Essay on Battle of Antietam

The Civil war cut our nation in two, Americans fighting Americans, brother against brother. A key battle fought westward was the turning point in the war: the Battle of Vicksburg.

During the late 1800’s there was conflict between the Northern and Southern states causing what we call now the Civil War. This war started due to free and slave states holding different opinions on whether the government had the power to prohibit slavery in territories that were not yet states. Abraham Lincoln was elected to office in 1860, pledging to keep slavery out of new territories. After hearing about this seven southern slave states decided to secede and form a new nation, the Confederate States of America. The Northern states did not acknowledge the secession fearing the final outcome would be a division of all the states, this is where the Civil War began. From 1861 up until 1865 there were many small battles fought

As the bloodiest single-day in American history, the battle of Antietam shifted Union confidence sufficiently enough to serve as an early turning point in the Civil War while simultaneously discouraging international support towards the Confederacy. On September 17, 1862, Major General George B. McClellan’s Army of the Potomac met General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia at Antietam Creek in what would become one of the most significant early battles of the Civil War.

In the summer of 1862, the confederates found themselves as the aggressors. In the Eastern Theater, Lee’s army of Northern Virginia had driven the Union Armies away from the Confederate capital, Richmond and was preparing to invade Maryland. In the western theater, the confederate armies were also moving strong, into Kentucky. Due to the war France and Britain were feeling the strain as cotton from the southern states was starting to diminish.

The Battle of Antietam took place on 17 September 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The battle was fought between General Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and General McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. Although the battle lasted only 12 hours, it was a significant point of the American Civil War, as well as the deadliest day in history. Tactically the battle was considered a draw, but the North claimed strategic victory and President Lincoln published the Emancipation Proclamation, freeing hundreds of thousands of slaves.

After the Union’s defeat at Fredericksburg in December of 1862, President Abraham Lincoln once again made a change in the Union Army’s leadership. General Ambrose Burnside was replaced with Major General Joseph Hooker. Hooker and Lincoln both agreed that the key to victory in the war was the destruction of Lee’s Army in a decisive battle (Sears 57-62). Hooker’s plan to accomplish this was to use his 130,000 soldiers and launch a double envelopment of Lee’s 60,000 men still camped at Fredericksburg.

The battle of Fredericksburg started on December 11th and ended on December 15th 1862. The two generals that were a part of this war was general Robert E. Lee and general Ambrose Burnside. Burnside had a plan to cross the Rappahannock river at Fredericksburg in mid-November and race to the confederate capital of Richmond before lees army could stop him. But before Burnside could do that they had a problem which were pontoon bridges which gave lee enough time to move his army. They finally had time to build the bridges while they were under fire. While all that was happening the Union troops prepared to assault Confederate defensive positions south of the city and on a strongly fortified ridge just west of the city known as Marye's Heights.

The civil war was a conflict about the expansion of slavery into western territories. The compromise of 1820 and 1850 tried to maintain an unbalanced government between free and union state. The southern states seceded from the union because they feared Abraham Lincoln in 1860 when he got elected. The war started 1861 through 4 long 4 bloody years later. The Northern Union states fought against the southern Confederate states. The northern Union won the civil war. Their was 620,000 death toll. The battle of Antietam took place in Sharpsburg, Maryland. The battle of Antietam was the first battle in the civil war to be fought on northern soil. The impact of Antietam was that it turned out to be the bloodiest day in American History.

The Battle of Fredericksburg falls in a long list of failures of the Army of the Potomac during the first year of the American Civil War. Following the Battle of Antietam the Northern Army had the opportunity to defeat Lee’s army. However, Northerners, were shocked by Lee’s escape following this battle on 17 September 1862, and were further upset by Major General George B. McClellan’s procrastination in pursuing Lee and allowing General J.E.B. Stuarts daring cavalry raid into Pennsylvania around Gettysburg (10-12 October 1862). McClellan’s failure to pursue Lee’s Army is mainly due to his own lack of confidence, believing that he doesn’t have enough men or material in order to defeat the Army of Virginia. President Lincoln had finally

The Battle of Antietam could have been a devastating and fatal blow to the Confederate Army if Gen. McClellan acted decisively, took calculated risks, and veered away from his cautious approach to war. There are many instances leading up to the battle and during the battle in which he lacks the necessary offensive initiative to effectively cripple and ultimately win the war. This paper is intended to articulate the failure of Mission Command by GEN McClellan by pointing out how he failed to understand, visualize, describe and direct the battlefield to his benefit.

The Confederate invasion of the North in September of 1862 was an attempt by Robert E. Lee to swing the war in favor of the South. The main reason for the Confederate invasion was that the British were on the verge of recognizing the Confederacy if they could show it could hold its own, and Lee was anxious to provide a cornerstone for the Confederacy to build upon. The Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest day in American history and was a major blow to the Army of Northern Virginia and the morale of the south. This is the tableau against which our story unfolds.

Economically the Union was very strong and greatly outweighed the South. President Lincoln, as the war had begun, quickly declared a blockade, as described earlier, against the main Confederate ports. This was supposed to be under an international treaty, that hadn’t been signed yet, which had created the controversial political issues for Lincoln. Fortunate enough for the Union, when war broke out the United States Navy was small like it’s army, and its ships were scattered around the oceans. Of the American ships that were in surrounding waters, ten were partially destroyed or destroyed to prevent them from going to the Confederates when Virginia seceded. If they did this would have taken the Norfolk naval base with it.

Johnston originally planned to attack Grant on April 4, but delays postponed it until the 6th. Attacking the Union troops on the morning of the 6th, the Confederates surprised them, routing many. Some Federals made determined stands and by afternoon, they had established a battle line at the sunken road, known as the "Hornets Nest." Repeated Rebel attacks failed to carry the Hornets Nest, but massed artillery helped to turn the tide as Confederates surrounded the Union troops and captured, killed, or wounded most. Johnston had been mortally wounded earlier and his second in command, Gen. P.G.T. Beauregard, took over. The Union troops established another line covering Pittsburgh Landing, anchored with artillery and augmented by Buell’s men who began to arrive and take up positions. Fighting continued until after dark, but the Federals held. By the next morning, the combined Federal forces numbered about 40,000, outnumbering Beauregard’s army of less than 30,000. Beauregard was unaware of the arrival of Buell’s army and launched a counterattack in response to a two-mile advance by William Nelson’s division of Buell’s army at 6:00 am, which was, at first, successful. Union troops stiffened and began forcing the Confederates back. Beauregard ordered a counterattack, which stopped the Union advance but did not break its battle line. At this point, Beauregard realized that he could not win and, having suffered too many

The battle of Gettysburg is seen today as the turning point of the war, and after the analysis of these historical documents its clear why the bloodshed at Gettysburg was as significant as it was being able to turn the tides of the war. Two sources that are going to be used in this are a website article from History.com: “Battle of Gettysburg” and a website article from the NeW World Encyclopedia: “Battle of gettysburg”. These sources will be analyzed by their origin, purpose, content, value and limitation in relation to this investigation.

Gettysburg was fought during the Civil War between the Union Army of the Potomac led by General Meade, and the Confederate Army commanded by General R.E. Lee. The battle only was waged over the course of three days, but it would prove to be the most costly of the entire Civil War. In this paper, we will show how the Confederacy failed to identify certain principles of war, which lead them to incorrectly conduct a center of gravity and critical vulnerability analysis on the Union. Because of this failure, the Confederacy opened the door for the Union to score a decisive victory.