I led a group of family and friends around the Antietam battlefield yesterday. The weather wasn’t the best, with scattered showers, but everyone enjoyed hearing how this critical event almost ended the Civil War. If McClellan had been more aggressive, if Hooker and Richardson had not been wounded at critical times, if McClellan had attacked on the right and left simultaneously in the morning, if, if, if. But that didn’t happen, and so we had the limited Union victory and, more importantly, the justification for the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation.
Additional pictures: 1. “Burnside’s Bridge;” 2 and 3. The descriptive plates describing Jacob Cox’s contributions as 9th corps commander; 4. The sign describing the high water mark where Cox’s advance was stopped because of A.P. Hill’s unexpected attack from the left. 
GENE SCHMIEL, CIVIL WAR HISTORIAN, AUTHOR, AND LECTURER 