Turning Point of The American Civil War - Union Victory in Battle of Antietam (September 1862)

Union Victory in Battle of Antietam (September 1862)

The Battle of Antietam, September 17, 1862, was the bloodiest day in American history. But it also had two strategic consequences. Although considered a tactical draw between the Army of the Potomac and the much smaller Army of Northern Virginia, it marked the end of Robert E. Lee's invasion of the North. One of his goals was to entice the slave-holding state of Maryland to join the Confederacy, or at least recruit soldiers there. He failed in that objective; he also failed in marshaling Northern fears and opinions to pressure a settlement to the war.

But more strategically, George B. McClellan's victory was just convincing enough that Lincoln used it as justification for announcing his Emancipation Proclamation; he had been counseled by his Cabinet to keep this action confidential until a Union battlefield victory could be announced. Otherwise, it might seem merely an act of desperation. Along with its immense effect on American history and race relations, the Emancipation Proclamation effectively prevented the British Empire from recognizing the Confederacy as a legitimate government. The British public had strong anti-slavery beliefs and would not have tolerated joining the pro-slavery side of a fight where slavery was now a prominent issue. This removed one of the Confederacy's only hopes of surviving a lengthy war against the North's suffocating naval blockade. Support from France was still a possibility, but it never came to pass. Antietam and two other coincident failed actions—Braxton Bragg's invasion of Kentucky (the "high-water mark of the Confederacy in the western theater") and Earl Van Dorn's advance against Corinth, Mississippi—represented the Confederacy's only attempt at coordinated strategic offensives in multiple theaters of war.