Dead Confederate artillerymen, in front of Dunker Church, Battle of Antietam
On September 17, 1862, one of the bloodiest battles in American history took place near the small town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Battle of Antietam lasted only one day, but resulted in over 23,000 deaths. The victory, claimed by the Union forces, encouraged President Lincoln to issue his Emancipation Proclamation on September 22.
Antietam, unfortunately, was only one bloody battle in a war of many. Tuesday night, PBS broadcast a look at the toll of death on the young United States; the documentary, Death and the Civil War, is based on the book by Drew Gilpin Faust (This Republic of Suffering). Because the war was fought entirely by Americans, and because military technology far exceeded the medical advances of the time, the amount of deaths that occurred during many battles of the Civil War were beyond almost all comprehension. Learn more about the individual land battles through one of these books:
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The American Civil War: A Military History – John Keegan
Antietam, South Mountain, and Harper’s Ferry: A Battlefield Guide – Ethan Sepp Rafuse
Atlas of the Civil War: A Comprehensive Guide to the Tactics and Terrain of Battle
Battle at Bull Run: A History of the First Major Campaign of the Civil War – William C. Davis
The Battle of Gettysburg: The Country, the Contestants, the Results - W.C. Storrick
Battles and Leaders of the Civil War edited by Robert Underwood Johnson and Clarence Clough Buel
The Civil War, A Narrative – Shelby Foote
The Colors of Courage: Gettysburg’s Forgotten History: Immigrants, Women, and African Americans in the Civil War’s Defining Battle – Margaret S. Creighton
Fields of Honor – Edwin C. Bearss
The Fog of Gettysburg: The Myths and Mysteries of the Battle – Ken Allers, Jr.
Gettysburg: A Testing of Courage – Noah Andre Trudeau
Gettysburg: Day Three – Jeffry D. Wert
Gettysburg: The Final Fury – Bruce Catton
Gettysburg: The Second Day – Harry W. Pfanz
Gettysburg: You Are There – Robert Clasby
Hearts Touched by Fire: The Best of Battle and Leaders of the Civil War – edited by Harold Holzer
Jeff Shaara’s Civil War Battlefields: Discovering America’s Hallowed Ground – Jeff Shaara
The Longest Night: A Military History of the Civil War – David J. Eicher
Pickett’s Charge: A Microhistory of the Final Attack at Gettysburg, July 3, 1863 – George R. Stewart
Shades of Blue and Gray: An Introductory Military History of the Civil War – Herman Hattaway
Shiloh, 1862 – Winston Groom
Shiloh: The Battle That Changed the Civil War – Larry J. Daniel
Smithsonian’s Great Battles and Battlefields of the Civil War – Jay Wertz and Edwin C. Bearss
The Third Day at Gettysburg and Beyond
Travels to Hallowed Ground: A Historian’s Journey to the American Civil War – Emory M. Thomas
Witness to Gettysburg – Richard Wheeler
