GETTYSBURG, DAY THREE

Jeffrey D. Wert tells in more detail than most of us want to hear about the horrific events of day three of the Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. Guns roar in a continuous thunder, metal flies like hail and rain, men are torn and scarred and destroyed, horses die, officers despair, and many of them die, too. Confederate General Robert E. Lee ordered a fatal frontal attack on an almost impregnable position, with results predictable and in fact predicted by some of his officers. Gallantry and waste. Smoke and death. And through it all, reader Barrett Whitener provides a steady kind of calm, his breathy voice and precise pronunciation providing an undercurrent of tension when the narrative warrants. Here is history in the raw. D.A.W. (c) AudioFile 2002, Portland, Maine [Published: AUG/SEP 02]