 This represented 25% of the Federal force and 31% of the Confederate.More Americans died in battle on September 17, 1862, than on any other day in the nation's military history.The Confederate General A. P. Hill described
Although tactically inconclusive, the Battle of Antietam is considered a strategic Union victory and an important turning point of the war, because it forced the end of Lee's invasion of the North, and it allowed President Lincoln to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, taking effect on January 1, 1863.