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Significance of the battle of Antietam

The Civil War Battle of Antietam was a key victory for the North, leading to Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. This shifted the war's focus to ending slavery. Antietam also marked the point where Europe, especially the UK, decided not to aid the South, influenced by factors like cotton supply and the popular novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin.

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  • starky tree style avatar for user Samuel Stoehr
    i get confused was it the union or the confederates that named battles after nearby towns?
    (6 votes)
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    • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Kim Kutz Elliott
      From the author:It was the Confederates! The Union named battles after nearby bodies of water. (Remember that before there were many highways, rivers and oceans were the easiest way to get around! That's why the water part was important to them.)

      In US history, we tend to use the Union names - for example, "Antietam," for the battle that took place near Antietam creek on September 17, 1862. The Confederate name for that battle was Sharpsburg, for the nearby town in Maryland.
      (20 votes)
  • stelly blue style avatar for user Jorge Daniel Garcia
    What about France? Where they interested on helping any side?
    (8 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Steven Katz
    Do historians find it significant that Antietam was fought on the 75th anniversary of the Constitution's adoption? How about the generals at that time? Did they find it significant?
    (12 votes)
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  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Arnav Mujumdar
    The Monroe Doctrine prohibited Eastern influence in the Western Hemisphere. How did the South expect to get Britain to ally with them? The Monroe Doctrine did not allow that.
    (4 votes)
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    • leaf grey style avatar for user Alex
      Typically Britain isn't referred to as "Eastern"; "Eastern" conventionally refers to countries like China or Japan. The Monroe Doctrine really opposed the colonization of any North or South American country, and its main purpose was to protect the Latin American colonies from European intervention. The Monroe Doctrine also isn't law; it was a stand taken by the federal government, which the Southern Confederacy refused to recognize. Finally, often times economic or political interests supersede ideological factors, and Britain's reliance on Southern cotton (80% of Britain's textile industry depended on it) and their interest in wanting a pro-British government in America (goes without saying) were definitely strong factors.
      (7 votes)
  • aqualine ultimate style avatar for user kl405383
    What are the confederate states?
    (6 votes)
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    • male robot hal style avatar for user chinmaybho4151
      The Confederate States of America were made up of the former United States of America states: South Carolina, Mississippi, Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Texas, Virginia, Arkansas, Tennessee, and North Carolina. It was also made up of the former United States of America territories: the New Mexico Territory (south of the 34th parallel), and the Arizona territory (south of the 34th parallel).
      (3 votes)
  • piceratops ultimate style avatar for user Arnav Mujumdar
    My history teacher said that the Battle of Gettysburg caused Britain to not help the South. However, this video says that it is Antietam/Sharpsburg. Which one is right?
    (3 votes)
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    • leaf grey style avatar for user Alex
      The Battle of Antietam. While it was technically more of a stalemate, it was a sufficiently significant "victory" to give Lincoln the confidence to announce his Emancipation Proclamation, which discouraged the British and French governments from pursuing any potential plans to recognize the Confederacy.
      (7 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user LilD3mon
    for Juneteenth why did they say the enslaves were free but it was still slavery late 1800s and early 1900s
    (3 votes)
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  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user LilD3mon
    is New York harbor in New York??
    (3 votes)
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  • blobby green style avatar for user Jordan Kalter
    Why did eauropean countries want to help the south?
    (3 votes)
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    • female robot amelia style avatar for user klassictimes
      Several European powers wanted to see the South win for financial reasons, but none felt the South could win the war since they were entirely dependent on the North for iron and steel. The North was harboring an Army and a Navy that was incredibly large, and the Northern industries were growing while the South was falling apart. Besides, after seeing the battle of Antietam, no foreign nation wanted any part of our war. Europeans wanted cotton and tobacco, not a reputation for supporting slavery.
      (3 votes)
  • duskpin ultimate style avatar for user LilD3mon
    for June 19 1865
    (3 votes)
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Video transcript

- [Voiceover] In the last video, Sal and I were talking about the Civil War Battle of Antietam. Antietam took place in Maryland on September 17, 1862. Just to briefly recap, Antietam was the single, bloodiest day in American history. Over 4,000 people died, and Antietam was a signature victory in the Civil War for the North, for Abraham Lincoln, and the forces of the United States. One thing that was really important about Antietam was that Lincoln had been waiting for a Union victory, so that he could proclaim the Emancipation Proclamation, which was intended to be a real morale blow to the South, and also a signal to both enslaved people in the South, Northern Republicans who were strongly in favor of Abolition, the end of slavery, and also the world, especially Europe, that the Civil War had become a fight to end slavery, not just a fight to keep the Union together. I mentioned in the last video that there were two reasons why Antietam was so important, the first being that it led to the Emancipation Proclamation. The second reason was slightly related to that. The eyes of the world were really on the United States and on the Civil War at this time. Many people in Europe were trying to decide whether they should intervene in the American Civil War. Now, why would they do this? I think the most important reason that they would do this is because the South of the United States supplied 75% of the world's cotton at the beginning of the Civil War, and so to major industrialized nations, especially the United Kingdom, cotton was the source of their prosperity. They based their economy, in part, around textile mills. This is what England was known for. During the Civil War, the North blockaded the South, which meant that they used the ships of the Navy to prevent supplies from getting in or crops from getting out of the American South. If England can't get their cotton crops, they might be in a whole lot of trouble when it comes to textile manufacturing. In fact, the Confederacy was counting on having the support of Europe in their rebellion against the United States, partly for this reason. Now, there were other reasons why Europe might have intervened on behalf of the South. One of these was that Europe was traditionally a highly classed society, and they had a lot of sympathy for the way that the South did things with a wealthy planter class similar to the monarchy or the gentry in Europe, which was in control of poor whites and enslaved people of African descent. Another reason was that it was to the advantage of Europe not to have such a strong nation as the United States operating in the Americas. Remember that this is the era of Imperialism, the very beginning of Imperialism, as countries like the United Kingdom and France, Germany, and others in Europe begin to look for colonies abroad, and the United States had in 1820 proclaimed the Monroe Doctrine which said, "Europe, keep out of the Americas. We consider this our area of the world." Dividing what had been the United States into two smaller nations would probably have worked out in their favor, so Europe had these social or cultural reasons to join with the South and also political, or perhaps foreign policy reasons to join with the South. The South was really counting on the intervention of a European nation. They thought, certainly, the United Kingdom would intercede on their behalf. It looked, especially early in the Civil War, like that might be the case, but when it came down to it, the United Kingdom did not intercede for the South, and there were a few reasons why that happened. One of those reasons was that the South had kind of oversold cotton to England in the years leading up to the Civil War, so there was actually a considerable supply on hand which English merchants had built up before the Civil War, kind of seeing this coming. The loss of new Southern cotton really didn't turn out to be as big of a problem, as many had imagined. Related to that, as the Civil War began to ramp up, both Egypt and India, which were also cotton producers, began to increase their production, understanding there would be more of a demand coming from England that couldn't be supplied from the American South. It's interesting to note that it's partly in response to the American Civil War and the Northern blockade of Southern ships that Egypt and India become the world suppliers of cotton that they will be for the rest of the 19th Century. The other reason that England doesn't aid the South is more of a cultural reason, which I think is very interesting, which is that the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin, which we'll talk about more in other videos, was read really widely in England, it was a very popular novel there. The stage shows of Uncle Tom's Cabin were quite common. This novel, which in the United States, helped to propel the Civil War by showing Northerners how barbaric the institution of slavery was, also came over to England. Because the battle of Antietam allowed Lincoln to make the Emancipation Proclamation, to the citizens of England, this meant now that the North was an army of liberation, that they had the choice of siding with either Southern slaveholders, who had been demonized in Uncle Tom's Cabin, or with Northerners, who were fighting against those slaveholders. Because of the Emancipation Proclamation, and because of these other side issues about the supply of cotton, Antietam really marks the moment where it becomes clear that there is not going to be any European help for the South. That's really important, because think of the American movement for independence. The reason that the United States won, or at least one reason that the United States won, was because of the intervention of France. The South knew that they needed the help of Europe if they were going to succeed. Had England interceded, it's highly likely that the South may have won the American Civil War, and it would have been a separate nation. After the Battle of Antietam and the Emancipation Proclamation, it became clear that if the South was going to win its independence from the North, it would be doing it on its own.