American History - Part 099 - Lincoln - Emancipation Proclamation - Antietam - Lee Miscalculates
Channel: ListenAndReadAlong
Date: 2013-06-12

Welcome to THE MAKING OF A NATION -- American history in VOA Special English 
At the end of August, 1862, Confederate troops under the command of Robert E. Lee defeated the main Union army at Manassas, Virginia.
The battlefield was less than fifty kilometers from Washington.
The year before, Confederate troops had sent the Union army fleeing from that same battlefield. Now they had done it again.
With this latest victory, General Lee decided on a major move. He would carry the war into the northern states.
Lee took his army of sixty thousand men across the Potomac River into Maryland. He ordered some of his men to capture the Union position at Harpers Ferry. He moved the others to Sharpsburg, a town on the Potomac River.
He put his men into position along Antietam Creek, just outside of town. His lines extended almost three kilometers. There, at Antietam, he would make his stand.
He was still close enough to Virginia to withdraw, if the Union force following him proved too strong.
The Union force arrived in the middle of September. It did not attack immediately. It spent one full day getting into position along Antietam Creek across from the Confederate army. It attacked the following day at sunrise.
The Union general, George McClellan, planned to attack all along the Confederate line at the same time. But this did not happen.
First, Union troops attacked one end of the line, which extended into a field full of tall corn plants. Then they attacked the center of the line, which was in an old, deeply sunken road that gave it good protection. Finally, they attacked at the other end of the line.
For each northern attack, General Lee was able to move men to where they were needed. The northern troops got within twenty-five meters of the Confederate line. But they could not break through anywhere.
On the first day of battle at Antietam, Lee lost twenty-five percent of his men. On the second day, the two armies faced each other without firing. They were too tired to fight.
As they rested, however, fresh Union soldiers moved into position. Lee knew they would attack with full force the next day. He knew he could not win. Sadly, he ordered his men back to Virginia.
It was now   Antietam was a northern victory.
In Washington, President Lincoln welcomed the news. He had waited a long time for a northern victory.
A few days after the battle, Lincoln held a special meeting with his cabinet. He talked about the declaration on slavery which he had prepared. It would free Negro slaves in the rebel states of the South.
"As you remember," he said, "I put the declaration aside several weeks ago, until I could issue it supported by a military victory. The action of the army against the rebels has not been exactly what I should have liked. But the rebels have been driven out of Maryland. And Pennsylvania is no longer in danger of invasion."
President Lincoln said he thought the time was right to announce the Emancipation Proclamation. The cabinet made some minor changes in the document, and Lincoln signed it.
Newspapers printed the proclamation. This is what it   "I, Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States and Commander-in-Chief of the army and navy, do hereby declare that on the first day of January, 1863, all persons held as slaves within any state then in rebellion against the United States, shall then become and be forever free.
"The government of the United States, including the military and naval forces, will recognize and protect the freedom of such persons, and will interfere in no way with any efforts they may make for their actual freedom."
By the summer of 1862, they had enough support to pass laws ending slavery in Washington, D.C. and United States territories. They also pushed through Congress a bill that would do much to end slavery in the states.
The bill was called the Confiscation Act. It gave the federal government the power to confiscate, or seize, the property of all persons who supported the southern rebellion. Slaves were considered property. So any slaves seized under the act would become free immediately. Slaves who escaped from rebel slave owners also would be free. The bill would not affect slaves owned by persons who supported the Union.
President Lincoln did not like the Confiscation Act. He thought it interfered with his wartime powers as Commander-in-Chief.
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