A Fierce Glory
Antietam--The Desperate Battle That Saved Lincoln and Doomed Slavery
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4.3 • 4 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
On September 17, 1862, the "United States" was on the brink, facing a permanent split into two separate nations. America's very future hung on the outcome of a single battle--and the result reverberates to this day. Given the deep divisions that still rive the nation, given what unites the country, too, Antietam is more relevant now than ever.
The epic battle, fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland, was a Civil War turning point. The South had just launched its first invasion of the North; victory for Robert E. Lee would almost certainly have ended the war on Confederate terms. If the Union prevailed, Lincoln stood ready to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He knew that freeing the slaves would lend renewed energy and lofty purpose to the North's war effort. Lincoln needed a victory to save the divided country, but victory would come at a price. Detailed here is the cannon din and desperation, the horrors and heroes of this monumental battle, one that killed 3,650 soldiers, still the highest single-day toll in American history.
Justin Martin, an acclaimed writer of narrative nonfiction, renders this landmark event in a revealing new way. More than in previous accounts, Lincoln is laced deeply into the story. Antietam represents Lincoln at his finest, as the grief-racked president--struggling with the recent death of his son, Willie--summoned the guile necessary to manage his reluctant general, George McClellan. The Emancipation Proclamation would be the greatest gambit of the nation's most inspired leader. And, in fact, the battle's impact extended far beyond the field; brilliant and lasting innovations in medicine, photography, and communications were given crucial real-world tests. No mere gunfight, Antietam rippled through politics and society, transforming history.
A Fierce Glory is a fresh and vibrant account of an event that had enduring consequences that still resonate today.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Martin (Genius of Place) avoids clinical military assessments and instead imbues the story of Antietam with small personal details about the very real people from private to president whose fates changed with the outcome. Drawing on a trove of personal accounts and powerful photographic images, Martin conversationally describes events at the Maryland battlefield and in Washington as Lincoln struggled intensely with the loss of his son and a desperate need for a military triumph. Martin argues intriguingly that the Union victory snatched from stalemate only by the eventual Confederate retreat served as the true turning point of the war, allowing Lincoln to finally plan his Emancipation Proclamation address and starting a trajectory that led to Gettysburg in 1863. Novelistic prose, supported by thorough documentation and photos, packs an additional wallop, bringing home the battle's high human cost. While Lincoln and General McClellan bicker, it's the devastated soldiers whose fates ground the story, such as a lieutenant colonel from Massachusetts who wrote to his mother while mortally wounded, and 13-year-old Charley King, who begged his parents to let him serve as a drummer and became the war's youngest army casualty. Martin's fantastic recreation of this significant battle, with its focus on humanity, will resonate with both Civil War novices and more knowledgeable readers.
