The Greatest Battles in History: Antietam and the Maryland Campaign of 1862 Free online reading

• Comprehensively covers the entire Maryland campaign and its aftermath.
• Analyzes the generalship of the battle's most important commanders, including Lee, McClellan, and others.

"Those in whose judgment I rely tell me that I fought the battle splendidly and that it was a masterpiece of art.... I feel I have done all that can be asked in twice saving the country.... I feel some little pride in having, with a beaten & demoralized army, defeated Lee so utterly." (George McClellan)

The names of history's most famous battles still ring in our ears today, their influence immediately understood by all. Marathon lent its name to the world's most famous race, but it also preserved Western civilization during the First Persian War. Saratoga was won by one of the colonists' most renowned war heroes before he became his nation's most vile traitor. Hastings ensured the Normans' success in England and changed the course of British history. Waterloo, which marked the reshaping of the European continent and Napoleon's doom, has now become part of the English lexicon. In Charles River Editors' Greatest Battles in History series, listeners can get caught up to speed on history's greatest battles in the time it takes to finish a commute, while learning interesting facts long forgotten or never known.

The bloodiest day in American history took place on the 75th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution. On September 17, 1862, Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia fought George McClellan's Union Army of the Potomac outside Sharpsburg, along Antietam Creek. That day, nearly 25,000 would become casualties, and Lee's army would barely survive fighting the much bigger Northern army. Although the battle was tactically a draw, it resulted in forcing Lee’s army out of Maryland and back into Virginia, making it a strategic victory for the North.