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When Robert E. Lee marched his Army of Northern Virginia into Maryland in early September 1862, Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan moved his reorganized and revitalized Army of the Potomac to meet him. The campaign included some of the bloodiest, most dramatic, and influential combat of the entire Civil War. Combined with Southern failures in the Western Theater, the fighting dashed the Confederacy's best hope for independence, convinced President Abraham Lincoln to announce the Emancipation Proclamation, and left America with what is still its bloodiest day in history.
One of the campaign's participants was Ezra A. Carman, the colonel of the 13th New Jersey Infantry. Wounded earlier in the war, Carman would achieve brigade command and fight in more than twenty battles before being mustered out as a brevet brigadier general. After the horrific fighting of September 17, 1862, he recorded in his diary that he was preparing "a good map of the Antietam battle and a full account of the action." Unbeknownst to the young officer, the project would become the most significant work of his life.Appointed as the "Historical Expert" to the Antietam Battlefield Board in 1894, Carman and the other members solicited accounts from hundreds of veterans, scoured through thousands of letters and maps, and assimilated the material into the hundreds of cast iron tablets that still mark the field today. Carman also wrote an 1,800-page manuscript on the campaign, from its start in northern Virginia through McClellan's removal from command in November 1862. Although it remained unpublished for more than a century, many historians and students of the war consider it to be the best overall treatment of the campaign ever written.Dr. Thomas G. Clemens (editor), recognized internationally as one of the foremost historians of the Maryland Campaign, has spent more than two decades studying Antietam and editing and richly annotating Carman's exhaustively written manuscript. The result is 'The Maryland Campaign of September 1862', Carman's magisterial account published for the first time in two volumes. Jammed with firsthand accounts, personal anecdotes, maps, photos, a biographical dictionary, and a database of veterans' accounts of the fighting, this long-awaited study will be read and appreciated as battle history at its finest.About the Authors: Ezra Ayres Carman was born in Oak Tree, New Jersey, on February 27, 1834, and educated at Western Military Academy in Kentucky. He fought with New Jersey organizations throughout the Civil War, mustering out as a brevet brigadier general. He was appointed to the Antietam National Cemetery Board of Trustees and later to the Antietam Battlefield Board in 1894. Carman also served on the Chattanooga-Chickamauga Battlefield Commission. He died in 1909 on Christmas day and was buried just below the Custis-Lee mansion in Arlington Cemetery.
MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF SEPTEMBER 1862, THE: Volume 1, South Mountain Reviews
MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF SEPTEMBER 1862, THE: Volume 1, South Mountain Reviews
| 13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:  Carman would be pleased indeed, By This review is from: MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF SEPTEMBER 1862, THE: Volume 1, South Mountain (Hardcover) Until the appearance of Joseph Pierro's book presenting Carman's manuscript, the work was available only to those students who took the effort to examine the original manuscript. Pierro's book was passable, but it contained several drawbacks: it is very expensive, there are absolutely no maps, and Pierro's footnotes are woefully incomplete. Pierro only sourced most of Carman's manuscript, and there's very little discussion or explanation. The reader is left to determine for him/herself the veracity of Carman's conclusions, and the context in which they are made. In addition to all of this, a frontispiece photograph in the book which claims to be that of Carman isn't even him - it's another Federal officer. The editing process truly failed in that respect.Now, we have this first of two volumes of Carman's life's labor by "Mr. Antietam" himself, Tom Clemens. And Tom richly deserves the nickname. Anyone familiar with the Maryland Campaign and scholars of it, know that if... Read more 13 of 14 people found the following review helpful: A major step forward in the history of Antietam, By This review is from: MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF SEPTEMBER 1862, THE: Volume 1, South Mountain (Hardcover) Much of what we "know" about Civil War battles is due to a few men, who devoted their lives to record what happened. They corresponded with, talked to and/or walked the field with veterans. They wrote pages of notes, filed letters and some produced a manuscript. Over and above the Official Record, these men's efforts provide a personal account of a battle. While they are not always right, they are the best personal record we have.Ezra A. Carman is one of these men. The Civil War consumed his life, first as a Union officer and later as a historian and trustee for Antietam. Carman is unique in that he is a veteran of The Battle of Antietam leading the 13th New Jersey during fighting in the Cornfield. After the battle, Carman wrote he wanted to prepare "a good map" of the field. His "good map" grew into a handwritten 1,800-page history. This document took most of the 1890s to produce. A treasure trove for scholars, it only recently became available to the general... Read more 9 of 10 people found the following review helpful: Great Book!, This review is from: MARYLAND CAMPAIGN OF SEPTEMBER 1862, THE: Volume 1, South Mountain (Hardcover) This was one of the best civil war books I have read. Is was not full of political bias that I have always run into with other authors. This book demonstrated the enormous tasks, i.e. logistics, communication, obeying orders, etc involved on both sides of any given battle. It also brought to light all the other battles that were fought leading up to the large fight at antiedam. It was made very clear in this book that both sides made plenty of mistakes and one breakdown in communication, logistics, poor leadership could cause an entire battle to drift one way or the other. I can't wait for Vol. 2 to come out. |
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