Booknotes: From Frederick to Sharpsburg

New Arrival:

• From Frederick to Sharpsburg: People, Places, and Events of the Maryland Campaign Before Antietam by Steven R. Stotelmyer (Antietam Inst, 2023).

In its own words, the Antietam Institute "is a member centered organization with a mission to educate the public on the critical importance of the Battle of Antietam and the 1862 Maryland Campaign," and book and journal publication is a major part of the mission. The institute's first two full-length publications were the reference works Brigades of Antietam and The Artillery of Antietam, and the latest, From Frederick to Sharpsburg: People, Places, and Events of the Maryland Campaign Before Antietam by certified Antietam Battlefield Guide Steven Stotelmyer, is a different kind of book.

I liked Stotelmyer's recent reevaluation of McClellan's role in the campaign in 2019's Too Useful to Sacrifice, and From Frederick to Sharpsburg is another essay anthology. It consists of seven long-form essays, the volume's title and subtitle offering a good sense of their content range. The combination of main essays and appendix section fill over 450 pages, so it's a hefty book.

The description found on the institute's website contains summary insights on essay content. Stotelmyer's opening essay contests the conventional understanding of how the citizens of Frederick, Maryland responded to the Confederate arrival at their town: "In the popular histories of the event the people of Maryland are portrayed as turning a cold shoulder towards the Confederates and their cause. Using primary accounts, Stotelmyer provides an exploration of the Confederate reception in Frederick in the early days of the Maryland Campaign and concludes it was not as unfriendly as traditionally portrayed."

The following essay revisits the Barbara Fritchie story: "Barbara Fritchie was a real person living in Frederick during the Maryland Campaign. She was made famous by a poem published in 1863 by John Greenleaf Whittier. Because she passed away shortly after the Maryland Campaign, Barbara never knew any of the fame generated by Whittier’s pen. As the story goes the 96-year-old Barbara defiantly waved an American flag in the face of General Thomas J. “Stonewall” Jackson. In truth however, A Quaker poet who likely never saw the city or old lady, and a Confederate general who never saw either, poet or lady, made as fine an advertising project as any city could desire."

Other essay subjects include a major Confederate intelligence gaffe that the author feels is still overlooked, another return to the ever-controversial Special Orders No. 191, "The Legend of Wise's Well" (a mass grave of Confederates), the death of Union general Jesse Reno, and the "high command dysfunction" between Ambrose Burnside and Jacob Cox on the federal left at Antietam. Maps and photos abound, and source notes are helpfully placed at the bottom of each page. The appendix section (A-K in approximately 150 pages) is hefty as well. Those look at a great variety of topics, among them Lee's health, Fritchie's poetry, a number of September 9-13 battles associated with the campaign, the Reno monument, and more legends.

Obviously, I haven't read this yet, but it certainly has the look of something every Antietam enthusiast would want to add to the collection.