Question

In a 125-word paragraph explain how the Battle of Antietam (Sharpsburg) affected the North and South?

Answer 1

There were 22,700 casualties, 12,400 Union and 10,300 Confederate. The photo right shows Confederate dead on the east side of the Hagerstown Pike near the hill where the Visitor Center is located today, with the photographer looking toward the Dunker Church.The townspeople of Sharpsburg had to care for the wounded besides dealing with the other problems resulting from the battle. Rev. John W. Schildt, a Chewsyville author of eight books, nearly all of them on the Antietam battle and Maryland campaign, wrote the following:
"The swollen corpses, darkened by the sun, gave off a terrible stench. Many people at the time said they had to keep their windows down until late October because it stunk so bad. Scattered also on the rolling battlefield were hundreds of dead horses. Some were killed by bullets when they were shot out from under their riders; others had been blown apart by artillery shells. Large fires were started to consume the carcasses of dead horses, which gave off a rather foul odor." A typhoid epidemic swept through the area in late October and historians believe it was caused by rainfall that fell on the shallow graves of some soldiers and found its way into water supplies. It wasn't until several years later that many of the bodies buried on the battlefield were exhumed and moved to cemeteries. The battle also gave President Abraham Lincoln the opportunity to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which, on January 1, 1863, declared free all slaves in States still in rebellion against the United States. Now the war had a dual purpose: to preserve the Union and end slavery. Hopefully that helps

Answer 2

The Battle of Antietam was the first major combat of the Civil War that occurred in northern territory. The battle took place on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, in Washington County, Maryland, United States, and in the vicinity of the Antietam stream. The battle was part of the Maryland Campaign and is the bloodiest in the history of the United States that was fought in a single day, with almost 23,000 casualties.

The Battle of the Antietam is considered a missed opportunity for the Union to inflict a devastating blow on the Northern Virginia Army and prematurely end the Civil War.

At the same time, its outcome was a strategic victory for the Union, politically considered by many historians to be one of the most important turning points in the war. It opened up the possibility for Lincoln to announce his Emancipation Declaration, which undermined attempts by Great Britain and France to negotiate a peace agreement, and helped the Republican Party to avoid impending defeat in the 1862 congressional elections.