Customer Reviews

Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam

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Having just toured the Antietam battlefield, I once again appreciate how good of a book this is. The story of Antietam is one not so much of what did happen but what might have been. Lee had his back to the river and was heavily outnumbered. McClellan once again had another chance to deal a crushing blow to Lee and once again due to his inability to press the fight let's him off the hook.

As much as anything this book is about the generals and how they approach the battle as it is about who shot who where and when. On the one side you have Lee moving his troops from one end of the field to another in perhaps his greatest achievement of the war. On the other side you have McClellan who is frozen by indecisiveness.

As for the writing style, Sears again shows why he's one of the more talented writers in the Civil War genre today. The book reads like a good novel thanks to Sears's writing talents. This book is easly the best book out there on the battle of Antietam and I highly recommend it to anyone.

This is a splendid analysis of a pivotal battle of the early Civil War, in which two great and relatively green armies have at one another in a battle which contains the bloodiest single day in American military history. Sears does a fine job of explaining to the reader why this battle had vast strategic as well as military significance. Britain and France were on the verge of intervening on the Confederate side, because their textile industries were screaming for cotton (Southern cotton was blockaded by the Union Navy) and accordingly their textile workers were screaming for jobs. (This is language that politicians understood well, then as now.) President Lincoln thoroughly understood the dynamics of this risk, realized that once these foreign powers intervened that the Union cause was almost certainly lost. He prepared the Emancipation Proclamation, which Sears shows to have been a political masterstroke. It made it politically impossible for any Great Power to support the South and slavery against the Union and abolition.

But there was a problem before the battle occurred, and Lincoln knew this too: the Union Army in the east had suffered a continuous series of defeats. To announce the proclamation abolishing slavery without a victory to herald it would be a terrible sign of weakness; one that might only encourage intervention. Lincoln needed a victory in the east first. When Lee's army crossed into Maryland, the President knew he had his chance for the victory he needed. And therein lies a fascinating story which Sears presents crisply and with unusual clarity.

Sears has a gift for explaining a lot of details of a battle without completely losing the reader, as so often happens in this type of book. He wonderfully and colorfully describes the Southern march into Maryland and its skeptical reception by the Marylanders, who find their towns and hamlets occupied by a foreign army which is nevertheless comprised of fellow Americans. It is hard to imagine such a thing today, as indeed it was hard for people to imagine back then. But these people lived through it, and Sears makes the reader almost feel a part of it.

Sears paints one of the most negative pictures of General McClellan I can ever remember reading, but he is persuasive. I at least felt that Sears was no harsher on McClellan than the facts warrant. He also explains why Lincoln, who by then saw McClellan for what he was, nevertheless put up with him.

One aside: the book contains an excellent appendix concerning the lost order. (McClellan found himself in possession of Lee's precise written battle plans on the eve of battle through an inexplicable stroke of incredible luck. In fact, only McClellan could have lost the battle after having such luck, and McClellan more or less admitted the same prior to the battle.) I had always wanted to know more about this odd event, and Sears more or less tells what is known about it.

This is a very fine book. Four and a half stars. The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars is that I thought Sears' "Gettysburg" was even better!

Say "Gettysburg" to most Americans and recognition dawns in their eyes. But many Americans have trouble even pronouncing "Antietam." The Confederate name for this battle, "Sharpsburg" is easier to say but less well known.

Despite its relative anonymity, this hideous Civil War battle claimed more casualties in one day than America lost in its Revolution, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish-American War and World War One combined.

It's difficult even to gauge the number of battle deaths, since the low velocity and large caliber of Civil War-era weapons inflicted terrible wounds which were untreatable by the medicine of the day (no anaesthetics, no antibiotics, and no idea of antiseptics). Scores of men died of their wounds months or years after the battle. Hundreds of unknown soldiers were buried in mass graves, blue and gray together.

As Stephen Sears shows us, tactically, Antietam was at best a draw. Strategically it put the Confederacy into a slow downward spiral from which it never recovered. It ennobled the Union cause by resulting in the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.

Sears does a masterful job of exploring the battle, its causes, its results, and most of all, its moment-to-moment details. While LANDSCAPE TURNED RED (the title is taken from a Union soldier's report that he literally saw red in the midst of the battle) is never as vivid as a novel, it does place the reader squarely in the thickest mists of the fog of war. Sears never loses the thread, and he is able to make sense of the chaos on the field in relation to the whole, a challenging task in regard to this bedlam of a battle.

LANDSCAPE TURNED RED is also an indictment of the waste of war. Sears admires neither battle commander. Robert E. Lee clearly believed that he could force the Union to a showdown with 25,000 underfed and ill-equipped men on Maryland soil. George B. McClellan, as was his wont, saw at least three times that many Confederates in his mind, all armed to the teeth and howling for blood.

Although McClellan flinched at Antietam, his troops (who he claimed were "dispirited") did not, despite fearsome losses.

Antietam was a charnel house. In part, this was due to the awful and primitive state of battlefield communications (via semaphore and courier) with a resulting lack of coordination even among the best commanders, but it was also due to McClellan's fear of losing. In McClellan's mind, a draw was as good as a win, and he maddeningly refused to shatter the rebel lines when he could have. A lifelong winner never tempered by discouragement, "the Young Napoleon" failed to realize that the key to victory is to risk defeat.

Despite a gift for organization, and certain personal messianic pretentions, McClellan's battlefield leadership was halting, plodding and uncertain even after he serendipitously acquired a set of Lee's battle orders. By failing to press his enemy on this bloodstained day, McClellan probably prolonged the war and added immeasurably to the total death toll.

Lee, for his part, understood that McClellan had no heart for bloodletting, and exploited this weakness to the utmost by pressing in turn. Although Lee did not flinch, he could not carry the day simply because the Yankees outnumbered and outgunned him.

More importantly, on this particular September day in 1862, Billy Yank had discovered his own sense of esprit d'corps and did not flee as at Manassas. Neither did Johnny Reb, and this fight on the pastoral fields of central Maryland became an atavistic man-to-man slaughter which had less to do with the larger war than with motivations personal to each combatant.

In the end, the personal element is what makes Antietam so crucial in the annals of war. After all, what drove men to fight frenziedly against each other, rifle barrel to rifle barrel and bayonet point to bayonet point? The raison d'etre of LANDSCAPE TURNED RED is the answer to this riddle.

Sears shows us that the answers to these questions lift this battle above itself, and its participants beyond bravery.

LANDSCAPE TURNED RED is a well-written book from every perspective, and well worth your time and attention.

I first read "Landscape Turned Red" along with Dick Estelle on Radio Reader almost 25 years ago. Many years later I still find it fascinating. I hesitate to say "entertaining", given the subject matter - "combined casualties for those twelve hours of combat came to 22,719. No single day of this or any other America war would surpass this fearful record." The accounts of men dying and horses dragging around their entrails pain my heart. But for the historian and buff, it is indeed fascinating.

Sears provides a very good description of the political situation and events preceding the battle, the skirmishes immediately before Antietam (e.g. Harpers' Ferry, etc.), and then the battle itself. His use of successive, chronological maps provides an excellent accompaniment to the narrative. Too many books on battles skimp on maps.

Sears gives a compelling indictment of McClellan. Stanton called him "master of cant"; Welles said he was "an intelligent engineer but not a commander"; Ben Wade said "Place him before an enemy and he will borrow like a wood chuck". Reading McClellan's letters to his wife makes my skin crawl - his delusion and arrogance are hard to fathom - or forgive.

Despite all of his advantages - from the discovery of Special Order 191 to his superior numbers - McClellan's personal performance was sub-par if not negligent, betraying the courage of his men. He had committed barely 50,000 infantry and artilleryman ... a third of his army did not fire a shot. He repeatedly applied his troops in "driblets" with out coordination or mutual support. Sear's writes that "On no other Civil War field did a commanding general violate so many of what a Union officer at Antietam called `the established principle of military art' that a professional soldier was expected to know.

Sears also provides two bonus chapters on the history of "Special Order 191" and the ill-fated attempts to cross "Burnside's Bridge".

McPherson's "Antietam: Crossroads of Freedom" - which I also recommend - focuses on the "big picture" and broader significance in political landscape, while "Landscape Turned Red" is the seminal account of Battle of Antietam. This is essential Civil War reading.

It is typical Sears in style. There is more detail here however, than in the others I've read from him. Definitely more regimental accounts. Maps are also more detailed than his Peninsula treatment, although they sometimes cover a large time frame with multiple movements and countermovements.

He clearly has his views of McClellan and that sometimes gets in the way of the story telling, but I have no issues with this. I subscribe to the thought. Those who want a pure telling of action may be turned off by the slant.

South Mountain and Harper's Ferry is a bit rushed, but you get the basics. I also felt the Bloody Lane narrative wasn't as strong as the cornfield, but was decent enough. The bread and butter of the work is definitely the northern action involving Hooker, Mansfield and Jackson. There is a good mix of reporting, recounting, etc. You'll get excerpts from soldier's letters, notes from the OR, after thoughts from the key generals' memoirs.

A very nice read overall. Very much recommended. One can only wish that a Coddington type treatment is out there, coming soon for this much deserved battle. Until then, I think Sears is a good replacement which gets you about 75% there.

Sears treatment of the Battle of Antietam stands head and shoulders above any other. Superb documentation and analysis. Easy-to-read flow. Concise, clear language. Sufficient (if not generous) maps and useful illustrations. Appropriate consideration of political and intra-army intrigue. Geopolitical context (i.e., Antietam's impact on European interests and potential intervention). Places known as The Corn Field, Bloody Lane, Burnside's Bridge come alive through individual and unit stories of bravery and sacrifice. And, like a prosecuting attorney making his case, few pages go by without Sears alleging (ad nauseam, but with a strong evidentiary case) that the greatest villian was Major General George B. McClellan.

Sears' theme throughout the work is McClellan as "the poster boy" for the pre-Gettysburg, Army of the Potomac's failures. Milton would have entitled it "Opportunity Lost". On no fewer than six occasions in September 1862 Sears suggests that the "Young Napolean" had the opportunity to advantage himself of intelligence, terrain, numbers, or situation to significantly hurt if not criple Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. In each instance McClellan failed. Sears writes, "On no other Civil War field did a commanding general violate so many of what a Union officer at Antietam called 'the established principles of the military art' that a professional solider was expected to know." General-in-Chief, Henry Halleck -- himself far from a military genius -- like Lincoln, at least understood McClellan: "There is an immobility here that exceeds all that any man can conceive of. It requires the lever of Archimedes to move this inert mass. I have tried my best, but without success."

Opportunity for a shorter war and fewer deaths was, Sears suggests, ultimate casualty of the bloodiest day in American History.

I have read many books on Civil War battles, but this by far is at the top of my list.

The author presents the details of that most tragic day in a clear and precise manner. This book is not plagued with the confusing details that many books seem to be riddled with when it comes to the war.

I recommend this book for anyone who wants to learn a little about the battle of Sharpsburg.

Sears offers a thorough account of the battle of Antietam using a wide variety of sources to weave the story together. He makes especially good use of the personal accounts of the participants of both sides. His analysis of both the events leading up to and the ramifications of the battle are fair, and help contribute to the understanding of the greater strategies involved in Lee's first invasion of the North.

It is no secret that Sears is no fan of George McClellan, and he does a good job of presenting the facts. Some may say that the author spent too much time criticizing McClellan and his decisions, but I believe understanding the vagaries of the General's mind is key to understanding why the fight unfolded the way it did.

As with his other titles, Sears does a marvelous job of turning an expert piece of historiography into a compelling narrative. I highly recommend all of his work.

I've read a number of books that focus on a particular battle in the Civil War. I spent some time in Virginia, and made an effort to visit each of the major Civil War battlefields. Before I would go, I would find a book about the particular battle. Landscape Turned Red has been the best so far; my experience at Antietam was enhanced by the read. I thoroughly enjoyed the book. Maps, historical context, analysis of the thinking of the commanders, tactical detail, and details of the combat combined with an interesting and fluid writing style prompted me to pick up a couple more of Mr. Sears' works. Well worth the money and the time.

This book is a fantastic narrative starting with the last days of defeat for Pope and ending with McClellan headed for home after being dismissed.

Much of the book (especially before the battle) focuses on McClellan, his mentality, and the political intrigue that was such a trademark in the Army of the Potomac. McClellan clearly believed he would be the savior via Divine Intervention. Sears will have us believe he was the savior...of the Army of Northern Virginia.

The battle itself is told in extensive detail (although I felt the battle at South Mountain and Harper's Ferry were rather short) and scrutinized closely, something McClellan made very easy for any armchair quarterback reading this account. It seemed to me that there was less first hand accounts in this book than in other Sears books but it's possible that this is the case simply because Antietam was fought on just the 17th.

Inbetween all of that, Sears provides a clear picture of what Southern occupation of Maryland towns were like, the men's feelings for their officers, and of course the inexplicable Lost Order.

Like all his other books, this one is certainly a must read.