Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam, the Battle that Changed the Course of the Civil War (review)

More historians should write books like James McPherson's illuminating new work on Antietam. Crossroads of Freedom (a volume in the Pivotal Moments in American History series) reflects McPherson's longstanding interest in problems of historical contingency, and readers should therefore not expect a full account of the Antietam campaign or a close tactical analysis of the battle. Instead they will encounter a brief, elegant assessment of an important military campaign set in a broad context.

McPherson begins with two trenchant observations. First, competing definitions of liberty are critical for understanding the course and consequences of the Civil War. Second, the war could have ended in 1862 with the Union restored and slavery intact. The sheer amount of carnage—even after September 11, 2001, Antietam remains the bloodiest day in American history—along with the horrors of the battle and its aftermath have long attracted students of the Civil War, but McPherson explains why Antietam was so important.

In the summer and fall of 1862 what the author terms the "pendulum of war" was swinging toward the Confederates. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, nicely characterized as "a perfectionist in a profession where nothing could ever be perfect" (14), had proved disappointing as both the general-in-chief and as a field commander. The Army of the Potomac had approached the outskirts of Richmond only to be repulsed in a series of bloody engagements. Factionalism in the army, the stunning defeat of John Pope at Second Bull Run, and doubts about McClellan's competence (not to mention his loyalty) only added to the miseries of Abraham Lincoln. The president was approaching the explosive question of emancipation with caution (his critics would have said cowardice), the Democratic party appeared resurgent, from abroad came reports that Britain and France might finally be ready to intervene in the American war, and as Robert E. Lee's ragged legions headed north, the safety of Washington, D.C., itself was by no mean assured. After a spring of success, Federal offensives in the west appeared stymied, and even there Confederate forces prepared to resume the offensive. Demoralization in the Army of the Potomac and the North generally offered the aggressive Lee a seemingly priceless opportunity.

Yet the Confederates were about to run into their own frustrations. Marylanders failed to rally to the rebel cause as Lee had hoped, and the famous lost orders caused a decisive shift in tactical advantage to McClellan. Despite capturing Harpers Ferry, Lee's army barely survived what amounted to tactical draw at Antietam, suffering casualties they could ill afford, and were forced to retreat. McPherson offers a clear and concise account of the fighting but is much more interested in the results. This bloody northern "victory," if such it could be called, gave Lincoln the opening he had been looking for to issue a preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The British and French pulled back from the diplomatic brink, and despite Democratic gains, the Republicans survived the fall elections better than anyone might have expected only a few weeks earlier. Asking the important counterfactual question what might have happened without the Union victory at Antietam, McPherson concludes that the battle in many ways proved a "pivotal" moment, if not the turning point of the entire war.

On one level serious students of the Civil War will find little that is new in the volume: the story is familiar in both outline and detail. And of course, historians will quibble over some conclusions about the political and diplomatic situation. But in explaining how people at the time assessed the importance of Antietam, McPherson writes with his usual perception. He offers telling quotations from newspapers and civilians that evocatively recapture the shifting contemporary perspectives, opinions whipsawed by the sheer horrors and tragic unpredictability of the war's first...