"It is 1899. While the rest of the country enjoys the 'happy days of peace' ... R.K. Beecham returns to the site of the bloodiest battle of the Civil War, reliving the violence that colored the front-line and remembering the courageous men who fought there ... Beecham relates the three-day battle from several perspectives: a young soldier caught in the tumult of war; an aged veteran recalling the day's glory and tragedy; and a concerned civilian who, nearly after three decades of war, reflects on how the events at Gettysburg permanently altered the nation. Beecham's own eyewitness account and testimony of other Northerns and Southerns who fought at Gettysburg places the reader in the midst of the unfolding battle"--Jacket.