Rashness of That Hour

Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson

Robert Wynstra

• Publisher: Savas Beatie
• Year: 2010
• eBook ISBN: 9781611210576
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: American Civil War History
• Index: History

Winner, 2010, Dr. James I. Robertson Literary Prize for Confederate History Award
Winner, 2011, The Bachelder-Coddington Literary Award, Given by the Robert E. Lee Civil War Round Table of Central New Jersey
Winner, 2011, Gettysburg Civil War Round Table Book Award No commander in the Army of Northern Virginia suffered more damage to his reputation at Gettysburg than did Brig. Gen. Alfred Holt Iverson. In little more than an hour during the early afternoon of July 1, 1863, much of his brigade (the 5th, 12th, 20th, and 23rd North Carolina regiments) was slaughtered in front of a stone wall on Oak Ridge. Amid rumors that he was a drunk, a coward, and had slandered his own troops, Iverson was stripped of his command less than a week after the battle and before the campaign had even ended. After months of internal feuding and behind-the-scenes political maneuvering, the survivors of Iverson’s ill-fated brigade had no doubt about who to blame for their devastating losses. What remained unanswered was the lingering uncertainty of how such a disaster could have happened. This and many other questions are explored for the first time in Robert J. Wynstra’s The Rashness of That Hour: Politics, Gettysburg, and the Downfall of Confederate Brigadier General Alfred Iverson. Wynstra’s decade-long investigation draws upon a wealth of newly discovered and previously unpublished sources to provide readers with fresh perspectives and satisfying insights. The result is an engrossing chronicle of how the brigade’s politics, misadventures, and colorful personalities combined to bring about one of the Civil War’s most notorious blunders. As Wynstra’s research makes clear, Iverson’s was a brigade in fatal turmoil long before its rendezvous with destiny in Forney field on July 1. This richly detailed and thoughtfully written account is biographical, tactical, and brigade history at its finest. For the first time we have a complete picture of the flawed general and his brigade’s bitter internecine feuds that made Iverson’s downfall nearly inevitable and help us better understand “the rashness of that hour.” About the Author: Robert J. Wynstra recently retired as a senior writer for the News and Public Affairs Office in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in history and a Master’s degree in journalism, all from the University of Illinois. Rob has been researching Alfred Iverson’s role in the Civil War for more than ten years. He is finishing work on a study of Robert Rodes’ Division in the Gettysburg Campaign.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Halftitle Page
• Title Page
• copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Maps
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction The Horrors of That Day
• Chapter 1 At Liberty to Tender My Services
• Chapter 2 All the Devils are Here
• Chapter 3 An Earnest Protest Against This Injustice
• Chapter 4 There is Quite a Stir in Our Regiment
• Chapter 5 I Did Not Think to Look in the Rear
• Chapter 6 We Have No Doubt Succeeded in Deceiving Hooker
• Chapter 7 A Perfect Triumphal March
• Chapter 8 He That Soweth of the Flesh
• Chapter 9 We are Brought in Hearing of Artillery
• Chapter 10 The Yankees Crossed Fired on Us a Good While
• Chapter 11 For a Few Minutes the Fighting was Terrific
• Chapter 12 I Told Him It Was Then Too Late
• Chapter 13 We Have an Awful Night of It
• Epilogue The Glory it Had is Now Passed Away
• Appendix 1 Iverson’s Brigade Order of Battle on July 1, 1863
• Appendix 2 Numbers and Losses in Iverson’s Brigade
• Bibliography
• Footnotes