In researching and writing this book, certain facts came to light I suspect many readers may not know. For example, among the officers who led the Union Army to victory at Gettysburg were General Abner Doubleday and Brigadier General George Armstrong Custer. Doubleday, of course, is credited with inventing baseball (though he really didn’t – check it out). And Custer would later become infamous at the Battle of Little Big Horn when he and his federal troops got clobbered by some 3,000 Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho warriors led by Chief Crazy Horse.

And then there was Edward Everett, the country’s foremost orator, who gave a blustery two-hour speech prior to President Lincoln taking the podium on November 19, 1863. The president delivered The Gettysburg Address in just over two minutes!