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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... regiment (57th New York) fought described the dead “in every state of mutilation, sans arms, sans legs, heads, and intestines, and in greater number than on any field we have seen before.” A local resident who rode over the battlefield ...
... regiment (57th New York) fought described the dead “in every state of mutilation, sans arms, sans legs, heads, and intestines, and in greater number than on any field we have seen before.” A local resident who rode over the battlefield ...
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... regiment. “No one can begin to estimate the amount of agony after a great battle. . . . The poor mutilated soldiers that yet have life and sensation make a most horrid picture.”6 Months after the battle, Sharpsburg continued to disgorge ...
... regiment. “No one can begin to estimate the amount of agony after a great battle. . . . The poor mutilated soldiers that yet have life and sensation make a most horrid picture.”6 Months after the battle, Sharpsburg continued to disgorge ...
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... regiment, who remained in the vicinity of Sharpsburg for more than a month to treat the wounded, could find no answer to this question. “To the feeling man this war is truly a tragedy but to the thinking man it must appear a madness ...
... regiment, who remained in the vicinity of Sharpsburg for more than a month to treat the wounded, could find no answer to this question. “To the feeling man this war is truly a tragedy but to the thinking man it must appear a madness ...
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... regiments on the field. “Every battle makes me wish more and more that the war was over,” Shaw wrote to his father ... regiment recruited in the North. His family believed that the courage Shaw and his men demonstrated in that battle ...
... regiments on the field. “Every battle makes me wish more and more that the war was over,” Shaw wrote to his father ... regiment recruited in the North. His family believed that the courage Shaw and his men demonstrated in that battle ...
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... regiments when war broke out in 1861. In June and July, McClellan led a small army to victories that secured Union control of much of the area that became West Virginia. This success brought the call to Washington and command of the ...
... regiments when war broke out in 1861. In June and July, McClellan led a small army to victories that secured Union control of much of the area that became West Virginia. This success brought the call to Washington and command of the ...
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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