WHERE is your EVIDENCE that GEN Lee “had to withdraw”?? = SORRY but what some alleged “expert” believes/says is UNCONVINCING absent PROOF.
The period documents indicates that the CSA withdrew “not under enemy pressure” to resupply AND because the tactical objective had been met.
(Fyi, WINNING is NOT the same thing as “occupying terrain”.)
GEN Lee (& in general the CSA’s forces) intended to simply NOT lose the war.= Overthrowing the government of the USA was NEVER the goal.
Yours, TMN78247
It is simple numbers. Lee was outnumbered just over 2 to 1 before Antietam. After the battle, Lee was outnumbered 2.7 to 1. At the relative rates of loss, if the invasion had continued, at the point where McClellan had approx. 43,000 soldiers left, Lee would be down to around 2,000 soldiers. (Obviously, Lee would have been in deep, deep trouble, long before that.)
Lee’s intention with this particular offensive was to inflict enough pain on the Union, and invade deep enough into the North to make fear of such invasion effective enough, that Lincoln would lose political support to the point the Union would not pursue the war. Lee failed.
Yes, I know what the Confederate propaganda of the time said.