Um... It's Antietam Day.

We should commemorate this day in a way only we can, with a good ACW timeline can anyone name a few?
 
So... bloodiest day of the Civil War. Can't really celebrate it, so... let's commemorate it. Properly. :(

Indeed we should -- not just for being the bloodiest single day battle of the war, but more than anything, for being the event that allowed Lincoln to issue the preliminary to the Emancipation Proclamation five days later. Actually, thought in this light, that would make this the sesquicentennial anniversary of the Emancipation -- which would absolutely put a celebration in order!
 
So this spring I visited Monocacy, Antietam, and Gettysburg. I knew Gettysburg would be treated as a bigger deal than Antietam - I was just shocked by how much bigger.

Antietam had almost no tourists, a small museum and gift shop and a host of impressive but aging monuments. Less impressive than, say, the Vicksburg battlefield. Gettysburg is like the Disneyland of the Civil War, the place is crawling with reenactors, students, tourists, etc., and has all sorts of fascinating (and pricey exhibits).

The point is, historical memory is a bit screwed up.
 
So WI Lee's retreat were prevented and the ANV was eiither destroyed or forced to surrender.

Would the effect of the threat of emancipation in jan 1863 have caused some states to return to the union
 
So WI Lee's retreat were prevented and the ANV was eiither destroyed or forced to surrender.

Would the effect of the threat of emancipation in jan 1863 have caused some states to return to the union

Heck, that might be a war ending POD. Like Gettysburg but in an even more exaggerated way, a Confederate victory could have ended the war - but so might a more aggressive Union follow through.

Remember, when the ANV retreated behind the Potomac at the end of the Gettysburg campaign, General Meade wrote to Washington: "we have driven the enemy from our soil." Lincoln, furious, noted that "the whole damned country is our soil!"
 
You know, I always felt sorry for all those Confederate Soldiers who died in battles like these. Not only were they fighting to (eventually) preserve slavery, when many of them didn't care about it at all and never owned slaves, but their death was in vain. The CSA ended up losing. What a horrible way to die, fighting for something you care about, your family and your home, while also fighting for something such as slavery at the same time, and still end up dead and losing the war anyway. It's kinda sad if you think about it. :(
 
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