a narrative which goes along with the maps and picture set and in a beige box throughout the narrative are driving directions to the next location. These directions go as far as to tell you how many point miles it will be until the next stop. These types of directions are crucial into touring battlefields not completely known about the area. One of the things I found to be a strong point for the book was the tour of the town of Gettysburg itself. Many people just drive through the town and do not even consider what they are looking at when the town itself was part of the major retreat on the first day of combat. Other chapters are detailed tours of both cemeteries starting with the Soldiers National Cemetery then going to Evergreen Cemetery. The book shines with the chapter on the rock carvings on the battlefield which made even me go and look for them. Overall this guide is definitely a complete guide of the Gettysburg Campaign due to the close attention to detail and overall comprehensive nature of the book.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a little more to their vacation than just the three days of combat. If you want to spend hours on the battlefield looking for things unusual than the regular tour takes you, then you need this book in your collection. If you want to venture outside of the regular path of the tour, then you need this book in your collection. If you want a guide to the town and the field hospitals throughout the borough of Gettysburg, then you need this book in your collection. Petruzzi and Stanley once again have proven their knowledge on this timeless battlefield.
Matthew Bartlett - Gettysburg Chronicle
J. David Petruzzi is an award winning Civil War cavalry historian and the author of many articles for many different magazines. He has coauthored books with Eric Wittenberg called Plenty of Blame to Go Around: Jeb Stuart’s Controversial Ride to Gettysburg and with Michael Nugent and Wittenberg called One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863. He has recently authored The Gettysburg Campaign in Numbers and Losses with Steven Stanley. Steven Stanley is a local Gettysburg graphic artist specializing in historic map sets and battlefield photography. He has created some of the best maps in the industry and has work with Petruzzi before on Gettysburg. For this work, he is credited with maps and photography.
Among the slew of Gettysburg guides, the biggest difference this one brings to the table is the locations it covers. The usual is performed with the first, second and third day of battle, but they also deal with Brinkerhoff’s Ridge, Hunterstown and Fairfield. These are locations many other guides do not even venture. Petruzzi offers a narrative which goes along with the maps and picture set and in a beige box throughout the narrative are driving directions to the next location. These directions go as far as to tell you how many point miles it will be until the next stop. These types of directions are crucial into touring battlefields not completely known about the area. One of the things I found to be a strong point for the book was the tour of the town of Gettysburg itself. Many people just drive through the town and do not even consider what they are looking at when the town itself was part of the major retreat on the first day of combat. Other chapters are detailed tours of both cemeteries starting with the Soldiers National Cemetery then going to Evergreen Cemetery. The book shines with the chapter on the rock carvings on the battlefield which made even me go and look for them. Overall this guide is definitely a complete guide of the Gettysburg Campaign due to the close attention to detail and overall comprehensive nature of the book.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants a little more to their vacation than just the three days of combat. If you want to spend hours on the battlefield looking for things unusual than the regular tour takes you, then you need this book in your collection. If you want to venture outside of the regular path of the tour, then you need this book in your collection. If you want a guide to the town and the field hospitals throughout the borough of Gettysburg, then you need this book in your collection. Petruzzi and Stanley once again have proven their knowledge on this timeless battlefield.
Matthew Bartlett - Gettysburg Chronicle
July 15, 2009
A little too heavily geared towards those wussy calvarymen. I still enjoyed the other tours and the driving guide is great...Maybe soon someone will make a bicycling one.
November 2, 2009
It's a thorough tour of the landscape around Gettysburg on the days before, during and after the epic battle.
February 12, 2017
Love this book - I've marked it finished, but I know I'll be referring to it over & over!
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews