James Review -- The Day After Gettysburg

This week I decided to review The Day After Gettysburg, began by Robert Conroy and finished by J.R Dunn after Conroy’s death. 

It is an alternate history novel where Union General George Meade is prodded by his government into immediately pursuing the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia after the Battle of Gettysburg. This leads to Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordering a counterattack that devastates the Union army, increasing the Union causalities suffered in the campaign by approximately sixty percent. After this, the Confederate army settles into occupying much of Pennsylvania.

The book contains several major plotlines. One focuses on Union Major Steve Thorne who gains command of what’s left of his regiment after its prior commander, Colonel Josiah Baird, is maimed. This plot focuses both on Thorne’s efforts on the battlefield and his growing relationship with Colonel Baird’s daughter Cassandra.

Another follows Cassandra Baird through her struggles as she works to educate former slaves who have escaped to Union-controlled territory. In addition to the threats posed by the nearby armies, she finds herself facing racist Union civilians and deserters fleeing from the armies.

A third plotline follows Cassandra’s ex-fiancé Richard Dean who had deserted from the Union Army and turned completely against the Union cause. He eventually meets with John Wilkes Booth and joins Booth’s efforts against the Union and President Abraham Lincoln.

Also, there is a plotline following Confederate Sergeant Jonah Blandon. He serves in the army when it suits him and deserts when it doesn’t or when he fears punishment for his crimes, including execution of surrendered enemy soldiers and, eventually, rape and murder of civilians. The latter incident rouses the wrath of Pennsylvanian civilians against the Confederate occupiers and leaves Blandon’s band fleeing from both armies as well as vengeful civilians.

There are also several scenes showing the leadership of both governments and the two primary armies that the novel focuses on at work, with General Grant eventually taking command of the Union forces, and launching a plan aimed at destroying the Army of Northern Virginia.

I give this book 7 out of 10. While I find the cast of characters very interesting and enjoy many of the scenes in the story, I find a number of flaws in it. While things like the horrible conditions in prison camps on both sides are mentioned, they are never actually shown. Ditto for atrocities and crimes committed by Union soldiers or deserters against civilian targets. While such actions committed by Union troops or deserters are mentioned in passing, the only intentional targeting of non-combatants you see in the story are committed by Blandon’s band, or racist civilians acting against the escaped slaves Cassandra Baird is educating and Cassandra herself.

Also, I don’t think the impact of the book’s opening battle is strong enough. Historically, the Army of the Potomac took slightly less than twenty-five percent causalities in the Gettysburg campaign. In this book, that amount increases to nearly forty percent. While it is true that the vast majority of the additional causalities were captured, even if they were all exchanged, I don’t feel that the increase in Confederate strength was properly accounted for in the course of the story. I also feel that the effects the strategy, utilized by Grant in the book, would have had on the western fronts, and the impact these changes would have made on the course of the war, were largely ignored or at least badly underestimated.