The Battle Between the Farmlanes: Hancock Saves the Union Center; Gettysburg, July 2, 1863

Few figures cast a longer shadow over the Battle of Gettysburg than Maj. Gen. Winfield Scott Hancock, the commander of the Army of the Potomac's Second Corps. Gettysburg was Hancock's finest hour of the war, and he had no moment more magnificent than the moment of crisis that occurred on the afternoon of July 2, 1863, when Lt. Gen. James Longstreet's determined Confederates nearly shattered the center of the Union line. Reacting quickly and effectively shifting troops to meet threats, Hancock cobbled together an effective defensive position and drove the dogged Southerners back.

In the first-book length treatment of this action, David L. Shultz and David F. Wieck have chronicled these events in the latest installment of Ironclad's The Discovering Civil War America Series. The book contains a vivid combat narrative arising from intimate knowledge of the terrain and of the primary sources, good maps, and an excellent walking tour.

“It is this fury between the Trostle and Hummelbaugh farms that David Shultz and David Wieck chronicle in this book. Their detailed account of the action and the accompanying driving and walking tour of the ground are a worthy addition to the vast body of work on the July 1863 battle.”
– from the Foreword by distinguished Civil War historian Jeffry D. Wert.