Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign (review)

book reviews171 enthusiasts. Regardless of these shortcomings, "Written in Blood" remains an excellent study of an outstanding Federal regiment. Christopher S. Stowe University of Toledo Too Afraid to Cry: Maryland Civilians in the Antietam Campaign. By Kathleen A. Ernst. (Mechanicsburg Pa.: Stackpole Books, 1999. Pp. xvii, 300. $24.95.) For civiüans in the counties ofWashington and Frederick in western Maryland, the experience of the Civil War was direct, profound and long-lasting. They suffered particularly when massive numbers of Confederate and Union troops moved through the area in the Maryland campaign of 1862 and clashed in the bloody battles of South Mountain and Antietam Creek. These civiüans and their property were also affected by the Gettysburg campaign in 1863, Jubal Early's raid in 1864, and cavalry skirmishes throughout the war. In Too Afraid to Cry, Kathleen Ernst describes the wartime experiences of these people who endured what one described as an "awful time" (116). Ernst's primary focus is on events in the faU of 1862; she sketches developments in the later part ofthe war in less detail. Civilians found that huge armies moving through the area left debris and devastation in their wake even when they were not engaged in battle and were relatively restrained in theirbehavior: fences disappeared, food was taken, houses ransacked, horses confiscated. Thousands of thirsty men put strains on a community's water supply. Outbreaks ofdiarrhea and dysentery among the soldiers created a "sanitation nightmare for landowners" (72). As military control ofwestern Maryland shifted back and forth between Union and Confederate armies, civiüans faced dilemmas. After assisting soldiers of one side they suffered punishment from soldiers of the other side. When troops arrived, some civiüans stayed at home and tried to protect their property; others fled to Pennsylvania. They buried, then dug up, then reburied family valuables. In the town of KeedysviUe, "residents carefully hung Confederate flags while Lee's army trooped through, then later flew Union flags for theYankees, avoiding trouble and striving for neutraUty" (112). Civiüans faced their greatest wartime trials during and after the Antietam campaign. Many were in direct danger from shells and bullets. When the town of Sharpsburg came under heavy fire one soldier described the "uproar and confusion" as women ran "through the streets literaUy dragging their children after them" and "crying, and screaming so loud their combined voices could be heard above the roaring battle" (135). Many people huddled in their cellars as the shells exploded. Others, overcome by curiosity more than fear, climbed onto barn roofs or hilltops to view the action. In the aftermath of Antietam civilians helped tend the seventeen thousand wounded, bury thousands of corpses, and dispose of dead horses. They coped with soldiers' anxious relatives, deserters, 172CIVIL WAR HISTORY and souvenir hunters who descended on the area. For years after the battle, farmers encountered human bones in their fields and children were killed by shells they found. Ernst's book should appeal to a wide audience, particularly general readers. The writing is vivid, skillfully blending military and social history. The only major shortcoming is the absence of a good map of the area. Sharon Seager BaU State University Battle ofGettysburg: The Official History by the Gettysburg National Military Park Commission. Compiled by George R. Large. (Shippensburg, Pa.: White Mane Publishing, 1999. Pp. xiü, 328. $19.95.) Members ofthe Civil War generation established and developed five preserves— Chickamauga-Chattanooga, Antietam, Shiloh, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg—that constitute the nucleus of the national battlefield park network. Their veteranfounders and Congress intended those first parks to serve as memorials to the great armies of North and South and to preserve the venues of major contests for historical and professional military study. Responsibility for shaping the areas as monuments and outdoor classrooms fell to the War Department, their first steward. The actual task of surveying and mapping the sites and pinpointing troop positions devolved upon commissions of Northern and Southern battle veterans, working under department auspices. Those commissions, in turn, had authority to mark the locations of various commands with metal tablets that recorded combat action. Having compiled and chronologically ordered the inscriptions on 349 such tablets in Gettysburg National Military Park...