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Wednesday, April 7, 2010

Recent Poll Not Even Close . . .

For those of you who have seen or own The Complete Gettysburg Guidebook, by J. D. Petruzzi and Steven Stanley, you know this volume is very special. (Check out the reviews on Amazon--thirty-two 5-star reviews out of thirty-two) and see more on the book here.

Since there are more volumes in the works, we have been discussing what campaign deserves similar treatment. I posted this question last week on this blog: What is the next "Complete Guide" battle or campaign history in the Eastern Theater you would like?

Here were the results:

Maryland Campaign: 11 (44%)

1862 Valley Campaign: 6 (24%)
1864 Valley Campaign: 4 (16%)
Chancellorsville: 3 (12%)
1863 Cavalry Battles (Aldie, Brandy, etc.): 1 (4%)


Looks like the guys know where they will be spending a lot of time in 2010.

--tps

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Best book on Gettysburg I have read in many years, and in my top five on the campaign (I own more than 300 books on just the PA campaign). I have taken it to the field several times, and bought a second copy for my use there that I write in, tuck other information inside and so forth. Just can't say enough good things about it. I would buy another book like this on any campaign by these authors. Sign me up!!!

Thomas

Chris Evans said...

The Maryland campaign of 1862 will be fascinating to see.

It would be good to eventually see the Valley campaigns of 1862 and 1864 given this kind of guide treatment. The 1864 Valley campaign could definitely use the excellent maps that fill the Gettysburg guide.

Chris

J David Petruzzi said...

Thanks Thomas and Chris!

Yes, it's off to Antietam... and South Mountain, and Shepherdstown, and Harpers Ferry, and the sites of a few skirmishes here and there... we're looking forward to that one. The MD Campaign is very dear to me and my favorite - Antietam or Gettysburg - depends on which day it is...

The poll results have been extremely interesting. I have the exact same poll (with a few more choices available) up on Survey Monkey, and the result percentages are about the same. It's been very revealing, and the comments we've received have been invaluable.

J.D. Petruzzi

Anonymous said...

With ANY guidebook, the question: How much do I already have for free on the Internet?

If I can get 80-90% on my screen, why go to a bookstore?

Ainda!

J David Petruzzi said...

Hi,

Well, I would venture to say that 80-90% of what is contained in our book is not only NOT on the internet anywhere, but also not in any other book. We believe that's what makes it different.

There are a lot of guidebooks out there, but we determined early on that it would be vastly different than anything else available - otherwise, why do it? Besides the battlefield tour, for instance, our book is the ONLY source for tours of 4 cavalry battlefields. And for East Cavalry Field, ours is not only the most complete, but also the most accurate - which brings up another point. There is indeed a lot of information on the internet about many subjects, Gettysburg and related topics among them - but after having looked at most of what's available, so much of it is either inaccurate or incomplete. Additionally, there are no rock carvings tours like we have. No tour of field hospitals as complete as ours. No tours of the cemeteries as complete as ours. And our battlefield tour is (in our opinion :) cleverly designed to appeal to both novices and battle experts. And even the most expert visitors have told us over and over that our tour gave them a completely different perspective of the field, many new aspects to consider, and lots of new information that they'd never seen before.

And finally, no where is there such an awesome collection of Steve Stanley's maps of the battle. They are worth the price of the book many times over.

Check it out. And if you feel it's worth it, maybe you'll consider buying it. If you do, we'd love to hear from you about it!

Best,
J.D. Petruzzi