Rating: 
Summary: Antietam--Concise but full of facts.
Review: Only 130 pages of words, if maps & pictures are not
counted; but they tell the story of the war in 1862.
McClellan's faults are put in focus (What would Grant
have done if he had been in command in Maryland?) The
book also neatly summarizes the South's hopes, the
timing of emancipation and the battle's effect on the
elections of '62. This book should be on your Civil
War bookshelf.
Rating: 
Summary: Couldn't Put It Down
Review: This is an excellent account not only of a key battle of the war, but also of the events leading up to and following the battle. It's a quick read especially since I couldn't put it down. I have read a lot of books on the Civil War, but I still learned a lot in this one.
Rating: 
Summary: Best for those unfamiliar with Antietam's impact
Review: I take a back seat to no one in my admiration of James McPherson; I have corresponded with him, and consider "Battle Cry of Freedom" one of the three greatest history books ever written, with "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" and "A Stillness at Appomattox." Still, I found this book unsatisfying; his observations sometimes obvious, and his analysis often incomplete. It is very short, too; perhaps best to wait for the "clearance" bin. For those unfamiliar with Antietam and the Civil War generally, this is an excellent book. For the rest of us, it is an easy way to fall asleep in a hammock on a warm summer day. In other words, not bad, but not striking, either.
Rating: 
Summary: A Great Magazine Article
Review: This would have made a wonderful magazine article but to call it a "book" is misleading. If you eliminate the maps, pictures and blank pages between chapters you probably have 125 pages of text. At its price, this is not a worthwhile investment for any civil war buff. While it is well written, it simply makes the case that Antietam was a pivitol battle. I think most people, who are somewhat informed about the Civil War, already knew that.
Rating:
Summary: Sorry--I'm underwhelmed
Review: With respect to all to the 5-star raters out there, I found this book mediocre at best. 96 pages and we still haven't even gotten to South Mountain. Only 35 pages out of 156 were actually devoted to the battles, and this includes all four: Turners Gap, Cramptons Gap, Harpers Ferry, and FINALLY Antietam. And in the handful of pages on the battle itself, nothing new or thought-provoking. I know McPherson is trying to write a different kind of military history with a broader perspective than just how many Minie Balls were shot per cubic yard, but this book was a singular disappointment.
Rating:
Summary: The Battle that Saved the Union
Review: The spring of 1862 saw a number of Union victories. The summer saw Confederate successes, and the invasion of Maryland in September. The Union victory drove back the Confederates, prevented foreign recognition of the Confederacy, raised the morale of the Union, and allowed Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. More American soldiers died in this one battle than in all other 19th century wars combined! Such slaughter would not be seen again until the Great War.The small rivers in Virginia were a defense line to any advance onto Richmond. McClellan wanted a flank attack from Fort Monroe, using a secure supply line. McClellan moved too slowly, the Confederate army escaped, but Norfolk was captured. The Union army was a few miles from Richmond, and the war seemed likely to end. While the Union Navy could not prevent cotton exports in 1861, the South decided not to export cotton to pressure Great Britain to recognize the Confederacy! The bumper crops of 1859 and 1860 created a surplus and negated this strategy. By 1862 the Union Navy effected the blockade, and this reduced any chance of European recognition. (There is no mention of Union wheat exports.) May 1862 saw TJ Jackson's victory in the Shenandoah valley. J Johnston's attack on McClellan's army resulted in his replacement by Robert E Lee. The book mentions McClellan's reluctance to attack, and Confederate successes. This implies that McClellan's intelligence was faulty, and the Confederates much better. McClellan remained popular with his troops; did they see the big picture? Some army officers thought McClellan should have attacked. Part of this criticism stems from the politics of cliques and rivalries, not just the failure to win or even attack. While the Confederacy was founded to keep slavery, their European sympathizers were against slavery (p.60). Since the Union did not then call for abolition, they also lost support. Lincoln was a pragmatic politician. If keeping slavery saved the Union, he would do it. But if saving the Union meant destroying slavery, he would do that. Lincoln was "naturally anti-slavery", and the South knew it. In July Lincoln told border-state congressmen that if they did not accept compensated emancipation, universal emancipation would follow "a military necessity" )p.70). Public opinion changed since 1861. The Confederate invasion of Maryland was not followed by popular support. Defeat of the Union could turn America into petty republics, as in South America. But the Confederate supply lines were lengthened, and the Union army became more strengthened (p.104). On Sept 13, 1862 Corporal Barton W. Mitchell found an envelope with three cigars. In there was "Special Orders No 191" which told of Lee's plans. This was brought to McCLellan; for once he had the advantage! But Little Mac delayed, and Lee escaped disaster. McClellan failed to use his cavalry to scout the enemy. After Lee withdrew his troops, McClellan, with more fresh troops, failed to pursue (p.130). McClellan did stop Lee's invasion, but did not beat or destroy Lee's army. Lee would not take the offensive for eight months. The Union continued to grow in strength after Antietam. This was the end of the beginning. The battles at Vicksburg and Gettysburg next year marked the beginning of the end. This book gives a concise history of that time.
Rating:
Summary: This is McPherson?
Review: I was disappointed, frankly, by the lack of information about the battle itself; it receiving less than 20% of the approximately 150 pages. The remainder of the book felt like a mish-mash of other Civil War books where McPherson or his team threw in quotes from papers, diaries, etc. The book lacked excitement and interest and reminded me of Cliff notes. This is all too bad since I'm a McPherson fan.
Rating:
Summary: Masterful, but does it have a market?
Review: It is really invigorating to read the words of an author so completely in command of his material as McPherson. He ties together the causes and consequences of the battle of Antietam with remarkable eloquence and a breathtaking efficiency (at less than 160 pages). He boils down the complex story to seamless narrative. I worry about who's going to read this book, however. War buffs already know everything that's in it, and are likely to be disappointed by the small space the actual narration of the battle takes (only about 20 pages of the book). Newcomers might be better off with McPherson's one-volume treatment of the whole war ("Battle Cry of Freedom"). If you are wondering where you fall on this line, here's a good test question: do you know the story about how battle plans came to be wrapped around some cigars? If you haven't (sounds interesting, doesn't it?), there's enough new in this book for you. If you have....well, you might find much of the content familiar, but please have a go anyway. It's great to watch a master at work.
Rating:
Summary: To The Point, But Very Brief
Review: This is Civil War historian McPherson's contribution to a series called Pivotal Moments in American History. It's sole purpose seems to be to show that the battle of Antietam was such a moment and it does so clearly and very briefly. As such, it may be useful for an American History curriculum based on "pivotal moments", but for general readers of Civil War history it doesn't break any new ground. It uses primary sources, i.e. soldiers' letters, contemprary newspapers, and memoirs to make its points.
The first hundred pages are devoted to sketching in events earlier in 1962 and outlining the reasons that so much hung in the balance on the eve of the battle. It is an excellent summary. The battle itself gets only about 25 pages, with the remainder of the book devoted to Antietam's aftermath and the effects that flowed from it.
Those looking for a detailed moment-by-moment description of the battle of Antietam should look elsewhere. McPherson has produced a short,useful book on the battle's importance in the outcome of the Civil War and in the politcal history of the United States.
Rating:
Summary: A study of the Battle of Antietam as historical contingency
Review: The Battle of Antietam was the most important non-defeat for the Union during the Civil War. From a military standpoint this was because McClellan and the Army of the Potomac managed to stop Lee's Army of Northern Virginia from invading the North, but the greater importance has always been the political opportunity the "victory" afforded Lincoln to release the Emancipation Proclamation. This, of course, placed the Northern efforts on a higher plain and changed the war from an effort to preserve the Union to a war to free the slaves. The story of the battle itself has always been the final nail in the military reputation of George B. McClellan, who proved that even in you added the tactical advantage of having Robert E. Lee's battle orders to his numerical superiority in troops, this was a general who could still find a way to almost be defeated. I have played on the Battle of Antietam in a computer simulation several times and always annihilate the Confederate army (the main flaw in the game is that an army being defeated can only leave the field if its troops are actually routed, so a strategic withdrawal is not possible). James M. McPherson's "Crossroad of Freedom: Antietam, the Battle that Changed the Course of the Civil War" focuses on both the military and political consequences of what happened in the fall of 1862. His look at the actual battle is essentially divided into two parts. First, McPherson puts Lee's invasion in the context of the Civil War up to that point, ostensibly to explain exactly why those two armies (under those two particular leaders) meet at Sharpsburg that September. Second, McPherson details McClellan's ineptitude as a leader and the bad luck that haunted the Army of the Potomac during the battle, explaining and assessing the strategic decisions and movements that led to the deaths of over 6,000 soldiers. Consequently, there is more of an argumentative structure to the retelling of the battle than what we usually find. The book is published as part of the new Pivotal Moments in American History series, which encourages interest in problems of historical contingency, and certainly McPherson shows his mastery of this "what if" and "how close" approach to historiography. The volume's last chapter, "The Beginning of the End," offers a concise explication of the importance of the Battle of Antietam as military, political, and moral pivot of the Civil War. The argument that most impressed me in this chapter was how Antietam impacted the mid-term elections of 1862. Suffice it to say that McPherson's implicit conclusion is that the Battle of Antietam in general and perhaps the fight for Burnside's bridge depicted on the cover, was the true "high watermark" of the Confederacy. This is because a Confederate victory at Sharpsburg, which resulted in a 1% change in votes, could have seen the Democrats take control of Congress. At that point the fabled road to Washington that Lee supposedly would have been able to see after Pickett's Charge had broken the Army of the Potomac at Gettysburg (and ably dismissed by several historians as unrealistic given the condition of Lee's troops, the weather that weekend, and the fortifications around the Federal capital), would have been a more realistic political avenue towards a peaceful end to the war, the recognition of the Confederacy, the end of the Republican Party, and whatever else you can reasonably imagine. This is exactly the sort of historical scholarship I most enjoy. McPherson tells not only what happened but why, while covering the possible contingencies with equal strength. If future volumes in this series are similarly compelling, then I would be interested in reading them even if they were not about the Civil War. Actually, I would not mind writing one about the Scopes "Monkey" Trial for this series, but that is a far fetched contingency to be sure.
|
