Maryland Campaign
On September 4, 1862, General Lee’s army entered Maryland, intending to cut off the communications of the federal army and isolate Washington during the Maryland campaign. September 7, the army entered the city of Frederick, where Lee ventured to divide the army into parts. By pure chance, an order with an offensive plan (“Special Order 191”) fell into the hands of the commander-in-chief of the federal army, General McClellan, who promptly threw the Potomac army into an attack on the Lee army scattered in Maryland. Southerners began to retreat to Sharpsberg. In the battle in the Southern Mountains, they managed to hold the enemy for a day. Meanwhile, on September 15, General Thomas Jackson picked up Harpers Ferry, capturing his 11 thousandth garrison and significant reserves of equipment. He immediately began to redeploy his divisions under Sharpsberg.
On September 17, Sharpsberg’s 40-thousand Li army was attacked by McClellan’s 70-thousand army. During this “bloodiest day” of the war (known as the Battle of Entity ), both sides lost a total of 4808 people, where another 18,578 were injured. The battle ended in a draw, but Lee chose to retreat. He took the army to the Potomac, planning to re-invade Maryland. However, on September 19, FitzJon Porter ‘s corps attacked its rear guard near Shepardstown. Believing in a report from General Pendleton, Lee decided that McClellan had begun the pursuit, and canceled the re-invasion of Maryland.
The Washington administration demanded that McClellan launch a decisive counteroffensive, but by the beginning of October the federal army was still standing in camps north of the Potomac. On October 10 – 12, the southerner-general Jeb Stewart carried out his second raid around the Army of the Potomac, seizing a lot of food and equipment. The federal cavalry could not prevent him. After this raid, the president finally lost confidence in McClellan – the general was dismissed, his place was taken by Ambrose Burnside.
Kentucky Campaign
Meanwhile, in the summer the federal armies successfully advanced in the West. The Ohio army of Don Carlos Buell began operations to seize the Tennessee city of Chattanooga. To counter Buell in Tennessee, the Mississippian army of Braxton Bragg was transferred. Bragg decided to attack Buell with his army and Edmund Kirby Smith. However, first of all it was necessary to liquidate the federal detachment that seized the Cumberland Gap gorge. Kirby Smith decided to enter Kentucky and cut off the federal squad in the gorge from communications. This maneuver forced Bragg to also invade Kentucky to prevent Buell from attacking Smith. On August 29, Smith’s army defeated a federal squad at the Battle of Richmond and soon entered Lexington. Bragg’s army, crossing the Cumberland Plateau, captured Manfordville, thereby cutting off the messaging of the Ohio army with bases in Louisville.
But the successful start of the campaign was not developed. Bragg had nothing to feed the army in Manfordville, so he went to Bardstown, allowing Buell to retreat unhindered to Louisville. The Bragg hopes for a massive influx of state volunteers were also disappointed. To solve this problem, Bragg decided to establish a loyal Confederate government in Kentucky, but the inauguration of the new president, scheduled for October 4, was thwarted by the sudden onset of the Ohio army.
Bragg was able to concentrate his army at Perriville and deliver a strong blow to the Ohio army in the battle of Perryville, but even despite this success, Bragg began to doubt the successful outcome of the campaign and decided to retreat to Knoxville. Like Robert Lee’s Maryland campaign, the Bragg Kentucky campaign made European countries very likely to intervene and increase the confederation’s chances of winning, but Bragg’s retreat from Kentucky and Lee from Maryland made such a development impossible.
Fredericksburg campaign
The end of the year was unsuccessful for the northerners. Burnside launched a new attack on Richmond, but was stopped by General Lee’s army at the Battle of Fredericksburg on 13 December. The superior forces of the federal army were utterly defeated. Burnside conducted another unsuccessful maneuver, known as the “Mud March” after which he was removed from command.
Actions on the sea
Actions on the sea in 1862 were marked by the first in history naval battles involving armored ships. Capturing Norfolk, the Southerners raised the skeleton of a large steam frigate Merrimak – flooded by northerners in order to avoid seizure – and rebuilt it into the battleship Virginia CSS. On March 8, the battleship attacked the federal squadron on the Hampton Raid, sinking without much difficulty two large sailing sloops. However, when the next day the Virginia attacked the fleet of the northerners again, it was met by the federal armadillo tower USS Monitor. The battle between the battleships lasted several hours, and ended with a draw – both ships were unable to destroy each other. However, it clearly demonstrated the inability of the old wooden ships to resist the battleships, and marked the beginning of the era of battleships in naval shipbuilding.
In April 1862, a federal squadron under the command of David Glasgow Farragut captured New Orleans, as a result of a successful breakthrough at the mouth of the Mississippi past the forts of Jackson and St. Philip. Although the Southerners had fairly good initial positions, poor coordination between the confederative army, fleet and state militia made their defense unsystematic and ineffective. With the fall of New Orleans, the southerners lost one of their largest ports and shipbuilding centers, and the northerners took control of the lower reaches of the Mississippi – the most important transport artery of the Confederation and strengthened their presence in the Gulf of Mexico.
With the loss of Pensacola, New Orleans, and then Norfolk, the Southerners lost all of their major shipbuilding centers and were forced to abandon plans to build a large fleet. At the same time, they managed (under fictitious pretexts) to order in Britain and France a number of high-speed screw steamers, which were equipped as raiders for action against the merchant navy of the northerners.
Slavery Emancipation Proclamation
On December 30, 1862, Lincoln signed the ” Emancipation Proclamation ” of slaves from January 1 of the following year. Slaves were declared free in states hostile to the Union. The path to slavery in the “free lands” of the West was even earlier closed by a homestead adopted in May 1862, which gave every American family the opportunity to receive a plot of 160 acres (64 hectares).
In Europe’s eyes, the proclamation on the emancipation of slaves radically changed the nature and purpose of the war: from that moment the struggle was not for the unity of the Union, but for the abolition of slavery. Before the proclamation, some European countries were unhappy with the actions of the North, first of all with its blockade of the ports of the southern states, which paralyzed the trade of the South with Europe. For example, in England, due to the cessation of the arrival of American cotton, the textile industry was ruined, hundreds of thousands of people were left without work. England and France were going to officially recognize the Confederation as independent. Thanks to the proclamation of the release of slaves, Lincoln won the sympathies of European countries. Russia, the year before freeing its serfs, also took a friendly stance towards the Union.
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