TOCWOC – A Civil War Blog

Some longtime readers may recall from my review of Marion Armstrong’s Unfurl Those Colors! that I was unconvinced Edwin Sumner ordered French’s Division to attack the Sunken Road at Antietam.  It was with interest then, that I read a recent interview with Marion Armstrong conducted by the Save Historic Antietam Foundation over at Harry Smeltzer’s […]

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Marion V. Armstrong. Disaster in the West Woods: General Edwin V. Sumner and the II Corps at Antietam. Western Maryland Interpretive Association (2002). 78 pages, 6 maps, notes, bibliography, index. ASIN: B0014SER8S Out of Print (Paperback). Disaster in the West Woods takes a detailed tactical look at II Corps commander Edwin Vose Sumner’s performance at […]

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Marion V. Armstrong, Jr. Unfurl Those Colors!: McClellan, Sumner, and the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign. Tuscaloosa, AL: The University of Alabama Press (March 26, 2008). 424 pages, 32 maps, notes, bibliography, index. ISBN: 978-0817316006 $39.95 (Hardcover w/DJ). Does Edwin V. Sumner, commander of the Army of the Potomac’s II Corps at Antietam, […]

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The actual nuts and bolts of military life is something that usually doesn’t make it into the history books, yet it’s something soldiers have to deal with every day. Few who have not been in the military realize the constant, mind-numbing array of details that have to mastered on a daily basis just for an […]

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I just finished reading Marion V. Armstrong’s new book Unfurl Those Colors!: McClellan, Sumner, and the Second Army Corps in the Antietam Campaign, and one of Armstrong’s theories just doesn’t sit right with me.  Before we go into details let me give you a little bit of background.  The fight over the northern portion of […]

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Brian Downey has a new blog post up about a subject I mentioned in August — General French’s march away from the West Woods toward the Sunken Lane. This really is the mystery of the battle and I’ve often wondered why so many historians have sort of passed over it with little or no comment. […]

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In my last entry I discussed “Bull” Sumner’s attack on the West Woods and what went wrong, and why he ended up attacking with a single division instead of the three he had available. Here I want to consider one of the mysteries of the battle — why did two-thirds of II Corps suddenly angle […]

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