The South did not need to capture one square inch of Northern territory in order to win the Civil War. They simply needed to make the North give up its attempts to force the South back into the Union. The North, however, needed to conquer the South ­ a vast territory.

European powers were edging toward recognizing the South as an independent country. They wanted trade reopened, especially for cotton. The South desperately needed trade in order to sell cotton to buy guns. Recognition would force an end to the blockades that were strangling the South ­ surely the North would not wish to risk a conflict with England or France.

Lincoln wanted to make the ending of slavery an explicit goal of the war. A series of defeats for the North, as Lee's army moved into Maryland, out of the South, left him despondent over any possibility of issuing his Emancipation Proclamation.

Then came Antietam, near the tiny town of Sharpsburg, Maryland. The death toll of that one day battle dwarfs that of September 11. It dwarfs that of Pearl Harbor. Over 6000 dead. Nearly 22,000 casualties in all. Nothing before it or after it in US history has equaled it.

But Antietam is about more than slaughter. After Antietam the European powers began to doubt the South's ability to win and backed away from recognition ­ and away from reopening trade. After Antietam Lincoln found the opportunity to issue his proclamation.

It is easy to imagine a different outcome of that day. A South recognized and supported by its powerful European allies. A North forced to abandon its efforts to restore the Union. It is easy to imagine the preservation of slavery.

Out of Antietam two paths to the future lay; only one was chosen. September 17, 1862 was one of the most important days in our history, though it is marked by no holiday. The event is largely forgotten. Even my word processor flags "Antietam" as a misspelling.

These are not documentary photographs. The Park Service has plenty of those. These images weren't intended to recreate that long ago world (to cite one of many possible examples, I photographed in the spring, not in the fall when the battle occurred). These are not "Landscape" photographs in the traditional sense (landscapes that speak to beauty or the rejection of beauty, landscapes that speak for or against one environmental cause or another). That genre, as a vehicle of serious artistic expression, is nearly dead--and is ripe for reinvention.

These images are intended to be about the world of today.