| Description |
xvi, 655 pages ; 23 cm |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 637-638) and index. |
| Summary |
It was a year during which the Union cycled through generals as Lincoln sought one who could fight and win - from McClellan to Pope for Second Bull Run, back to McClellan for Antietam, to Burnside for Fredericksburg, to Hooker for Chancellorsville, and to Meade for Gettysburg. As Union command in the East remained unsettled and these generals proved incompetent, timid, or both - or worse - this was the South's chance, and Lee came into his own as a general for the ages during these months, besting Pope at Second Bull Run, decimating Burnside at Fredericksburg, and outsmarting and outfighting Hooker, with help from Stonewall Jackson, at Chancellorsville. Lee, with a growing belief in his army's invincibility and an awareness that the Union's considerable resources in men and material would soon tell, twice mounted invasions of the North during these months, first at Antietam, where he fought McClellan to a draw but had to turn back, and last and more disastrously at Gettysburg, where Meade defeated Lee in three days of hard fighting and sent the Confederates reeling back to Virginia. This was also the year during which Lincoln gave the war higher purpose and greater stakes: Antietam enabled him to issue the Emancipation Proclamation while Gettysburg yielded the famous address. The new birth of freedom Lincoln promised would be won or lost on the battlefield. |
| Subject |
United States -- History -- Civil War, 1861-1865 -- Campaigns.
|
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East (U.S.) -- History, Military -- 19th century.
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| ISBN |
9780811737678 (pbk.) |
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