Booknotes: Crisis At Antietam

New Arrival:

• Crisis at Antietam: The Cornfield and West Woods, September 17, 1862 by Steven Eden (Savas Beatie, 2026).

Steven Eden's Crisis at Antietam: The Cornfield and West Woods, September 17, 1862 "provides a meticulous tactical analysis of the opening brutal hours of the Civil War’s bloodiest single day."

As most Civil War readers already know, the sustained fighting on the northern end of the Antietam battlefield on September 17 was a horrifically bloody back and forth affair that could very easily have gone disastrously for the Confederates. That it didn't, and the Confederates narrowly but successfully held their positions at the end of the day, was the result of a combination of factors and decisions.

From the description: "Eden’s in-depth study of the fighting on the Confederate left uncovers critical missed opportunities, profound command failures, and the unpredictable hand of sheer chance. The fighting that raged through the Miller Cornfield and West Woods quickly spiraled beyond command control. Officers often failed to restore order amid the maelstrom; regiments and brigades acted independently, pushing forward without orders or full awareness of the battle’s unfolding horror. Union forces drove the Confederate front to the precipice of collapse on three occasions, only for the Rebels to miraculously rally each time, stabilizing their fragile lines against overwhelming odds."

Of course, much excellent work has already detailed the fighting in this sector of the battlefield as well as the battle on the whole, but there is always room for new angles. As Eden writes in his introduction, with both sides (at least in his view) poorly served by the generals at the top, his book differs most from previous accounts in its focus on "the decisions made by the colonels and captains" on the battlefield. Eden's text endeavors "to show what the men in the regiments saw, what they believed was happening, and why they acted the way they did" (pg. xi).

As was the case with very recent works from other Savas Beatie authors such as Joseph Boslet and Scott Fink, Eden's investigation of Civil War combat incorporates his own personal combat experiences on the modern battlefield. Eden "draws on extensive original sources, including memoirs, official reports, and soldier letters, together with his own invaluable combat experience as a retired Army officer and former West Point military history instructor. His insights are fresh and authoritative. Crisis at Antietam challenges even seasoned readers to fundamentally reconsider the traditional narrative of that pivotal bloody September day by exposing the raw, brutal reality of command and combat at Antietam."