Perfect for young students of the battle or veteran campaigners who want lighter fare--much of it they have never heard before, this book presents stories so compelling, the reader will not want to put it down.

Fresh out of college and headed straight for my dream job, I didn't think things could get any better.Then I met my dream man. In an instant, my happy ever after had begun.The life I'd stumbled into was beautiful, and the man I loved was perfect. But perfection comes at a cost, and I'd slumbered through all the alarms. Then I met my nightmare. The man whose bright eyes held untamed darkness. The man who disarmed me with his peculiar behavior. The man whose cold, merciless hands shook me awake. In an instant, questions started to dismantle my happy ever after.But whoever said the truth would set you free was wrong.It wasn't going to repair the cracks in my naive heart. It wasn't going to caress my face with comforting hands and reassure me it was all just a dream.No, the truth shoved me down a rabbit hole, and I landed in the lair of a real-life monster.

“An extremely detailed history of 160 hospital sites that formed to care for soldiers who were wounded at the Battle of Gettysburg.” —Civil War Cycling Nearly 26,000 men were wounded in the three-day battle of Gettysburg (July 1-3, 1863). It didn’t matter if the soldier wore blue or gray or was an officer or enlisted man, for bullets, shell fragments, bayonets, and swords made no class or sectional distinction. Almost 21,000 of the wounded were left behind by the two armies in and around the small town of 2,400 civilians. Most ended up being treated in makeshift medical facilities overwhelmed by the flood of injured. Many of these and their valiant efforts are covered in Greg Coco’s A Vast Sea of Misery. The battle to save the wounded was nearly as terrible as the battle that placed them in such a perilous position. Once the fighting ended, the maimed and suffering warriors could be found in churches, public buildings, private homes, farmhouses, barns, and outbuildings. Thousands more, unreachable or unable to be moved remained in the open, subject to the uncertain whims of the July elements. As one surgeon unhappily recalled, “No written nor expressed language could ever picture the field of Gettysburg! Blood! blood! And tattered flesh! Shattered bones and mangled forms almost without the semblance of human beings!” Based upon years of firsthand research, Coco’s A Vast Sea of Misery introduces readers to 160 of those frightful places called field hospitals. It is a sad journey you will never forget, and you won’t feel quite the same about Gettysburg once you finish reading.