ANTIETAM

“MORE AMERICANS DIED ON 17 SEPTEMBER 1862, THAN ON D-DAY, 6 JUNE 1944”

The first year of the American Civil War (1861-65) had shown the people of both north and south that it would be a long, bloody conflict. A decades-long feud over states’ rights to own slaves in the south, versus the determination in the north to abolish the evil trade, had culminated in the election of Abraham Lincoln to the presidency in November 1860. Lincoln had won on a platform not to abolish slavery, but to reform it and prevent its spread into the new states being formed in the west of the continent.

To southerners, who had not voted for him, this was a step too far and they openly argued for secession – that is, to leave the Union and set up their own government. Eleven states would form what would become known as the Confederacy. By April 1861, with Lincoln now in office, both sides became belligerent and armed conflict became a distinct possibility, with Americans on both sides of the political divide rushing to join local militias, state units and armies.