Approximately 110,000 soldiers of the Union and Confederate armies fought along the banks of Antietam Creek in the bloodiest single-day battle in American history. In 12 hours of fighting, approximately 23,000 men fell, either killed, wounded, or missing, forever scarring the landscape around the town of Sharpsburg. Established as the Antietam Battlefield Site in 1890, Antietam National Battlefield became a National Park Service landmark in 1933. The park grew from 33 acres in the 1890s to encompassing over 3,000 acres today. Some of the Civil War's most recognizable landmarks now sit within its boundaries, including Dunker Church, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge. The events that occurred across the fields and woodlots around Sharpsburg and along Antietam Creek bring hundreds of thousands of visitors to Antietam National Battlefield every year. ?Kevin Pawlak serves as a certified battlefield guide at Antietam National Battlefield. Antietam National Battlefield is filled with historic photographs of the battlefield and its development from the collections of Antietam National Battlefield Library, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, the United States Army Heritage and Education Center, private collections, and more.

The Battle of Antietam took place on September 17, 1862, and still stands as the bloodiest single day in American military history. Additionally, in its aftermath, President Abraham Lincoln issued his famous Emancipation Proclamation. In this engaging, easy-to-use guide, Carol Reardon and Tom Vossler allow visitors to understand this crucial Civil War battle in fine detail. Abundantly illustrated with maps and historical and modern photographs, A Field Guide to Antietam explores twenty-one sites on and near the battlefield where significant action occurred. Combining crisp narrative and rich historical context, each stop in the book is structured around the following questions: *What happened here? *Who fought here? *Who commanded here? *Who fell here? *Who lived here? *How did participants remember the events? With accessible presentation and fresh interpretations of primary and secondary evidence, this is an absolutely essential guide to Antietam and its lasting legacy.

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.

September 17, 1862--one of the most consequential days in the history of the United States--was a moment in time when the future of the country could have veered in two starkly different directions.Confederates under General Robert E. Lee had embarked upon an invasion of Maryland, threatening to achieve a victory on Union soil that could potentially end the Civil War in Southern Independence. Lee's opponent, Major General George McClellan, led the Army of the Potomac to stop Lee's campaign. In Washington D.C., President Lincoln eagerly awaited news from the field, knowing that the future of freedom for millions was at stake. Lincoln had resolved that, should Union forces win in Maryland, he would issue his Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation.All this hung in the balance on September 17: the day of the battle of Antietam.The fighting near Sharpsburg, Maryland, that day would change the course of American history, but in the process, it became the costliest day this nation has ever known, with more than 23,000 men falling as casualties.Join historian Daniel J. Vermilya to learn more about America's bloodiest day, and how it changed the United States forever in That Field of Blood.

The Civil War battle in western Maryland that killed 22,000 men—and served no military purpose. For generations of Americans, the word Antietam—the name of a bucolic stream in western Maryland—held the same sense of horror and carnage that the date 9/11 does for Americans today. But Antietam eclipses even this modern tragedy as America’s single bloodiest day, on which 22,000 men became casualties in a war to determine our nation’s future. Antietam is forever burned into the American psyche as a battle bathed in blood that served no military purpose and brought no decisive victory. This much Americans know was true. What they didn’t know was why the battle broke out at all—until now. The Cornfield: Antietam’s Bloody Turning Point tells for the first time the full story of the struggle to control “the Cornfield,” the action on which the costly battle of Antietam turned. Because Federal and Confederate forces repeatedly traded control of the spot, the fight for the Cornfield is a story of human struggle against fearful odds, men seeking to do their duty, and a simple test of survival. Many of the firsthand accounts included in this volume have never before been revealed to modern readers or assembled in such a comprehensive, readable narrative. At the same time, The Cornfield offers fresh views of the battle as a whole, arguing that two central facts doomed thousands of soldiers. This new, provocative perspective is certain to change our modern understanding of how the battle of Antietam was fought and its role in American history.