A Fabulous Review

I couldn’t resist sharing this review of One Continuous Fight: The Retreat from Gettysburg and the Pursuit of Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, July 4-14, 1863 posted on Amazon.com today by loyal reader Kris Christensen:

I cannot say enough good things about this work. I read Plenty of Blame first (same publisher), which was also groundbreaking and changed entirely the way I look at the cavalry in the campaign and Stuart in particular. Who knew all that about the horses, their endurance, the choices that had to be made, etc. Everyone had an opinion, but no one except Petruzzi and Wittenberg actually spent the time to research it. Bravo to you both.

One Continuous Fight is everything the blurbs and the great reviews says that it is. The fighting matched the title. And who the heck knew that? I have been reading about Gettysburg for 20 years. I had no clue about this. What do you hear about except Falling Waters? And who knew Falling Waters was such a vast enterprise when taken in its totality? Kent Brown’s book on the same time period was nearly silent on all this. He barely scratched the surface. His treatment of logistics and movements was good, but pretty dry in my estimation. You can only read about corn and captured ammunition so long. One Continuous fight rocks, from the first page to the last. It is fast paced, interesting, well written, has great maps, great photos, and two stellar tours. I did both of them with my rental car GPS, and they are perfect. I have driven those back roads before but know I actually KNOW what I am looking at. And the book is meaty in length, too.

Unlike so many books today, this one is put together well. The jacket is lovely, the printing and binding is great, and the publisher used a lot of maps and illustrations. I know some limit that (which is stupid in my estimation–but hey, I am just a reader, the person who BUYS the books. UNC and LSU press, are you listening??). And the price was also fair. You could use One Continuous Fight as a doorstop is is so solid, but I have a pair of White Mane books out there for that purpose in case it rains. Some books are priced ridiculously. This one at less than 35 was a bargain. A couple people commented on spelling or grammatical errors. There were a more than there should have been, but really, who cares? I didn’t. I would rather have a great book published well, than a well published book that tells me the same crap all over again in a boring style.

Hoorah for One Continuous Fight! Wholly recommended without reservation. Now, can we get another from this trio?

Kris, thanks so much for your kind words. They’re much appreciated. To answer your question, the answer is be patient. Good things come to those who wait.

And I’m glad to see that you share my opinion of White Mane’s crappy books. 🙂

Regarding the typos, etc., that have been the subject of some criticism of the book: The good news is that the second edition of the book, which corrects all of this stuff, is at the printer as I write this. It will be released shortly, and hopefully, we will have heard the last about the typos.