Interesting interpretation of McClellan’s actions as Federal commander. His difficulties with subordinates, especially Burnside, are used to explain Federal failure to take advantage of opportunities at Antietam. Henderson, G. F. R., _Stonewall Jackson and the American Civil War_. Longmans, Green and Company, London, 1955 reprint. This is a modern reprint of Henderson’s classic military biography, first printed in 1898; it is still a standard work on the legendary Jackson. Longstreet, James, _From Manassas to Appomattox_. J. B. Lippincott and Company, Philadelphia, 1896. Written many years after the war, this account by a leading participant emphasizes his own point of view. APPENDIX _The Emancipation Proclamation_ On August 22, 1862, just one month before Abraham Lincoln issued the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, he wrote a letter to Horace Greeley, abolitionist editor of the New York Tribune. The letter read in part: I would save the Union. I would save it the shortest way under the Constitution. The sooner the National authority can be restored, the nearer the Union will be “the Union as it was.” If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time _save_ Slavery, I do not agree with them. If there be those who would not save the Union unless they could at the same time _destroy_ Slavery, I do not agree with them. My paramount object in this struggle _is_ to save the Union, and is _not_ either to save or destroy Slavery.... I have here stated my purpose according to my view of official duty, and I intend no modification of my oft-expressed personal wish that all men everywhere could be free.... For some months before the Battle of Antietam, as his letter to Greeley indicates, Lincoln had been wrestling with the problem of slavery and its connection with the war. He became convinced that a new spiritual and moral force—emancipation of the slaves—must be injected into the Union cause, else the travail of war might dampen the fighting spirit of the North. If this loss of vitality should come to pass, the paramount political objective of restoring the Union might never be attained. Another compelling factor in Lincoln’s thinking was the need to veer European opinion away from its sympathy for the South. A war to free the slaves would enlist the support of Europe in a way that a war for purely political objectives could not. Thus, slowly and with much soul searching, Lincoln’s official view of his duty came to correspond with his personal wish for human freedom. The outcome of these deliberations was the Emancipation Proclamation. The Federal victory at Antietam gave Lincoln the opportunity to issue the proclamation—a dramatic step toward eliminating slavery in the United States.