Antietam: The Soldiers' Battle

Probably more raw material (letters, diaries, unit histories) about the Civil War battle of Antietam has been crammed into this volume than any other book on the subject. Unfortunately, the author, a Maryland high-school teacher, offers the barest minimum of analysis or interpretation. Presented in chronological order, these excerpts reduce the confrontation between Lee's Army of Northern Virginia and McClellan's Army of the Potomac on September 16-18, 1862, to a clotted mass of vignettes that provides vivid individual glimpses of the fighting but adds up to an unintentional exemplification of the ``fog of war.'' There are 72 maps of the action included, but the absence of a master map renders them all but useless. Such familiar topographical features as the Cornfield, Bloody Lane, Burnside's Bride and the Maryland village of Sharpsburg are shown on certain of the maps, but their location in relation to each other is not. (July)