got about 25 pages in. Reads well. He starts with George Meade's, the
"snapping turtle", appointment as a commander of the army of the
potomac. He is a gearhead and is reluctant to accept the appointment
and get into politicking among the generals. His engineering task (he
is a civil engineer by trade) of organizing the army for the
battle. The narrative then switches to a company of poor southern
grunts who think themselves lucky to fight for the Cause and to escape
a clutch of kids and drudgery of farmwork.

Peters is not much of a fiction writer. all the characters telegraph
their moves and are somewhat one-dimentional. Lee is overly cocky,
wants to fight and treats union (they call them federal) with
contempt. Longsteet broods over South not being able to afford serious
casualties and is afraid that Lee, instead of staying on defense will
attack. Meade wants to hold all the armies together.

I am on page 178 in Peters. There is about a hundred pages of carnage
of the first day of the battle a la "saving private ryan" normandy
beach landing.

I am on page 212 of Peters. Meade is riding and worrying through the
night before the second day of the battle making sure he does not make
any mistakes for Lee to exploit, the germans in Wisconsin 26 regiment
are haunted by the memories of their dead comrades and Longstreet is
afraid that Lee is too anxious to fight and will attempt a head-on
charge rather than a flanking mano(e)uvre.

I am on page 399 in peters. Some more goodly war-porn. Like a young
artillery lieutenant holding his intestines from spilling out so that
he can continue to command his battery. Stereotypes galore: germans
are very german, irish are very irish, Longstreet is very Longstreet.

Oh, a scrambled egg that a direct hit made out of a team of horses
pulling a limber of a gun was another memorable description of
gratuitous violence from peters.