An in-depth online reference and interactive community centered on the American Civil War battle at Sharpsburg in 1862. Highlights from the contents include: narratives providing context, significance, and action summary of the battle; complete texts for all 315 Official Reports written by commanding officers; series of highly detailed battle and campaign maps interconnected with units described; all 215 battlefield historical tablets; profiles of more than 1,000 individual participants; with photographs; a collection of illuminating special-subject articles, exhibits, and eyewitness accounts; and a gallery of photographs and other images both contemporary to the battle and those offering modern views of the battlefield and some of the objects of War. Intuitive topic-based navigation, advanced search features, and extensive inter-linking make it easy to dive into the story and meet the fascinating people of this pivotal event. A clean, open design makes Antietam on the Web easy to read, and extensive bibliographic references establish the reliability of the factual information and provide avenues for further exploration. Even in its tenth year, the site continues to expand in depth and scope, reflecting both new scholarship in the field and ongoing research by the community of contributing members.
Type of Material:
Reference Material
Recommended Uses:
Research, homework, and generally any conceivable usage in the history of the battle of Antietam.
Technical Requirements:
none
Identify Major Learning Goals:
A non-commercial web site created and operating specifically for research and educational purposes. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 2.5 License.
Target Student Population:
From the high school student to the college-level student; from a casual Civil War student to the amatuer Civil War historian.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:
basic internet literacy.
Content Quality
Rating:
Strengths:
Extraordinary interactive
We've prepared a number of maps to help you visualize the action on that long day of 17 September 1862, and on the days leading up to the battle. Most of them contain links to more details about the military units and soldiers they portray so you can dig deeper.
We have 13 individual battle maps based on the work of the Antietam Battlefield Board of the 1890s, giving you snapshots of the combat, in short time segments throughout the day. Begin at the Battle Map page.
More than 5,800 soldiers were buried on the field after the battle. In 1864 S.G. Elliott compiled a map of those burials. I've broken that map into annotated segments and linked to the units and individuals named on it to make it easy to explore in detail.
In 1897 the Board placed 217 iron markers across the battlefield to note the positions and actions of the major army units of both sides. Follow the battle action on those markers, starting with the Tablet Map page.
You can also look at how the armies moved in the days before the battle at Sharpsburg. We've got maps for 4 - 13 September, so far. Get oriented on the Campaign Map page.
Concerns:
Some of the content is unattributed or relatively superficial (e.g., the weapons of Antietam.)
Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool
Rating:
Strengths:
Highly motivating
Concerns:
The instructor needs to ensure the student using this site has the ability to assess and evaluate the different levels/qualities of material included on this site.
Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty
Rating:
Strengths:
Simple to use, easy to understand and navigate. The site is generally well-thought-out. Navigation/use of relatively intutitive.
Creative Commons:
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