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The Battle Of Antietam By Robert E. Lee

Decent Essays

The Future of America, its citizens, and its enslaved people hinged on the outcome of the American Civil War. The Civil War was fought between the North (Union) and the south. The Battle of Antietam took place on September 17, 1862 near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and it was the bloodiest day in American history. Before the battle, the confederacy had a better chance of winning the war. Conflict arose between McClellan and Robert E. Lee which sparked the invasion of the north and the beginning of a long war. McPherson argued in his novel that the battle of Antietam was the turning point of the Civil War. In the beginning of the novel, McPherson informs the reader that it was not clear who would win the war. Both side had strengths and weaknesses that set the scene of the war. Before Antietam only the South thought the war was about slavery .The North simply was fighting to “preserve the Union”, not to abolish slavery. The war was described as, “A war to destroy slavery and to reshape the South in the Northern free-soil image” (McPherson 14-15). Since the north did not have slavery, the south wanted to keep it. The south was close to being recognized by England and France, “The South’s principal foreign-policy goals were European intervention to break the blockade and diplomatic recognition of the Confederacy as a nation” (McPherson 35). Southerners believed in cotton to compile British and French Intervention. The textile industry was the leading sector in the British and

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