The Antietam Campaign (Military Campaigns of the Civil War) - Softcover

"This paperback . . . will make this fine work readily available and affordable for college classrooms and firesides tables, where it can inform, enlighten, and entertain." -- "Military History of the West" Gallagher again demonstrates that he is willing to challenge traditional and recent revisionist interpretations of the Civil War with equal energy."North Carolina Historical Review" This collection of essays edited by Professor Gary Gallagher offers entertaining passages, interesting details, and thought-provoking ideas."Journal of Southern History" [This book] significantly advances our understanding of a well-known clash between the North and the South."Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography" The book deserves a place on bookshelves next to the standard monographs about the Battle of Sharpsburg."Civil War History" "The Antietam Campaign" is at once a lively and provocative read."Southern Historian"

The Maryland campaign of September 1862 ranks among the most important military operations of the American Civil War. Crucial political, diplomatic, and military issues were at stake as Robert E. Lee and George B. McClellan maneuvered and fought in the western part of the state. The climactic clash came on September 17 at the battle of Antietam, where more than 23,000 men fell in the single bloodiest day of the war.

Approaching topics related to Lee's and McClellan's operations from a variety of perspectives, contributors to this volume explore questions regarding military leadership, strategy, and tactics, the impact of the fighting on officers and soldiers in both armies, and the ways in which participants and people behind the lines interpreted and remembered the campaign. They also discuss the performance of untried military units and offer a look at how the United States Army used the Antietam battlefield as an outdoor classroom for its officers in the early twentieth century.

The contributors are William A. Blair, Keith S. Bohannon, Peter S. Carmichael, Gary W. Gallagher, Lesley J. Gordon, D. Scott Hartwig, Robert E. L. Krick, Robert K. Krick, Carol Reardon, and Brooks D. Simpson.