As Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was moving north toward the Maryland border, Lincoln faced a dilemma. General John Pope had not proved to be the leader Lincoln was looking for. McClellan's peninsular campaign had been a strategic failure, and he had not assisted Pope as he had been directed to do. Criticism of "Little Mac" grew in Congress, and Lincoln was loath to place him back in command of the Army of the Potomac. But he knew McClellan was a good organizer and that he was well liked by his troops, so he kept him in command. Pope's Army of Virginia was absorbed by McClellan's Army of the Potomac. McClellan set out to block Lee as the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac into Maryland.
Lee hoped to be able to recruit successfully in areas theoretically sympathetic to the South, but slavery in Maryland was mostly located on the peninsula, not in the more western mountainous areas. He also hoped that a dramatic blow on northern soil would unnerve the Northern public, who would then demand a negotiated peace. He also wanted to relieve pressure on Virginia and procure badly needed supplies in what he assumed would be the friendly Maryland countryside.
Part of Lee's army moved into Harpers Ferry and captured that important city while the rest of the Army of Northern Virginia moved in the direction of Hagerstown. McClellan, meanwhile, was moving north from Rockville towards Frederick, Maryland, on a more or less parallel path with Lee. While the movement was under way, two of McClellan's scouts found an interesting looking piece of paper wrapped around some cigars in an abandoned Confederate camp. It seemed to be a battle order, and indeed it was. It showed the general disposition of Lee's army, indicating that Lee had sent portions of his army in different directions. The knowledge that Lee's forces were divided gave McClellan an extraordinary advantage. McClellan, however, failed to exploit the intelligence windfall, despite his boast that this time he would "lick Bobby Lee."
On September 14 the Battle of South Mountain, between Frederick and Hagerstown in Maryland, delayed the Union advance while Lee concentrated his army at the little village of Sharpsburg along Antietam Creek. By the time McClellan caught up, most of Lee's army was reunited.
On the morning of September 17 McClellan attacked. Lee's back was to the Potomac, and his outnumbered army faced possible destruction. But rather than attacking broadly and decisively, McClellan advanced his army in piecemeal fashion, giving Lee time to regroup and reposition his men. The fighting started in a large cornfield which was soon bathed in red. Lee's men pulled back to a sunken road as the attack continued; by late afternoon the fighting was taking place along Antietam Creek in a position that came to be known as Burnside's Bridge.
The intense fighting made the Battle of Antietam the bloodiest single day of combat in all of American history; over 20,000 casualties on both sides were inflicted. Military historians have concluded that had McClellan attacked aggressively and used all of his forces—one entire Union Corps of 30,00 men never saw action—the result might have been a decisive defeat for the Army of Northern Virginia, with dire consequences for the Confederacy.86
The bloody battle turned out to be a tactical draw. It was, however, a strategic defeat for Lee, who had to withdraw back into Virginia. McClellan failed to pursue Lee and instead decided to rest and recuperate his army at the scene of the battle; another opportunity had been lost. Frustrated, Lincoln wrote to McClellan, "I have read your dispatch about _ fatigued horses. Will you pardon me for asking what the horses of your army have done since the battle of Antietam that fatigues anything?"
The Battle of Antietam, despite Lincoln's disappointment, did have two important consequences: Lincoln's release of his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, and a crucial British cabinet meeting to discuss possible recognition of Confederate independence was canceled.
Emancipation. President Lincoln had thought long and hard about the relationship between slavery and the Civil War from the very beginning of the conflict. Horace Greeley, the prominent abolitionist newspaper editor, challenged the president in an open letter to state his intentions regarding slavery in the summer of 1862. Lincoln responded by saying that if he thought he could save the Union by freeing all the slaves, he would do so. He also stated that if he thought he could save the Union by freeing none of the slaves he would do that, then added that if he felt he could save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and leaving others in bondage, that he would do that as well. In the end, that is what he did.
Several Union generals had jumped the gun by declaring slaves contraband and freeing them. Lincoln had to countermand their orders because he was still worried about losing the border states of Kentucky and Missouri. But an idea took shape in Lincoln's mind. He decided to issue an Emancipation Proclamation. However. he did not want to do so when Union military fortunes looked bleak, lest it seem like a desperation move. Although Antietam was not a decisive victory, it was close enough for Lincoln's purpose, since Lee had retreated back to Virginia. Thus President Lincoln issued his preliminary Emancipation Proclamation five days after the battle of Antietam. The declaration announced that as of January 1, 1863, slaves in territory controlled by the Confederacy were to be forever free. He did not free all the slaves because he felt he did not have the constitutional authority to do so. Instead, he used the Confederacy's own position regarding slaves against them: he counted them as property, property that had value in time of war and was therefore subject to being confiscated as contraband. (See Emancipation Proclamation, Appendix.)
Thus the Battle of Antietam was a turning point because it demonstrated that Lee could not sustain an offensive on Union soil. Although the battle was the costliest in American history, the losses were approximately equal. But the North could tolerate them far better than the Confederacy because it had a much larger manpower pool on which to draw. In that sense Antietam was significant for the war, if not a turning point in the military sense.
Although it is widely believed that the Emancipation Proclamation initially freed no slaves, in fact there were thousands who immediately took advantage of it. The Emancipation Proclamation fundamentally altered the goals of the conflict for both sides. Lincoln's first concern was to save the Union; although Lincoln abhorred slavery, ending the "peculiar institution" was secondary to him. (Those who believe that Lincoln cared more about saving the Union than about ending slavery miss the point: If the Confederacy had won the war and become independent, Lincoln could have done nothing about the status of slavery in North America. It is also clear from the Confederate Constitution and the prewar political rhetoric that slavery would have continued for a long time after the end of the conflict, perhaps even into the 20th century.)
Once the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, it was fairly certain that if the Union prevailed, it would be a Union in which slavery would no longer exist. So from merely saving the Union, the goal for the North became to save the Union without the institution of slavery. It is interesting to note that by the end of the war in late 1864-early 1865, the Confederacy had apparently changed its goal in the war as well, which had been to preserve Southern society with slavery intact. Instead their goal became to gain independence, even if they had to give up slavery in order to get it.
In December 1864 Confederate Secretary of State Judah P. Benjamin sent a secret delegation to Great Britain to plead one last time for their assistance in becoming independent. In exchange for Britain's help, the Confederacy would voluntarily end the institution of slavery. It was too late for Great Britain to intervene, however, and the Confederacy decided to arm the slaves anyway in order to help them become independent. Had that occurred, it almost certainly would have tended to undermine status of slavery in the South. Before that happened, the war ended, the Confederacy lost its bid for independence, and slavery ended with ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
The Battle of Antietam had an additional important result besides giving Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation. As mentioned above, a major goal of the Confederacy was to gain recognition of their independence by a major power, and the most likely nation to do that was Great Britain. Had Great Britain recognized the Confederacy and offered support, it is probable that the Confederate States of America would have become independent.
Not long before the Battle of Antietam it began to look as though intervention by the British might come to pass. In the opening days of the conflict the Union had suffered a diplomatic humiliation over the Trent affair. At about the same time as the Trent affair, Secretary of State William Seward suggested that the president might want to provoke Spain and perhaps France into a conflict in order to reunify the country, a suggestion which Lincoln wisely ignored.87 The British were quite dependent upon Southern cotton to supply their mills, and other factors supported friendly relationships between Great Britain and the Confederacy. Thus, recognition and intervention on the part of Great Britain was no far-fetched idea.
On the other hand, it was apparent that the British people and government did not want to provoke the United States into war. Nevertheless, as the early lack of Union success on the battlefields opened the possibility of an eventual Confederate victory, Great Britain began to move in the direction of recognition of the South and perhaps further involvement in the war on the Confederate side. Chancellor of the Exchequer William Gladstone made a speech about that time stating that Jefferson Davis and other Southern leaders had not only made an army and a navy, "they have made what is more than either, they have made a nation."88
Prime Minister Palmerston had discussed the possibility of recognition of the Confederacy with the Lord Russell at the Foreign Office. Palmerston, aware of the "great conflict" taking place near Washington, counseled caution. He wrote to Russell, "If the Federals sustain a grave defeat, they may be at once ready for mediation, and iron should be struck while it is hot. If, on the other hand, they should have the best of it, we may wait a while and see what may follow."89 Similarly, during the American Revolution, the French, after secretly aiding the colonies, had waited for an indication that the Americans might be able to win on the battlefield. Having seen that occur at Saratoga in 1777, France recognized American independence and formed a military alliance with the new nation. In 1862 British leaders began to believe that a victory on Union soil might be what they were looking for. But although Lee's intrepid Army of Northern Virginia held its own against the superior Union force, Lee was forced to retreat, and the tactical draw certainly did not equate to a strategic victory. The British hesitated, Lincoln acted, and the moment for recognition quickly passed.
McClellan Dismissed. Following the battle President Lincoln visited McClellan at Antietam and listened patiently while the general reviewed the outcome of the fighting. President Lincoln congratulated the Union troops and commiserated with wounded Confederate soldiers. In a private conversation with McClellan, the president apparently chastised his general for failing to move in pursuit of Lee. (He had said to an aide that McClellan had "the slows.") When McClellan did not take Lincoln's suggestion, he was finally relieved of command. He did not again participate in the war, but he ran for president as a Democrat against Lincoln in 1864 and later served as Governor of New Jersey.
Fredericksburg. Lincoln turned command of the Army of the Potomac over to General Ambrose Burnside, who had commanded a corps at Antietam. Lee had retreated to the vicinity of Fredericksburg and had taken a position along some elevated ground known as Marye's Heights. The Rappahannock River lay between Lee's troops and the advancing Union Army. Burnside devised an elaborate plan to cross the river with pontoon bridges and attack Lee on the other side. Construction of the bridges was made difficult by Confederate sharpshooters harassing engineers building the bridges. Union artillery, meanwhile, shelled the city of Fredericksburg, leaving damage whose remnants are still visible in some buildings.
On December 13 Burnside's men finally crossed the river and assaulted the Confederate troops, who were protected by a stone wall and a sunken road at the base of Marye's Heights. Although part of Burnside's plan worked fairly well, the slaughter in front of Marye's Heights was one of the worst of the war; Union troops were mowed down and fell on top of dead or wounded comrades. Colonel Joshua Chamberlain, whose eloquent descriptions of his war experiences are unsurpassed, recalled surveying the battlefield during the night following the action. He spoke of the "weird, unearthly, terrible" sounds made by wounded and dying men, who called out in the darkness, "some begging for a drop of water, some calling on God for pity; and some on friendly hands to finish what the enemy had so horribly begun.” 90
The North was shocked by the magnitude of the defeat, and Lincoln was in the depths of despair. He said to an associate, "If there is a worse place than Hell, I am in it."91 The battered army moved back north to a position west of Fredericksburg. General Burnside would soon be replaced at his own request, and Lincoln's search for a winning general to command the Army of the Potomac continued.
On December 31 Union General William S. Rosecrans and the Army of the Cumberland engaged a Confederate force under General Braxton Bragg, commanding the Army of Tennessee. Rosecrans had pursued Bragg from Kentucky following Bragg's loss at Perryville.
Bragg's men began the attack on the morning of December 31, but after some initial gains the Union established a strong defensive line. After a pause on New Year's Day, the two armies again clashed on January 2 and 3. On January 4 Bragg took his army from the field and retreated deeper into Tennessee. In three days of fierce fighting Union artillery had again proved decisive. A relieved President Lincoln sent a congratulatory telegram to General Rosecrans, thanking him for the victory that had lifted the president and the country out of the depressing state that had set in following the disaster at Fredericksburg.
Summary of 1862. The Union had made little progress in the East; even with the heavy losses they had suffered, the Federals were no closer to Richmond. Lincoln and much of the North remained in despair-historian James McPherson has called it the "winter of Northern discontent." The picture in the West was substantially brighter for the Union. General Grant had fought well, and Southern commanders seemed unable to prevent the Union armies from moving deeper into Southern territory. Union forces controlled much of the Tennessee and Cumberland Rivers as well as the Ohio as far as Memphis. Benjamin Butler had captured New Orleans in early 1862, and the Union armies in the West were ready to converge on the last great stronghold of Vicksburg.
Confederate forces had fared quite well in the East, turning back McClellan's Peninsular campaign and routing Pope at Manassas. But Lee's invasion of the North was costly; they had suffered heavy losses and did not appear to be exhausting federal resources, despite victories at Fredericksburg and elsewhere.
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