Professor Harsh has written the best campaign study from the Confederate perspective to date. The best sources for Lee’s strategic thinking for the Maryland Campaign is found in this book and his "Confederate Tide Rising: Robert E. Lee and the Making of Southern Strategy, 1861 – 1862." These are the most thorough books written on Lee’s strategy and tactics from the Peninsular Campaign through the Maryland Campaign. Harsh dissects every document available to and written by Lee to give a comprehensive description and analysis of Lee’s and his army’s actions. These indispensable books are enhanced by his third book, "Sounding the Shallows: A Confederate Companion for the Maryland Campaign of 1862," which provides additional discussion for controversial points in the other two books and also gives details of more mundane items such as weather information available for the days of the campaign. Harsh is less critical than most about McClellan’s actions during the Maryland Campaign but arguably harsher on Lee and some of his lieutenants than most historians. Harsh says that Lee’s Antietam campaign was neither a raid nor an invasion; Lee called it an “expedition.” It was not an invasion because Lee did not plan on holding any part of Maryland, nor was it a raid since he planned on having a supply line. It was a grand Jominian turning movement to bring out the enemy’s army to protect its territory and lines of communication. He had to nullify the Union’s superiority in naval arms, artillery and engineering by relying on his superiority in quality of infantry and cavalry and their maneuverability. Harsh details the reasoning Lee likely went through after Second Manassas and Chantilly which led to the Antietam campaign. Lee could have withdrawn and consolidated his forces in the strategic defensive perhaps around Warrenton, Virginia, or behind the Rappahannock River, but he believed that he could not afford to be idle on the defensive while the North continued to receive and train recruits at a much faster rate then the Confederacy. Lee knew he must retain the initiative: he had the Union on the run and as Jomini held, a beaten enemy must be pursued. Harsh’s reading of Lee’s September 4 letter to Davis is that Lee wanted to operate in Maryland for an extended period and that he might enter Pennsylvania. Lee understood Northern politics largely through reading its newspapers. Staying in Maryland for the winter months and having the Army of the Potomac following him would also allow Virginia to recover, might influence the Union's 1862 elections, and bring in Maryland recruits and even the state itself, one of the Confederate irredenta, back into the fold. Harsh summarizes Lee’s Maryland Campaign as the culmination of his summer’s victorious actions which, viewed in hindsight was credible, if not brilliant. Lee “recognized the high tide of the Confederacy even as it crested, and he rode that tide to its farthest swell” and “got out of [his army] all they could do or all any men could do” (496) Virtually everything one needs to know about the Maryland Campaign and the Battle of Antietam from the Confederate perspective is found in these books. Even though Dr. Harsh concentrates on Lee and his army, he does not neglect McClellan and the Army of the Potomac. One can read "Taken at the Flood" by itself and still learn much or can supplement it with the other two. Anyone with a deep interest in this subject however, must have all three.Read full review
I bought this for my husband. He has really enjoyed it ! He says he would recommend it to anyone interested in the civil war type things.
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