Author: D. Scott Hartwig

D. Scott Hartwig is a Civil War historian who served for twenty years as supervisory park historian at Gettysburg National Military Park. I Dread the Thought of the Place is his study of the Battle of Antietam and the closing phase of the Maryland Campaign. Published by Johns Hopkins University Press during 2023, this study follows Hartwig’s earlier To Antietam Creek and completes a two-volume examination of the 1862 campaign. Its account moves hour by hour through the fighting on September 17, then considers the political and social consequences of Lee’s withdrawal and Lincoln’s opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. Hartwig draws on soldiers’ testimony and archival research, supported by maps that track changing battlefield positions. The work received the Richard Barksdale Harwell Award and recognition from the American Battlefield Trust. I Dread the Thought of the Place reflects Hartwig’s experience as a public historian, battlefield interpreter, and researcher attentive to both command decisions and the lived experience of combat.