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It was tragic in the numbers killed and wounded, but redeeming in that it led to the

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It was tragic in the numbers killed and wounded, but redeeming in that it led to the .

The Battle of Antietam was fought on September 17, 1862, near Sharpsburg, Maryland. It was the result of Robert E. Lee's first invasion of the North. It remains the single bloodiest day in U.S. history, with more than 22,000 casualties, some 6,000 of these deaths.

The Battle of Antietam

But the Union Army of the Potomac under George B. McClellan forced the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia under General Robert E. Lee to retreat back to Virginia.

President Abraham Lincoln had been waiting for a Union victory so he could issue the Emancipation Proclamation. His Secretary of State William Seward had advised him to wait to issue the Emancipation until after a Union victory. Otherwise, the move might seem like a desperate measure by a losing government.

Five days after the battle, Lincoln issued the Emancipation, to go into effect on January 1, 1863. The war would now have a moral cause. And a Union victory in the war meant that slavery would end.

The First Reading of the Emancipation Proclamation