- An ALA Best Book for 2010
- A Junior Literary Guild Selection
- Bank Street Best Books of the Year
- CBC/NCSS Notable Social Studies Trade Book
- Kirkus Best Young Adult Books of the Year
- YASLA Amazing Audio books for 2011
“A stirring and well-researched addition to Civil War shelves.”
—Booklist (starred)
“What makes this impassioned volume speak –literally– are the many primary-source quotations of those involved. The author deftly develops his characters, most notably the stubborn, vainglorious McClellan, whose inadequate intelligence and low regard for his commander-in-chief led him to botch the campaign and arguably prolong the war. Grand.”
—Kirkus (starred)
“It is terrible to march slowly into danger, and see and feel each second your chance at death is surer than it was the second before.” These words from a Union office begin to provide some reckoning of the horror that was the 1862 Battle of Antietam, which surely changed the course of the Civil War and provided Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Murphy provides readers with a lucid and compelling narrative…From the drama that unfolded in the cornfield to the brutal confrontation on the sunken road, the unflinching prose compels readers forward in anticipation of the events yet to unfold…An outstanding account of a battle that was truly “a savage thunder.”
—School Library Journal (starred)