The Cornfield: Antietam's Bloody Turning Point

The Cornfield: Antietam's Bloody Turning Point

Antietam. For generations of Americans this wordâ€”the name of a bucolic stream in western Marylandâ€”held the same sense of horror and carnage that the simple date 9/11 does for modern America. 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 nationâ€™s future.

Antietam is forever burned into the American psyche, a battle bathed in blood that served no military purpose, brought no decisive victory. This much Americans know. What they didn't know is why this is soâ€”until now. The Cornfield: Antietam's Bloody Turning Point tells for the first time the full story of the exciting struggle to control â€œthe Cornfield,â€ the action on which the costly battle of Antietam turned, in a thorough yet readable narrative. It explains what happened in Antietamâ€™s Cornfield and why. 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, of men seeking to do their duty, of simply trying to survive. Many of the included firsthand accounts have never been revealed to modern readers and never have they been assembled in such a comprehensive, readable form.

At the same time, The Cornfield offers fresh views of the battle as a whole, arguing that it turned on events in the Cornfield because of two central facts â€” Union General George McClellanâ€™s linear thinking demanded that the Cornfield must be taken and, because of this, the repeated failure by the generals McClellan charged with fulfilling this task created a self-reinforcing cycle of disaster that doomed the Union's prospects for successâ€”at the cost of thousands of lives.

The Cornfield offers new perspectives that may be controversialâ€”particularly to those who accept unchallenged the views of the battle's first historians and its generals, who too often sought to shape our understanding for their own purposesâ€”but which are certain to change modern understanding of how the battle of Antietam was fought and its role in American history.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1. Planting the Seed of a Campaign
Chapter 2. The Road to Antietam: September 4â€“15, 1862
Chapter 3. Emerging from the Fog: September 16
Chapter 4. America's Bloodiest Day Dawns: Midnight to Sunrise
Chapter 5. The Cornfield: Ricketts' Division Opens the Ball
Chapter 6. The Cornfield: Doubleday's Attack
Chapter 7. The Cornfield: Hood's Division Counterstrikes
Chapter 8. The Cornfield: Mansfield Wrests Order from Chaos
Chapter 9. The Cornfield: Williams Turns the Tide
Chapter 10. The Cornfield: Union Success Weighs in the Balance
Chapter 11. The Cornfield's Influence: Sumner Takes Command
Chapter 12.The Cornfield's Influence: The West Woods Fight
Chapter 13. The Cornfield's Influence: Greene's Division Takes the West Woods
Chapter 14. The Cornfield's Influence: Franklin's Moment and the VI Corps Arrive
Chapter 15. The Cornfield's Influence: The South Seeks the Offensive
Chapter 16. "How Did They Remain and Live so Long?"
Country USA
Brand Casemate
Manufacturer Casemate
Binding Hardcover
ReleaseDate 2020-02-20
UnitCount 1
Format Illustrated
EANs 9781612008325

Country	USA
Brand	Casemate
Manufacturer	Casemate
Binding	Hardcover
ReleaseDate	2020-02-20
UnitCount	1
Format	Illustrated
EANs	9781612008325

The Cornfield: Antietam's Bloody Turning Point

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