Michael S. Lang Bio
Michael S. Lang has worked as a manager for Federal Express for 38 years and is also a successful photographer. Capturing images of Civil War battlefields is one of his favorite subjects.
Born and raised in Denver, Colorado, Michael moved to Frisco, Texas, in 2017. As relative newcomers to the great state of Texas, he and his wife, Rebecca, have spent the last seven years exploring the state and learning about its unique and rich history, including sites related to the Civil War. Michael has loved history since a young boy and has been a student of the Civil War for just as long.
Michael is the author of two books already released, Decisions at Antietam and Decisions of the Maryland Campaign. His third manuscript, Decisions of the Red River Campaign, is set to be released in September 2024. These books are all part of the Command Decisions of America’s Civil War series published by the University of Tennessee Press. The series has more than twenty titles in publication or set to be published. The Command Decisions series examines the critical decisions impacting the major campaigns and battles of the Civil War. Contributing authors include Matt Spruill, Larry Peterson, Dave Powell, Chris Mackowski, and Robert Tanner.
The 1862 Maryland Campaign is widely considered to be one of the most important turning points of the entire war. Robert E. Lee, on the heels of two successful campaigns in Virginia, turned his army north. Near the sleepy town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, he would face off against George B. McClellan in a battle that has come to be known as the Bloodiest Day in American History.
Michael Lang’s presentation titled "The Enemy Are Crossing the Potomac in Force - The Critical Decisions of the Maryland Campaign” will overview the Command
Decision of America's Civil War book series and what constitutes a Critical Decision. He will also discuss two of the most important decisions that impacted the
campaign, the war, and the course of the history of the nation.
Book: Decisions of the Maryland Campaign
The following summary of Michael Lang’s book Decisions of the Maryland Campaign is from the Amazon website:
“The Maryland Campaign represented General Robert E. Lee’s first invasion of the North. Opposing Lee was General George B. McClellan, who had just retreated from Lee’s onslaught during the Seven Days Battles. While Lee and McClellan fought a preliminary battle at South Mountain, and a final engagement with Lee’s rearguard at Shepherdstown as the Confederate Army withdrew across the Potomac, the full force of both armies would meet at Antietam, and the subsequent battle would prove to be the bloodiest single-day battle of the war.
“Decisions of the Maryland Campaign introduces readers to critical decisions made by Confederate and Union commanders throughout the campaign. Michael S.
Lang examines the decisions that prefigured the action and shaped the contest as it unfolded. Rather than a linear history of the campaign, Lang’s discussion of the critical decisions presents readers with a vivid blueprint of the campaign’s developments. Exploring the critical decisions in this way allows the reader to progress from a sense of what happened in this campaign to why they happened as they did.
“Complete with maps and a guided tour, Decisions of the Maryland Campaign is an indispensable primer, and readers looking for a concise introduction to the campaign can tour this sacred ground—or read about it at their leisure—with key insights into the campaign and a deeper understanding of the Civil War itself.
“Decisions of the Maryland Campaign is Lang’s second contribution and the thirteenth in a series of books that will explore the critical decisions of major campaigns and battles of the Civil War.”
