Books are the plane, and the train, and the road. They are the destination, and the journey. They are home.

~ Anna Quindlen

Antietam, Maryland (September 17 1862):

Antietam, or the Battle of Sharpsburg, is the bloodiest battle of the Civil War that happened on a single day. And while the numbers of killed and wounded is impressive and tragic, as are all battles, what is important at Antietam is the outcome strategically. As can be seen throughout most of this article, if one were to go only on total numbers of casualties, the South would have won the war.

What isn’t shown is that the North had a lot more men in almost all of these battles. For example, at Antietam, the Union had 75,000 men and the Confederacy had only 38,000.

While Antietam has been labelled by historians as tactically inconclusive, strategically it was a Union victory.

The Battle of Gettysburg (July 1–3, 1863):

The Battle of Gettysburg was fought July 1–3, 1863, in and around the town of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, by Union and Confederate forces during the American Civil War. In the battle, Union Major General George Meade’s Army of the Potomac defeated attacks by Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia, halting Lee’s invasion of the North. The battle involved the largest number of casualties of the entire war and is often described as the war’s turning point due to the Union’s decisive victory and concurrence with the Siege of Vicksburg.