In the summer of 1862, after a year of protracted fighting, Abraham Lincoln decided on a radical change of strategy, one that abandoned hope for a compromise peace and committed the nation to all-out war. The centerpiece of that new strategy was the Emancipation Proclamation: an unprecedented use of federal power that would revolutionize Southern society. In The Long Road to Antietam, Richard Slotkin, a renowned cultural historian, re-examines the challenges that Lincoln encountered during that anguished summer 150 years ago. In an original and incisive study of character, Slotkin re-creates the showdown between Lincoln and General George McClellan, the Young Napoleon whose opposition to Lincoln included obsessive fantasies of dictatorship and a military coup. He brings to three-dimensional life their ruinous conflict, demonstrating how their political struggle provided Confederate General Robert E. Lee with his best opportunity to win the war, in the grand offensive that ended in September of 1862 at the bloody Battle of Antietam.
A NOTE ON MILITARY TERMINOLOGY
Chapter 1. Lincoln’s Strategy: Emancipation and the McClellan Problem
Chapter 2. McClellan’s Strategy: Irresistible Force
Chapter 3. President Davis’s Strategic Offensive
Chapter 4. Self-Inflicted Wounds: The Union High Command
Chapter 5. Both Ends Against the Middle: The Campaign of Second Bull Run
Chapter 6. McClellan’s Victory
Chapter 7. Lee Decides on Invasion
Chapter 8. McClellan Takes the Offensive
Chapter 9. The Battles of South Mountain
Chapter 11. Preparation for Battle
Chapter 12. The Battle of Antietam: Hooker’s Fight, 6:00–9:00 AM
Chapter 13. The Battle of Antietam: Sumner’s Fight, 9:00–Noon
Chapter 14. The Battle of Antietam: The Edge of Disaster, Noon to Evening
Chapter 15. The Day When Nothing Happened
Chapter 16. Lincoln’s Revolution
Chapter 17. The General and the President
Chapter 18. Dubious Battle: Everything Changed, Nothing Settled
CHRONOLOGY: FROM THE PENINSULA CAMPAIGN TO ANTIETAM
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