Crossroads of Freedom: AntietamOxford University Press, 2002 M09 12 - 224 páginas 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. In Crossroads of Freedom, America's most eminent Civil War historian, James M. McPherson, paints a masterful account of this pivotal battle, the events that led up to it, and its aftermath. As McPherson shows, by September 1862 the survival of the United States was in doubt. The Union had suffered a string of defeats, and Robert E. Lee's army was in Maryland, poised to threaten Washington. The British government was openly talking of recognizing the Confederacy and brokering a peace between North and South. Northern armies and voters were demoralized. 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. Both Confederate and Union troops knew the war was at a crossroads, that they were marching toward a decisive battle. It came along the ridges and in the woods and cornfields between Antietam Creek and the Potomac River. Valor, misjudgment, and astonishing coincidence all played a role in the outcome. 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. Lee's battered army escaped to fight another day, but Antietam was a critical victory for the Union. It restored morale in the North and kept Lincoln's party in control of Congress. It crushed Confederate hopes of British intervention. And it freed Lincoln to deliver the Emancipation Proclamation, which instantly changed the character of the war. 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. |
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Página 11
... enemy invasions and wearing out the will of the Northern people to carry on the war. By contrast, if President Abraham Lincoln wished to achieve his war aims of preserving the United States as a whole nation—a Union of all the states ...
... enemy invasions and wearing out the will of the Northern people to carry on the war. By contrast, if President Abraham Lincoln wished to achieve his war aims of preserving the United States as a whole nation—a Union of all the states ...
Página 14
... enemy forces confronting him (sometimes by multiples of two or three) and used these faulty estimates as a reason for inaction. The caution and defensivemindedness that McClellan infused into the Army of the Potomac persisted for almost ...
... enemy forces confronting him (sometimes by multiples of two or three) and used these faulty estimates as a reason for inaction. The caution and defensivemindedness that McClellan infused into the Army of the Potomac persisted for almost ...
Página 17
... enemy armies Grant would capture during the war. Left almost defenseless, Nashville fell to Buell's advancing Army of the Ohio on February 25, while Union gunboats ranged all the way up the Tennessee River to Florence, Alabama. One of ...
... enemy armies Grant would capture during the war. Left almost defenseless, Nashville fell to Buell's advancing Army of the Ohio on February 25, while Union gunboats ranged all the way up the Tennessee River to Florence, Alabama. One of ...
Página 20
... enemy have shown a daring that has taken us by surprise,” admitted the Richmond Enquirer. With the fall of Fort Donelson “we have sustained another staggering blow,” conceded the Richmond Dispatch, the newspaper with the largest ...
... enemy have shown a daring that has taken us by surprise,” admitted the Richmond Enquirer. With the fall of Fort Donelson “we have sustained another staggering blow,” conceded the Richmond Dispatch, the newspaper with the largest ...
Página 21
... enemy.” But he urged them not to “become despondent. . . . We are not conquered yet, nor will we be.” A South Carolina captain likewise acknowledged to his wife that the enemy had gained a temporary advantage, “but this is no more than ...
... enemy.” But he urged them not to “become despondent. . . . We are not conquered yet, nor will we be.” A South Carolina captain likewise acknowledged to his wife that the enemy had gained a temporary advantage, “but this is no more than ...
Contenido
3 | |
11 | |
JuneJuly 1862 | 41 |
3 The Federals Got a Very Complete Smashing AugustSeptember 1862 | 73 |
4 Showdown at Sharpsburg | 97 |
5 The Beginning of the End | 133 |
NOTES | 157 |
BIBLIOGRAPHICAL ESSAY | 185 |
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS | 191 |
INDEX | 193 |
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