Book Review: In the Shadow of the Round Tops: Longstreet’s Countermarch, Johnston’s Reconnaissance and the Enduring Battles for the Memory of July 2, 1863

In the Shadow of the Round Tops: Longstreet’s Countermarch, Johnston’s Reconnaissance and the Enduring Battles for the Memory of July 2, 1863. By Allen R. Thompson. New York: Knox Press, 2023. Softcover, 516 pp. $24.00.

Reviewed by Peter Miele

“What happened before the fighting started on July 2, 1863?” (26) This seemingly simple question ignited Allen Thompson’s book project, In the Shadow of the Round Tops: Longstreet’s Countermarch, Johnston’s Reconnaissance and the Enduring Battles for the Memory of July 2, 1863. The story of Samuel Johnston’s reconnaissance in the early morning hours of July 2 and subsequent Confederate movement under Lt. Gen. James Longstreet has been widely covered in standard Gettysburg interpretations. Most notable are Harry Pfanz’s Gettysburg: The Second Day and Edwin Coddington’s The Gettysburg Campaign: A Study in Command. In fact, the first lines of Thompson’s book incorporate a quote from Pfanz, in which the latter called Longstreet’s countermarch “one of the most difficult non-combat aspects of the campaign to reconstruct.” (1) This is not just difficult for the historian to reconstruct, however; it has become one of the most highly debated aspects of the Battle of Gettysburg.

In addressing the research question and reconstructing the reconnaissance and countermarch, Thompson’s narrative is split into two parts. The first section covers the battles after the battle, in which participants struggled to assign blame for the failed attacks and subsequent loss at Gettysburg. This section has much more to do with the afternoon attacks on the southern portion of the Gettysburg Battlefield rather than what Samuel Johnston did in the early morning hours. The author contextualizes these battles within the evolution of the Lost Cause narrative and Longstreet’s “defection” to the Republican Party.

Part two addresses the events of July 1 and 2, providing a coherent and now-definitive narrative of what occurred behind Confederate lines over the roughly 24-hour period. Rather than a retelling of the entire action of those days, Thompson rightly focuses on what major players—Lee, Longstreet, William Pendleton, Lafayette McLaws, and others—could see at certain moments. He dives into well-worn debates about whether the Confederates should have followed up their July 1, 1863 attack and the “attack at daylight” order for July 2. Of course, the author spends considerable pages at the crux of the question, unraveling Samuel Johnston’s reconnaissance, including a brief biography of the captain and where he went, including alternative possible routes. He then dives into Longstreet’s march and countermarch, including useful graphics on how the columns would have turned around. In the absence of written documentation, the author makes best-guess assumptions by piecing together extant sources. Thompson concludes that the delay in Longstreet’s attack did not have much effect on the overall outcome of July 2. There were, of course, many other factors to consider.

At the outset of the book, Thompson includes a valuable primer on the difference between history and memory. This section is intended for the lay reader and draws on both historical and psychological methodology. “History is more than just the memory of events,” Thompson writes, “it is the memory of perception of events.” (8) In addition to the insights on the actual reconnaissance and countermarch, this section provides valuable insight for study of any aspect of the battle of Gettysburg, or indeed history in general.

The book suffers from a lack of readable maps within the narrative, as well as small, and sometime grainy, black-and-white photos. It does make up for this by including larger maps at the end of the book; however, these might have been better placed as full-page maps within the narrative. It is much better suited as an armchair book than a battlefield guidebook.

Taken as a whole, Thompson connects the seemingly disparate events of Johnston’s reconnaissance and Longstreet’s countermarch into a coherent and thoroughly researched narrative that provides greater insight to a much debated, but ultimately largely unknown, part of the battle of Gettysburg. He does this while keeping the book easy to read, with vivid descriptions of historical figures and landscapes. And he takes it a step further than either Pfanz or Coddington, by tying the events of July 2, 1863 to the post-war war of words. In fact, what we know about what happened before the fighting on July 2 was deeply colored by what happened AFTER the fighting.

Thompson’s book reminds me of a recent conversation I had with a noted Civil War historian about the battle in general. This person rightly asserted, “the more I read about Gettysburg, the less I seem to know.”

Peter Miele is the executive director for the Seminary Ridge Museum and Education Center in Gettysburg. Born and raised in northern New Jersey, Miele received his Bachelor of Arts in History and Secondary Education from Ramapo College of New Jersey in 2011.  In 2013, he relocated to Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and earned his Master of Arts in Applied History from Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania in 2014.  In fall 2021, he will begin coursework towards a Ph.D. in American Studies at The Pennsylvania State University, Harrisburg.