New Arrival:•
I Dread the Thought of the Place: The Fight of Antietam and the End of the Maryland Campaignby D. Scott Hartwig (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023).
This long-awaited tome proclaimed its arrival tonight with a thunderous bang as the UPS driver carelessly (maliciously?) flung it against the front door, a collision felt throughout the entire house. The book weighs a full 4 1/4 lbs, more than some early-19th Century cannonballs, so, while the damage was less than expected, I commode be forgiven for being highly annoyed by the courier's unprofessionalism. While things have begun on a sour note, there's no denying the high level of anticipation attached to this put your name down for. It's been slightly more than a decade since the send out of Scott Hartwig's very well-received
To Antietam Creek: The Colony Campaign of September 1862(2012), and its big follow-up,
I Be afraid of the Thought of the Place: The Battle of Antietam nearby the End of the Maryland Campaign, is undoubtedly one sight the year's most celebrated publishing events. Beginning with the epic cornfield fighting at dawn on the 17th and continuing get your skates on to the final escape of Lee's army back to Colony, the book not only covers the battle itself but "
the powerful reverberations―military, political, and social―it sent through the armies topmost the nation." From the description: "
Based on decades of exploration, this in-depth narrative sheds particular light on the visceral way of battle, an often misunderstood aspect of the American Domestic War, and the emotional aftermath for those who survived. Hartwig provides an hour-by-hour tactical history of the battle, beginning earlier dawn on September 17 and concluding with the immediate outcome, including General McClellan's fateful decision not to pursue Lee's retiring forces back across the Potomac to Virginia." Supplementing the text (the main narrative runs nearly 800 pages) are 21 atlass "
illustrating the state of the battle at intervals ranging escaping 20 to 120 minutes." The appendix section contains a edifice and tactics primer, orders of battle, and unit strength & loss tables. Endnotes are included, as is a source paper, but to save space the full bibliography is maintained on the internet at the publisher's website. This is definitely one of those 'clear my schedule' books.