Antietam and its connection to the Emancipation Proclamation

The battle of Antietam took place in September 17, 1862. It was the bloodiest one day battle of all of the United States history wars, with a total of 22,717 estimated casualties. Before Antietam, the confederate states had a string of victories and General Robert e. lee was determined to bring the war to the north. Lee’s army decided to confront General George b. McClellan’s army in Sharpsburg, Maryland.  The reason for this location was that lee hoped to bring Maryland, a slave state, into the CSA. Both armies’s fought until late the last night of September 18, when they both tended their wounded and consolidates their lines, and both withdrew. While the Battle of Antietam is considered a draw from a military point of view, Abraham Lincoln and the Union claimed victory. .  Even though the north and south fought to what can be considered a “draw” with no clear winner, there is one specific reason in which fro this union victory. Special order: number 191, three union soldiers discovered a copy of the strategic plans concerning the movement of lee’s army in an envelope containing three cigars.   Lincoln saw this as the victory he needed to release the emancipation proclamation thus freeing all slaves in rebellious states on January 1, 1863. This laws is often confused  as the document that freed all slaves, when realistically it only freed, as stated previously, only  those slaves who lived in, and were owned by, those living in rebellious states. Think of it as classroom rules, lets say your french teacher does not allow any of his other classes eat during class but only your class because the period you have his class, is your lunch period. back to the actual emancipation itself, all slaves in states that fought with the union were not freed. also meaning that if the southern states would've surrendered before January 1, they too, would have been allowed to keep their slaves. The emancipation proclamation was the one moral issue that kept other European powers out of the conflict. 

photo from http://www.loc.gov/rr/program/bib/ourdocs/EmanProc.html