About 57,000 books have been published about the American Civil War, so what’s left to discover?
Quite a bit, as it turns out, especially when it comes to the bloodiest battle of the war and in American history, Antietam. On one day of heavy fighting, September 17, 1862, an estimated 6,500 soldiers were killed and at least 15,000 wounded.
In 291 lively, fact-filled yet engaging, thought-provoking pages, Stephen Budiansky’s “A Day in September” explores how ill-prepared we as a nation were for war, but more importantly, what we learned and how that progress led to war . better military training, rapid improvements in battlefield medical care and the beginning of a reconciliation of the differences in North and South society, values and beliefs.
Some key American institutions were astonishingly primitive at the outbreak of the Civil War, and Antietam made clear just how bad they were. For example, before the Civil War, most U.S. Military Academy graduates were well trained in mathematics and engineering, much less in military tactics.
Many soldiers lacked even rudimentary training, such as target practice. Militias often behaved like fraternal organizations or like a gang, Budiansky writes.
Medical care was primitive. For example, most physicians of the Civil War era did not understand how diseases were transmitted. The treatment of the wounded at Antietam was generally chaotic; Drivers charged with transporting wounded people to field hospitals were often drunk, the book notes.
What might have made the book even more compelling would be that the lessons learned from these shortcomings have continued to be learned to this day.
For example, can we resolve our current disagreements peacefully?
This is an engaging, illuminating, and compelling book that calls us to reflect on the advances in military strategy, medical care, and diplomacy that Antietam brought us at terrible cost.
It also asks us to take into account the divide between science and religion that emerged after the war. The book notes that our religious leaders also failed, telling people on both sides during the Civil War that God was on their side, but as the author quotes Lincoln as an observation, one side must be wrong.
Then as now, reasoned discussion and diplomacy have largely failed, and some Americans are openly talking about a possible Second Civil War.
That wouldn’t happen if we absorbed some of the lessons from this book.
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