Presents a guide to the Antietam battlefield with comprehensive maps and descriptions of the action, narratives about key figures and events, and a variety of contemporary and postwar source materials offering stories and interpretations.

Includes maps of: 1862 Maryland Campaign's Area of Operations and Preliminary Military Action; Tour Stops Explored in This Field Guide; Historic Landscape around Sharpsburg, Maryland; First Shots, Late Afternoon and Evening, September 16,1862; Initial Union and Confederate Troop Dispositions at Nightfall, September 16,1862; Artillery Duel at Dawn Covers the Armies' Move to Contact; Attacks of Duryee and Hartsuff; Attacks of Gibbon and Phelps; Starks and the Challenges of a Rocky Ledge; Hood's Counterattack and Repulse; Ripley's Attack and Crawford's Defense; Greene Pushes Back Colquitt and McRae to End the Fight for Miller's Cornfield; Greene Pushes Toward the Dunker Church Plateau; 125th Pennsylvania Takes a Stand at the Dunker Church; Sedgwick Advances into the West Woods; Stabilizing the Lines along the Hagerstown Pike; French Attacks Rodes' Brigade Along the Sunken Road; French Attacks G.B. Anderson's Brigade Along the Sunken Road; Irish Brigade Attacks; Union Breakthrough at the Sunken Road; Fight in the Piper Farm; Final Actions around the Dunker Church; Cooke's Frustrated Attack; Confederate Defense of Cemetery Hill; U.S. Regulars Attack Cemetery Hill; Benning Georgians Fend Off the First Union Attempt to Cross Burnside's Bridge; "Two 51sts" Cross Burnside's Bridge; Wilcox Drives to the Outskirts of Sharpsburg; Rodman Advances Toward the Harpers Ferry Road; A.P. Hill's Arrival Creates in the 40-Acre Cornfield; Confederate Secure the Harpers Ferry Road; A.P. Hill's Fight at the Ford Covers Lee's Withdrawal to Virginia.

Introduction : the Maryland Campaign of 1862 : an overview -- How to use this book -- Helpful hints for touring the battlefield -- Stop 1. Lee takes a stand -- Stop 2. McClellan at the Pry house -- Stop 3. The first shots, September 16, 1862 -- Stop 4. Nicodemus Heights and the final preparations for battle -- Stop 5. The North Woods at dawn, September 17, 1862 -- Stop 6. D. R. Miller's bloody cornfield -- Stop 7. The fight and the fire at the Mumma farm -- Stop 8. Destroying the peace around the Dunker Church -- Stop 9. The hidden dangers of the West Woods -- Stop 10. A sunken road becomes the "Bloody Lane" -- Stop 11. Lee's crisis at the Piper farm -- Stop 12. The Dunker Church revisited -- Stop 13. McClellan's lost opportunities -- Stop 14. Burnside takes Mr. Rohrback's bridge -- Stop 15. Willcox's attack toward Sharpsburg -- Stop 16. Rodman's attack begins -- Stop 17. A. P. Hill arrives from Harpers Ferry -- Stop 18. This far and no farther: the Confederate line holds -- Stop 19. Boteler's Ford -- Stop 20. The Stephen P. Grove farm: a hospital hosts a president -- Stop 21. The last full measure of devotion: Antietam National Cemetery -- Conclusion : Antietam's lasting importance.