There's an awful lot of debate of how and what would have happened if the Confederates had won at Gettysburg. But I've always wondered, how could they have won Antietam? What would have happened if they had?
>>18004315idk
>>18004315Antietam wouldn’t have happened if McClellan hadn’t gotten a copy of Lee’s orders, but even a crushing defeat of Union forces in the Maryland campaign wouldn’t have made that big of a difference. The Federals would hunker down in the impregnable Washington defenses, refit under a new leader, and the war would grind on with the CSA slowly bleeding out in the west. Maybe a bit more diplomatic support from Britain but nothing meaningful. Lee was never going to get a Saratoga or Yorktown and his big offensive wins came at a ruinous cost.
there is a lot of criticism that McClellan didn't simply finish off Lee on 9/18 but in reality he had no fresh troops left except the 5th Corps and you never want to commit your last reserves to a battle
>>18004315>There's an awful lot of debate of how and what would have happened if the Confederates had won at Gettysburg.Which i think is not a great question because even with a victory at gettysburg you still have vicksburg fall the same day, which was an event of greater consequence as it means sherman's march to the sea still happens. The confederate army still intact in PA doesn't really have the ability to do anything useful that would be potentially war ending. It cant take any major cities and even if it does it cant hold them, so will just cause the north to get more serious about the war.
McClellan’s army might have been forced to abandon Maryland temporarily.
>>18004315They did win at Antietam. Lee had fallen into a strategically unviable situation being caught between the Union Front and the Potomac River. He arrayed his forces in a defensive posture and held off the Union long enough wherein the Confederates consolidated their forces and were able to extricate themselves across the river.
