“Forever Free”

After the battle, the two armies still faced one another, with the Union army still twice as strong. General Robert E. Lee, C.S.A., remained at Antietam one more day, saying he would give battle again if George B. McClellan attacked in the morning, then withdrew across the Potomac to Virginia, rebuilt his army, and continued the war for two and a half more years. Major General George B. McClellan, U.S.A., after anxious deliberation and a careful survey of his army and the enemy, decided not to attack on the 18th because success was not certain, and in November President Lincoln removed him from command because he would not follow Lee to Virginia and fight him. The dead suffered no more, but the wounded endured further misery as Northern losses reached 12,400 killed, wounded, or missing and Southern losses 10,300, leaving the whole region between Boonsboro and Sharpsburg one vast hospital. President Lincoln said he had determined to issue a proclamation of emancipation as soon as the Confederate army was driven out of Maryland, believing God had decided the question in favor of the slaves, and six days after the battle he issued the Emancipation Proclamation declaring that on January 1, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state in rebellion against the United States would be then, thenceforward, and forever free.

Shepherdstown, Maryland · United States