Battle Of Antietam Essay

Preceding the Civil War, federal law dating back to 1792 prevented Negroes from bearing arms for the United States army. President Lincoln’s administration contemplated the idea of authorizing the recruitment of black troops, but were worried such a move would push the border states to secede and join the Confederates. By the middle of 1862, the escalating number of former slaves, declining number of white volunteers and needs of the Union Army drove the government to reconsider the ban. On July 17th, 1862, Congress passed the Second Confiscation and Militia Act as a result of the Emancipation Proclamation. This act freed slaves who had masters in the Confederate Army. The first black volunteers came from South Carolina, Tennessee and Massachusetts, filling the first authorized black regiments. Recruitment was slow until black leaders, like Frederick Douglass, began encouraging men to become soldiers to ensure they would gain full citizenship. By the end of the Civil War, approximately 179,000 black men served as soldiers in the U.S Army and another 19,000 served in the Navy. Black soldiers made up about ten percent of the Union Army.

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More than 23,000 men were killed, wounded, or missing in action. Sunken Road came to be known as Bloody Lane because of the high death toll suffered there. It took place on September 17th, 1862 in Sharpsburg, Maryland. The Army of the Potomac fought under the command of George McClellan versus Robert E. Lee’s Army of a Northern Virginia for possession of the Miller farm cornfield. In the end, the Confederates occupied the town of Sharpsburg. Despite this battle was considered a draw from a military point of view, Abraham Lincoln and the Union claimed the victory the president needed before delivering Emancipation Proclamation. More lives were lost during this one day than any other day in American