150th Anniversary of Antietam

Sunken Lane (Bloody Lane), Antietam National Battlefield. Photo by Andrew Tremel

September 17, 1862 was the bloodiest single day in American history. Nearly 23,000 Americans were killed or wounded in a single day's fighting. Places like the Cornfield, Dunker Church, Bloody Lane, and Burnside Bridge entered the national vocabulary. Matthew Brady displayed "The Dead of Antietam" in his New York City studio and made Americans understand the human cost and suffering of a war that seemed distant.

Matthew Brady, Confederate dead near Dunker Church, from nps.gov

The fighting between Major General George B. McClellan's Union Army of the Potomac and General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia ended in a tactical draw. Yet, the battle was a strategic victory for the Union, especially on the political front. That Robert E. Lee had to retreat from Northern soil was enough for President Abraham Lincoln to release the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. Lincoln feared that if it became public after a Union defeat, a proclamation declaring an end to slavery in the eleven Confederate states would look like desperation. Lincoln took advantage of McClellan's claim to victory and changed the meaning of the war. Until Antietam's aftermath, the Civil War was merely to save the Union. Though the Emancipation Proclamation technically didn't free a single slave when it became official on January 1, 1863, (because it only applied to the states that seceded), the document showed that to Lincoln, the war was for Union and an end to slavery. The rest of the country would grow (slowly) to accept that meaning for the war. Some historians, such as James McPherson, argue that the 1862 Maryland Campaign marked the closest the Confederacy had been to foreign recognition from Great Britain and France. European nations likely took the Emancipation Proclamation into account when they chose to stay out rather than backed a country based on the institution of slavery.

So, pause for a moment this evening. Look back to Antietam and remember the sacrifice made by so many.