![]() Prior to Antietam, Lincoln carefully positioned the preservation of the union as the leading cause of the war. While slavery was certainly at the root of the US Civil War, not all slave states seceded from the Union. A victory in Union territory would bolster the chances of receiving that aid. Those powers were sympathetic to the Confederate cause, but they didn’t want to back a loser. Specifically, the Confederates wanted material help from the major European powers (France, Britain, & possibly Russia). One goal of the Confederacy’s invasion of Maryland was to establish the plausibility of victory. To compete, they needed to change those odds. The leaders of the Confederacy knew the Union possessed huge advantages in population, industry, and naval power. It’s hard to maintain an independent nation when your existence depends on the incompetence of others. After Antietam, the Confederacy’s only hope of winning was for the Union to hand them a victory. Prior to Antietam, the Confederacy could still seize the initiative. For readers who are math geeks (you know who you are) Antietam marked the inflection point of the war. The Battle of Antietam created a more subtle change in the flow of the war. They didn’t end the war, but on the morning of 5 July 1863 the outcome of the war was firmly in the Union’s hands. The 4 July 1863 battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg are often cited as the turning points in the US Civil War. Map of the Battle of Antietam (courtesy of Hal Jespersen) The Army of Northern Virginia survived to fight for nearly three more years. ![]() At the end of the day the confederates withdrew from Maryland, but the union army did not aggressively pursue them. For good measure, you could add in the Spanish American War and still not reach the grim single day total. To give some perspective, more Americans died in one day than in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, and the Mexican-American War, combined. The fighting on 17 September 1862 claimed 22,726 casualties with 7,650 dead. While more Americans died in four other civil war battles, those battles took place over more than one day. It is the bloodiest single day of combat in US history. The hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas killed more Americans than the battle. The Battle of Antietam is often cited as the bloodiest day in American history. ![]()
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