About this item
On September 17, 1862, the United States was on the brink, facing a permanent split into two separate nations. America's very future hung on the outcome of a single battle-and the result reverberates to this day. Given the deep divisions that still rive the nation; given what unites the country, too, Antietam is more relevant now than ever.The epic battle, fought near Sharpsburg, Maryland, was a Civil War turning point. The South had just launched its first invasion of the North; victory for Robert E. Lee would almost certainly have ended the war on Confederate terms. If the Union prevailed, Lincoln stood ready to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. He knew that freeing the slaves would lend renewed energy and lofty purpose to the North's war effort.
About the Author
Justin Martin is currently at work on A Fierce Glory, to be published in September 2018 (Da Capo Press) . This will be a group biography treatment of Antietam, the Civil War's pivotal battle, still America's single bloodiest day. The rich cast includes: Robert E. Lee, pioneering war photographer Alexander Gardner, and Jonathan Letterman, the father of battlefield medicine. Lincoln and the Emancipation Proclamation will also be woven into this account far more than in a typical military history of Antietam.
Martin's specialty is American history, meticulously researched, but delivered in a narrative style that's akin to fiction. His most recent book is Rebel Souls: Walt Whitman and America's First Bohemians (Da Capo, 2014) about a decadent and incredibly influential artists' circle that hung out at Pfaff's saloon in NYC during the 1850s. Among its members: a young Walt Whitman; Artemus Ward, America's first standup comic; psychedelic drug pioneer Fitz Hugh Ludlow; and Adah Isaacs Menken, an actress notorious for her "Naked Lady" act.
Earlier efforts includes biographies of pioneering landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted, Fed chairman Alan Greenspan, and Ralph Nader, the noted consumer advocate. Martin's articles have appeared in a variety of publications including the New York Times, Newsweek, and the San Francisco Chronicle.
Martin is a 1987 graduate of Rice University in Houston, Texas. He lives with his wife and twin sons in Forest Hills Gardens, New York, a landmark neighborhood designed by Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. In his spare time, Martin runs marathons (he's completed seven) and gardens (he's grown some great tomatoes, but his experiments in urban corn-growing have so far failed) .
