Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Mcpherson offers a masterful portrait of the bloodiest single day in American history, the Battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862.
Mcpherson brilliantly weaves these strands of diplomatic, political, and military history into a compact, swift-moving narrative that shows why America\'s bloodiest day is, indeed, a turning point in our history..
And it freed Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, which instantly changed the character of the war.
It crushed Confederate hopes of British intervention.
It restored morale in the North and kept Lincoln\'s party in control of Congress.
Lee\'s battered army escaped to fight another day, but Antietam was a critical victory for the Union.
Mcpherson vividly describes a day of savage fighting in locales that became forever famous--The Cornfield, the Dunkard Church, the West Woods, and Bloody Lane.
Valor, misjudgment, and astonishing coincidence all played a role in the outcome.
It came along the ridges and in the woods and cornfields between Antietam Creek and the Potomac River.
Both Confederate and Union troops knew the war was at a crossroads, that they were marching toward a decisive battle.
And Lincoln had shelved his proposed edict of emancipation months before, waiting for a victory that had not come--that some thought would never come.
Northern armies and voters were demoralized.
The British government was openly talking of recognizing the Confederacy and brokering a peace between North and South.
Lee\'s army was in Maryland, poised to threaten Washington.
The Union had suffered a string of defeats, and Robert E.
As Mcpherson shows, by September 1862 the survival of the United States was in doubt.
McPherson, paints a masterful account of this pivotal battle, the events that led up to it, and its aftermath.
In Crossroads of Freedom , America\'s most eminent Civil War historian, James M.
The Battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest single day in American history, with more than 6,000 soldiers killed--four times the number lost on D-Day, and twice the number killed in the September 11th terrorist attacks.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Mcpherson offers a masterful portrait of the bloodiest single day in American history, the Battle of Antietam, fought on September 17, 1862
