Customer Reviews

Death in September: The Antietam Campaign (Civil War Campaigns and Commanders)

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This is an excellent book covering the most bloody day in any American battle. Mr Jamieson writes in a concise, descriptive manner. It is easy to follow due to the many maps the author has included. This book would be interesting to either someone already knowledgeable about the American Civil War or someone just starting an interest in studying thie war. This would be a great book to take while visiting the battlefield. Also of interest are the many biographies that are included of the generals who participated in this battle.

I believe that Death In September: The Antietam Campaign is one of the best titles in the McWhiney Foundation Press's outstanding Civil War Campaigns and Commanders series. Mr. Jamieson has taken perhaps the most complex battle ever fought in the Western Hemisphere and told a thrilling narrative that never bogs down in details, but still presents the essential information that all students of the battle should know. This book is a perfect resource for those who wish to learn about the battle but dread to spend their money and time on a six hundred page paperweight. I myself had the honor to tour the battlefield with Mr. Jamieson, and his personal experience with the field is reflected in text-this man knows the subject well.

Jamieson is a poor historian at best, sacrificing the historians' tenet to state the facts as to what happened without placing judgement or value on them. He also advertises his lack of tactical training and seems to simply repeat various criticisms that have been levied over the years. To put it simply, he "armchair quarterbacks" the Generals to death, especially McClellan, without ever taking into account what the Generals knew at the times they made their decisions. He overuses his advantage of hindsight to the nth degree. To read "Death in September," one might conclude Jamieson is the greatest General who ever lived, although, to my knowledge, he has never commanded troops in battle.

Some reviewers have noted the quality of the maps, and I must disagree. The maps do an excellent job of showing unit positions and their relationships to one another and various landmarks. They utterly fail, however, to show the significance of terrain and how it affected the outcome of the battle. Jamieson occasionally discusses the importance of terrain, and here I must agree. Having visited the battlefield and having the advantage of tactical and operational level trainig, I must agree the terrain was a significant contributor to the outcome. The maps did not depict this, however.

For the beginner, this is an excellent book though it contains as much information as a coffee table book would. Sadly it doesn't have the pictures or quality of a coffee table book and is a paperback. There are some maps to help explain the battle movements but this book about the battle of Antietam is shorter than the biographies written inside about the generals involved. The biographies that are featured are presented well and are chronologically presented as the history of the battle unfolds. This is a great feature though shadows the main content of the book. There were times I wanted to turn the page and continue reading the battle information but had to stop to read a separate biography about a key general in the battle. This book is a very quick read and can probably be read in over an hour as there are roughly 111 pages of material while the rest is for Union and Confederate Order of Battle. The Order of Battle I found useless for this book as it contains major individuals not at all mentioned in the book. I could see and Order of Battle for large, indepth book but this one didn't come close to that.

As previously suggested, this book is great for the beginner learning to understand the major conflicts at Antietam but for the advanced student I wouldn't recommend it as it just doesn't contain much detail. For example, the Rohrbach Bridge/Burnside Bridge battle is covered in 5 pages (1 page contains a map, another a biography).