Map Monday, Antietam, inflection point for US Civil War

The Battle of Antietam is often cited as the bloodiest day in American history. Strictly speaking, this isn’t true. The hurricane that struck Galveston, Texas killed more Americans than the battle. It is the bloodiest single day of combat in US history. While more Americans died in four other civil war battles, those battles took place over more than one day. The fighting on 17 September 1862 claimed 22,726 casualties with 7,650 dead. 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. For good measure, you could add in the Spanish American War and still not reach the grim single day total. At the end of the day the confederates withdrew from Maryland, but the union army did not aggressively pursue them. The Army of Northern Virginia survived to fight for nearly three more years.

Map of the Battle of Antietam (courtesy of Hal Jespersen)

The 4 July 1863 battles of Vicksburg and Gettysburg are often cited as the turning points in the US Civil 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 Battle of Antietam created a more subtle change in the flow of the war. For readers who are math geeks (you know who you are) Antietam marked the inflection point of the war. Prior to Antietam, the Confederacy could still seize the initiative. After Antietam, the Confederacy’s only hope of winning was for the Union to hand them a victory. It’s hard to maintain an independent nation when your existence depends on the incompetence of others.

How do Europeans and Antietam mix?

The leaders of the Confederacy knew the Union possessed huge advantages in population, industry, and naval power. To compete, they needed to change those odds. One goal of the Confederacy’s invasion of Maryland was to establish the plausibility of victory. Specifically, the Confederates wanted material help from the major European powers (France, Britain, & possibly Russia). Those powers were sympathetic to the Confederate cause, but they didn’t want to back a loser. A victory in Union territory would bolster the chances of receiving that aid.

While slavery was certainly at the root of the US Civil War, not all slave states seceded from the Union. Prior to Antietam, Lincoln carefully positioned the preservation of the union as the leading cause of the war. Despite the failure of McClellan to follow and destroy Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, the outcome of Antietam did give Lincoln some political capital. He spent that capital on the Emancipation Proclamation. This brought the issue of slavery to the forefront. By making the abolition of slavery an overt objective of the war, Lincoln ensured that the Confederacy would remain alone.

Lee and Jefferson Davis rolled the proverbial dice when they chose to invade the north. Their loss outside the town of Sharpsburg, Maryland, didn’t end the war, but it made the ending inevitable. It wasn’t the complete military disaster it could have been (McClellan possessed Lee’s orders to his generals), the outcome was enough to keep the Europeans on the sidelines.

As always thanks for reading.

Armen

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