Confederate dead at Antietam

The Battle of Antietam, also known as the Battle of Sharpsburg, was fought on September 17, 1862, during the American Civil War. It took place near Sharpsburg, Maryland, and Antietam Creek, between the Union Army, commanded by Major General George B. McClellan, and the Confederate Army, led by General Robert E. Lee.

The battle was one of the bloodiest single-day battles in American history, with an estimated 22,000 soldiers killed, wounded, or missing. The Union Army had the advantage in terms of numbers, but the Confederates fought fiercely to hold their ground. The battle ended without a decisive victor, as both sides suffered heavy losses and neither could claim a clear victory.

However, Antietam is often considered a strategic Union success because it halted Lee's first invasion of the North. The battle also gave President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to announce the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation, which declared the freedom of enslaved people in Confederate-held territories, shifting the focus of the war to abolition and discouraging foreign intervention on behalf of the South.

While the battle did not lead to an immediate end to the war, it marked a turning point and provided the Union with a much-needed morale boost.