The Battle of Antietam, fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland, was the bloodiest day in American history, with more than twenty-three thousand dead, wounded and missing. This book invites the reader to walk the routes of some of the units on the field through the stories of thirty-six individual soldiers who fought on that day. The images of the soldiers in this work, many of which have never been published before, give faces to the fighting men at Antietam, as well as insight into their lives. Join Matthew Borders and Joseph Stahl as they share their expertise and grant glimpses into the lives of those who fought to preserve the Union.

The first Confederate invasion of the North in the fall of 1862 led to a series of engagements known as the Maryland Campaign. Though best remembered for its climax, there was desperate fighting at both South Mountain and Harpers Ferry prior to the bloodletting at Antietam Creek. These battles in particular were desperate affairs of bloody attacks and determined defense. In this work are the images of thirty Union soldiers, published here for the first time, that help give a face and a history to those men who struggled up the slopes of South Mountain or sheltered from Confederate cannons at Harpers Ferry. Join Matthew Borders and Joseph Stahl as they introduce you to these men, their battles and their stories.

Stories of New England soldiers who perished in this bloody battle, based on their diaries and letters. The Battle of Antietam, in September 1862, was the single bloodiest day of the Civil War. In the intense conflict and its aftermath across the farm fields and woodlots near Sharpsburg, Maryland, more than two hundred men from Connecticut died. Their grave sites are scattered throughout the Nutmeg State, from Willington to Madison and Brooklyn to Bristol. Here, author John Banks chronicles their mostly forgotten stories using diaries, pension records, and soldiers’ letters. Learn of Henry Adams, a twenty-two-year-old private from East Windsor who lay incapacitated in a cornfield for nearly two days before he was found; Private Horace Lay of Hartford, who died with his wife by his side in a small church that served as a hospital after the battle; and Captain Frederick Barber of Manchester, who survived a field operation only to die days later. This book tells the stories of these and many more brave Yankees who fought in the fields of Antietam. Includes photos

A richly detailed account of the hard-fought campaign that led to Antietam Creek and changed the course of the Civil War. In early September 1862 thousands of Union soldiers huddled within the defenses of Washington, disorganized and discouraged from their recent defeat at Second Manassas. Confederate General Robert E. Lee then led his tough and confident Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland in a bold gamble to force a showdown that could win Southern independence. The future of the Union hung in the balance. The campaign that followed lasted only two weeks, but it changed the course of the Civil War. D. Scott Hartwig delivers a riveting first installment of a two-volume study of the campaign and climactic battle. It takes the reader from the controversial return of George B. McClellan as commander of the Army of the Potomac through the Confederate invasion, the siege and capture of Harpers Ferry, the daylong Battle of South Mountain, and, ultimately, to the eve of the great and terrible Battle of Antietam.

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.

General John A. Wickham, commander of the famous 101st Airborne Division in the 1970s and subsequently Army Chief of Staff, once visited Antietam battlefield. Gazing at Bloody Lane where, in 1862, several Union assaults were brutally repulsed before they finally broke through, he marveled, "You couldn't get American soldiers today to make an attack like that." Why did those men risk certain death, over and over again, through countless bloody battles and four long, awful years ? Why did the conventional wisdom -- that soldiers become increasingly cynical and disillusioned as war progresses -- not hold true in the Civil War? It is to this question--why did they fight--that James McPherson, America's preeminent Civil War historian, now turns his attention. He shows that, contrary to what many scholars believe, the soldiers of the Civil War remained powerfully convinced of the ideals for which they fought throughout the conflict. Motivated by duty and honor, and often by religious faith, these men wrote frequently of their firm belief in the cause for which they fought: the principles of liberty, freedom, justice, and patriotism. Soldiers on both sides harkened back to the Founding Fathers, and the ideals of the American Revolution. They fought to defend their country, either the Union--"the best Government ever made"--or the Confederate states, where their very homes and families were under siege. And they fought to defend their honor and manhood. "I should not lik to go home with the name of a couhard," one Massachusetts private wrote, and another private from Ohio said, "My wife would sooner hear of my death than my disgrace." Even after three years of bloody battles, more than half of the Union soldiers reenlisted voluntarily. "While duty calls me here and my country demands my services I should be willing to make the sacrifice," one man wrote to his protesting parents. And another soldier said simply, "I still love my country." McPherson draws on more than 25,000 letters and nearly 250 private diaries from men on both sides. Civil War soldiers were among the most literate soldiers in history, and most of them wrote home frequently, as it was the only way for them to keep in touch with homes that many of them had left for the first time in their lives. Significantly, their letters were also uncensored by military authorities, and are uniquely frank in their criticism and detailed in their reports of marches and battles, relations between officers and men, political debates, and morale. For Cause and Comrades lets these soldiers tell their own stories in their own words to create an account that is both deeply moving and far truer than most books on war. Battle Cry of Freedom, McPherson's Pulitzer Prize-winning account of the Civil War, was a national bestseller that Hugh Brogan, in The New York Times, called "history writing of the highest order." For Cause and Comrades deserves similar accolades, as McPherson's masterful prose and the soldiers' own words combine to create both an important book on an often-overlooked aspect of our bloody Civil War, and a powerfully moving account of the men who fought it.

As an iconic symbol of the American GI, the dog tag has gained considerable cultural recognition. This book returns to the origins of the dog tag with an in-depth look at all 49 styles of Civil War era Union identification discs, including detailed photographs and histories for individual discs as well as a general history of the origin and production of identification discs. This work also provides a general guide to the authentication of identification discs for use by collectors.