the subtitle is a microhistory of the last battle of Gettysburg

The entire book is the lead up to the charge and the charge. It is hard to follow everything because so much of the detail is explained through military numbers of groups of the troops both Union and Confederate.

Pickett's charge was viewed in retrospect as the beginning of the end for the Confederacy.

Don't you find it interesting that Lost Cause Mythologists call Grant a murderer for ordering the assault at Cold Harbor, but don't find fault with Lee for Pickett's Charge, which sustained more casualties? If you want to place Pickett's Charge into perspective, read How Robert E. Lee Lost the Civil War.

There are some who feel like Jeff Davis shared some of the responsibility for the South's loss of the war. Lee's trip to Gettysburg was 2 years too late.

some who feel like Jeff Davis shared some of the responsibility for the South's loss of the war.

There are historians who believe that if Davis had been president of the U.S., while Lincoln was president of the Confederacy, the Confederacy would have won the war.  Still, an analysis of Lee's aggressive battlefield tactics cost the Confederacy in manpower, a cost they couldn't sustain, as did the North.