Of all the days on all the fields where American soldiers have fought, the most terrible was September 17, 1862. The Civil War battle waged on that date at Antietam Creek, Maryland, took a human toll never exceeded on any day in our nation's history. The battle at Antietam was pivotal to the course of the war, yet the complete story of this climactic and bitter struggle has never been told. In Landscape Turned Red, Stephen W. Sears draws on a wealth of newly discovered diaries, dispatches, and letters to recreate the vivid drama of Antietam -- and drama it is, pitting high-stakes military gambler Robert E. Lee against George B. McClellan, the general with every soldierly quality but one, the will to fight. Sears's subject is not just generals and their tactics, however; it is also the emotions and experiences of the men in the ranks, and their stories emerge here with powerful authenticity. With Landscape Turned Red, the literary successor of renowned historian Bruce Catton fills a major gap in Civil War literature and tells an engrossing, human tale of a momentous battle and the men who fought it. - Jacket flap.