Good News, Bad News, and Good News

After the publication of the annual Gettysburg issue of Blue and Gray magazine two issues ago, J. D. Petruzzi and I felt an overwhelming need to respond. The featured article was by a licensed battlefield guide named Andrea Custer that spells out a new interpretation of Farnsworth’s Charge on the afternoon of July 3, 1863. That article relies on misrepresentations and twistings of facts to suit the theory, and we came to the conclusion that it was written to intentionally mislead the public to promote the author’s own agenda.

Consequently, we composed a 5500 word rebuttal of the theory that was based entirely on the facts. We knew it was long, and we knew that we ran the risk of it being too long to run in the magazine as a letter to the editor.

Today, I got news about it. There’s good news, bad news, and then more good news.

The good news: We will have a 500-1000 word letter to the editor on the subject in the next issue of the magazine.

The bad news: Regular reader Scott Patchan’s feature article for the issue is VERY long at 18,400 words, and there is no room to run our entire piece. This year, at least, the piece will not be run as we wrote it.

The good news: Dave Roth, the publisher of the magazine is going to make it up to us by permitting us to publish the entire piece, complete with maps, illustrations, and a General’s Tour of the conventional interpretation of Farnsworth’s Charge in next year’s Gettysburg issue. So, for those who haven’t read what we cobbled together, sadly, you will have to wait. My concern, of course, is that by the time it does run, nobody will remember or care, but given the nature of Gettysburg controversies, this one keeps coming back up and keeps getting argued. We shall see, but I am pretty sure that it will stir up the waters once again.

To give just a taste to tease and tantalize you: we present lots of evidence from the veterans–those who were actually there–to demonstrate that these events took place where the conventional interpretation places them, that some of the sources relied upon in the alterantive theory have been misstated and/or misrepresented, and that the actual events played out just how conventional interpretations have depicted them.

Sorry you will have to wait, but at least it will be run in full.