Saturday, November 21, 2020

Status of Hartwig's Maryland Campaign Vol. 2

Earlier this week, helpful CWBA scout Mark H. informed me about Scott Hartwig's most recent progress report on the Antietam book that will complete his massive two-volume study of the 1862 Maryland Campaign. You can read Hartwig's post here. He hopes to have the writing phase completed by this upcoming spring. I have no idea how Johns Hopkins normally works their schedule (and we unfortunately still have to insert the ongoing pandemic into the calculus as well) but it seems difficult to imagine that we could see it out before 2022.

I still haven't read To Antietam Creek, which was released back in 2012 to universal acclaim. For me, the timing of it was terrible (at least that's how I remember it). It was the Sesquicentennial rush and I was already too Antietam'd out by other titles to take on a new 800-page tome on the subject. As a reviewer receiving a constant stream of new arrivals (at least that's the way it was back then), putting an extraordinarily time-consuming book like that one aside only makes it harder to later find the time to return to it. It's still on my shelf somewhere.

8 comments:

  1. Same here. I bought the book with eager anticipation, got sidetracked by alot of other things, and now it sits on my shelves, still waiting to be read and enjoyed.
    Have heard nothing but glowing reviews for it, so hoping I can get to it in the next year, and can be ready for volume two when it arrives.

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    1. Something like this can easily become a reference book that is never read cover to cover.

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    2. Very true. Problem is I am a bit of a military history fanatic and will give a professional level crack at it. I made it through Chandler's 'Campaigns of Napoleon' in eleven days. So Hartwig's two volume set may be doable if I really put my mind to it.

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    3. Very true. Problem is I am a bit of a military history fanatic and will give a professional level crack at it. I made it through Chandler's 'Campaigns of Napoleon' in eleven days. So Hartwig's two volume set may be doable if I really put my mind to it.

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  2. I feel like an oddball as I read the entire book and enjoyed it very much, particularly the South Mountain coverage Surely there are others. Have been looking forward to the book about the battle for a long time

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    1. It's only two of us! If memory serves, it came out after a year-long stream of Maryland Campaign books (including Jordan's South Mountain book, Gottfried's atlas, the big second volume of the edited Carman trilogy). I was exhausted on the topic. If it had arrived at the beginning of the year, I would surely have read it.

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  3. Hi Drew
    This seems like we have been waiting for this a very long time. I've not read the 1st volume and was planning to read both back to back when volume 2 is available. That will keep me busy for a while.

    Thanks
    Don Hallstrom

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  4. Re-energize yourself Drew. We something monumentally fresh coming on the entire Maryland Campaign....

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