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 xiii
... turning points,” when the war “might have gone altogether differently.” Another is Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale Fossils and the Nature of History, which constructs a new model of natural history on “historical ...
... turning points,” when the war “might have gone altogether differently.” Another is Stephen Jay Gould's Wonderful Life: The Burgess Shale Fossils and the Nature of History, which constructs a new model of natural history on “historical ...
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... turning points, the battle of Antietam was the pivotal moment for the most crucial of them all. This book provides a map to guide readers to that crossroads of freedom at Sharpsburg. James M. McPherson Princeton, New Jersey Crossroads ...
... turning points, the battle of Antietam was the pivotal moment for the most crucial of them all. This book provides a map to guide readers to that crossroads of freedom at Sharpsburg. James M. McPherson Princeton, New Jersey Crossroads ...
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... turning toward [me], 'for the poor fellow could—' Just then a solid shot took the lieutenant's head off.”9 The shock of such scenes caused psychiatric casualties among even the most hardened and experienced soldiers. Colonel William R ...
... turning toward [me], 'for the poor fellow could—' Just then a solid shot took the lieutenant's head off.”9 The shock of such scenes caused psychiatric casualties among even the most hardened and experienced soldiers. Colonel William R ...
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... turn to weeping. . . . I pray God may stop such infernal work—though perhaps he has sent it upon us for our sins. Great indeed must have been our sins if such is our punishment.”12 A Massachusetts officer who fought at Antietam also was ...
... turn to weeping. . . . I pray God may stop such infernal work—though perhaps he has sent it upon us for our sins. Great indeed must have been our sins if such is our punishment.”12 A Massachusetts officer who fought at Antietam also was ...
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... turning points brought reversals of an apparently inexorable momentum toward victory by one side and then the other during the war. Two such pivotal moments occurred in the year that preceded Antietam. Union naval and military victories ...
... turning points brought reversals of an apparently inexorable momentum toward victory by one side and then the other during the war. Two such pivotal moments occurred in the year that preceded Antietam. Union naval and military victories ...
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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