title: The Second Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership
author:  Gary W Gallagher 
description: Notable Civil War historians herein continue the evaluation of select commanders begun in The First Day at Gettysburg: Essays on Confederate and Union Leadership. Based on fresh manuscript sources and careful consideration of existing literature, the essays in The Second Day at Gettysburg explore such controversial issues as Robert E. Lee's decision to renew the tactical offensive on July 2; James Longstreet's effectiveness in executing Lee's plan; the origin and impact of Daniel E. Sickles's decision to advance his Third Corps, which formed the infamous "Sickles's Salient"; the little-understood role of Henry W. Slocum and his Union Twelfth Corps; and the contribution of John C. Caldwell's division in the maelstrom of the Wheatfield. These provocative essays present new evidence and sometimes controversial interpretations that will prompt reevaluation of several officers who played crucial roles during the second day of the Gettysburg campaign.
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  # Reconstruction
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  ### Frederick Douglass
  
  
  This page copyright © 2001 Blackmask Online.
  
  
  http://www.blackmask.com
  
  
  THE assembling of the Second Session of the Thirty-ninth Congress may very
  properly be made the occasion
  
  
  of a few earnest words on the already much-worn topic of reconstruction.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Seldom has any legislative body been the subject of a solicitude more intense,
  or of aspirations more sincere
  
  
  and ardent. There are the best of reasons for this profound interest.
  Questions of vast moment, left undecided
  
  
  by the last session of Congress, must be manfully grappled with by this. No
  political skirmishing will avail. The
  
  
  occasion demands statesmanship.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  Whether the tremendous war so heroically fought and so victoriously ended
  shall pass into history a miserable
  
  
  failure, barren of permanent results,—a scandalous and shocking waste of blood
  and treasure,—a strife for
  
  
  empire, as Earl Russell charact