Crossroads of Freedom: Antietam

Journal of Southern History, Feb, 2004 by T. Michael Parrish

By James M. McPherson. Pivotal Moments in American History. (New York and other cities: Oxford University Press, 2002. Pp. xvi, 203. $26.00, ISBN 0-19-513521-0.)

The writings of James M. McPherson can be described by three words: professional, popular, and prolific. No other American historian of the last forty years has combined those qualities so perfectly. In all his books McPherson focuses on the mighty issues of the nation's greatest event, the Civil War, and in his latest book he tackles what many experts view as the war's most pivotal battle, Antietam, a two-day bloodletting in September 1862 near the town of Sharpsburg in rural Maryland.

Of course, there are scads of previous books on Antietam, but none comes close to matching the breadth and depth of McPherson's description and analysis of the myriad social, political, and diplomatic events that both preceded and resulted from the battle. While giving plenty of attention to military strategy and tactics as well as the horrific combat and stunning casualties on the battlefield, McPherson weaves a fascinating, multidimensional narrative that demonstrates several key points. Had Robert E. Lee and his army prevailed, rather than being compelled by George B. McClellan's force to retire back across the Potomac, the Confederacy might have won full recognition and serious aid from England and France. Lee had also hoped to inflict a fatal wound on popular support for Lincoln and the Republican Party in the North and thereby push the Yankees to negotiate for peace. The Antietam campaign, Lee believed, offered the best chance for the southerners to win their independence; otherwise, they would almost inevitably lose a long war of attrition, which is what eventually did occur.

Lincoln, for his part, needed military successes in order to keep morale in the North high enough to sustain the war effort and to keep England and France from becoming the Confederacy's allies. Although he had already decided to issue the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation with an eye toward hurting the Confederacy's slaveholders as well as bolstering the Union's depleted armies with more soldiers--black soldiers--Lincoln needed a battlefield victory to avoid the appearance of desperation. No thanks to the chronically cautious McClellan, a strategic victory at Antietam allowed Lincoln to claim the upper hand when announcing emancipation. Among several major turning points in the war, Antietam carried the highest stakes and made the largest impact, a point that McPherson demonstrates brilliantly.

Yet many scholars will disagree with McPherson's sanguine view of slavery's demise. While readily acknowledging that Lincoln justified emancipation primarily as a war measure, McPherson insists that "the symbolic power of the Proclamation changed the war from one to restore the Union into one to destroy the old Union and build a new one purged of human bondage" (p. 139). Such an assertion is perhaps farfetched. Lincoln himself was not sure that black soldiers would even be effective, much less improve his popularity on the northern home front. And what might have happened had emancipation ever proved, even for a short time, detrimental rather than beneficial to the North's war effort? Whether grudging or enthusiastic in their support for emancipation, most northerners wanted to help the Union rather than do anything at all to help the slaves. Indeed, one might argue that the Civil War, including the final abolition of slavery by constitutional amendment, was always a war against slaveholders rather than a war against slavery. One might also argue that despite the death of slavery, the "old Union" was never fully "destroyed," especially given the legitimacy quickly regained by the former states of the Confederacy and the considerable wealth retained and power wielded by legions of ex-Confederates, even during the harshest years of Reconstruction.

T. MICHAEL PARRISH

Baylor University