Landscape Turned Red : The Battle of Antietam

Book Antietam Landscape Turned Red : The Battle of Antietam

I agree with Mr. Farney. While A Landscape Turned Red is a good overview of the battle, his anti-McClellan bias is a problem. In Sears' Gates to Richmond, he even criticizes McClellan's implementation of his change of base to the James River because Mac followed the roads on his map whereas a reconnaissance would have discovered a nearby unmarked woods road. Yet he gives Lee a pass for his confusing pursuit of Mac through this same area, saying "the essential fault lay with the Confederacy's failure to have produced a single good map of the approaches to its own capital." (pp. 257 & 315). So both had bad maps, but Lee had soldiers in his army who lived in this area, yet Lee gets a pass but he hammers McClellan. That is unfair. D. Scott Hartwig wrote a more balanced account of the campaign up to Antietam called To Antietam Creek and is currently writing a book on Antietam.
Although well-written and engaging, Landscape is riddled with problems, not the least of which is its openly negative treatment of George McClellan. Historians are supposed to present the evidence they find and develop conclusions accordingly. There is more than enough evidence to show that while McClellan may not have performed as well as Lincoln hoped, he did do better than Sears claims he did during the Maryland Campaign. As long as you can get past the animus, Landscape is an acceptable history of the campaign. Just be aware that the research behind it is shallow and used to present a perspective that is not altogether historically accurate.
One of the few books on the Battle of Antietam that provides the depth and detail I like about a key battle of the Civil War.
It was a great read! I rarely read a book twice but I did on this book.
This was Sears' first Civil War book, from back in the early 1980s, but he's already got his in-depth style largely set. As usual for Sears, the book covers not only the battle but the lead up to and aftermath of the battle. Very enjoyable read.

Sears is a bit notorious for his disdain of George McClellan, although fairly well justified I think. This book is now almost 40 years old, but is probably still the best single-volume work on the campaign.
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