President Barack Obama views the Emancipation Proclamation with a small group of African American seniors, their grandchildren and some children from the Washington DC area, in the Oval Office. This copy of the Emancipation Proclamation, which is on loan from the Smithsonian Institution, was hung on the wall of the Oval Office today and will be exhibited for six months, before being moved to the Lincoln Bedroom where the original Proclamation was signed by Abraham Lincoln on Jan. 1, 1863,
January 18, 2010.
(Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)
One hundred fifty years ago Monday, on September 17, 1862, the Union army commanded by Major General George McClellan met a Confederate force under Robert E. Lee at Antietam Creek in western Maryland, outside the town of Sharpsburg.
For 12 hours, 87,000 Union soldiers launched a series of attacks against 45,000 Confederates. The result was a staggering loss of human life. When dark approached and the fighting ended, almost 25,000 were dead, wounded, or missing. Neither before nor since have more Americans been killed in a single day.
