Battle Of Antietam Essay

The American Civil War was fought in thousands of different places. Among these many battles, James McPherson identifies the Battle of Antietam near Sharpsburg, Maryland on September 17, 1862, as the “battle that changed the course of the war.” This battle was the bloodiest day in American history, and the number of casualties made it significant itself. More American soldiers died in the Battle of Antietam than in combat in all the other wars fought by this country in the nineteenth century combined. The Battle of Antietam was considered a major “turning point” of the American Civil War. The significance of this battle was that the reason for fighting this war changed because of this battle, and it gave the Union both political and military

Neither the Union nor Confederacy at first included the emancipation of four million slaves in its definition of the freedom for which each side fought. As the battle continued, the meaning of fighting the war changed. It became a war over slaves. There was more opposition to having slavery than keeping the United States together. Where the south wanted to keep slaves, the north wanted to get rid of it altogether. Abolitionism was the main problem of the war. It may not have been the priority in the beginning, but it was the focus of the battle. The Emancipation Proclamation was written by Abraham Lincoln. For two months, Lincoln’s order proclaiming the freedom of slaves in the southern states was not announced because he was waiting for good news from the battlefield. The president declared, five days after the battle on September 22, 1863, the Emancipation Proclamation. He said that although the battle did not go the way he would have liked, the Confederates were driven out of Maryland, and Pennsylvania was no longer in danger. It stated that the slaves that the Confederate states had can be kept if the Confederate states agree to rejoin the country before January 1,

This battle gave the Union lots of both political and military momentum in the war. The political momentum included restoring the morale that the Union had lost in the beginning of the battle, and it kept Lincoln’s party in control of Congress. It also included keeping European involvement away from the war. Both France and Great Britain were close to intervening in the Civil War to mediate the end of it. They were willing to recognize the Confederate States of America (CSA). They were affected by the war after suffering from the shortage of cotton that grew in the south. This shortage caused unemployment or reduced work hours to grow. Europe backed away and refused to recognize the CSA once the news of the Emancipation Proclamation came to them because although England and France needed the South for their cotton, they both have abolished slavery, and the citizens would not have agreed to the decision of supporting the Confederates. The battle also lifted the morale of the Union. Before the battle, the Union had low hopes of defeating the Confederacy after losing to them so much. After Antietam, the Emancipation Proclamation helped preserve the Union and gave it a new birth of