author
Franklin Aretas Haskell
1828–1864
A Union officer remembered less for fame than for the vivid power of his words, he left one of the most admired firsthand accounts of Gettysburg. His life was brief, but his writing has helped keep the human reality of the Civil War close and clear.
1 Audiobook
The Battle of Gettysburg
by Franklin Aretas Haskell
About the author
Born in Tunbridge, Vermont, in 1828, Franklin Aretas Haskell studied at Dartmouth and later read law in Wisconsin. When the Civil War began, he entered Union service and became a trusted staff officer for General John Gibbon, serving through major campaigns in the Army of the Potomac.
Haskell is best known today for the remarkable letter he wrote after the Battle of Gettysburg. Written from close observation and with unusual force and detail, it became one of the classic eyewitness accounts of the battle and has been widely read by students of the Civil War ever since.
He did not live to shape his own legacy for long. In 1864, after receiving a combat command, he was killed at the Battle of Cold Harbor in Virginia at just thirty-five years old. What remains is the rare combination of a soldier's courage and a writer's eye.