Well, true enuff, Donuel, but, as things are today, in 1860 there wer no remaining Founding Fathers to ask "Ahhhh, what did you mean by this 'er that?" and folks tended to have their own interpretations...

Most of the folks in The South thought that the strenght of the Union came from its member states and not vice versa... In other words, the Union existed because of the states...

Now as fir the South being on the ropes after Antietam, that is very much debatable... They had done a decent job holding the Union at bay in the valley campaign and the battles around Richmond but these were purely defensive battles... Sharpsburg, however, was a different story indeed and just by virtue of the losses there in men, weaponry and supplies there set the course for the rest of the war... I mean, lets keep in perspective that the South needed to make inroads into the Northern territory for material and supplies and by late '62, the pickins were gettin a tad on thin side in the South...

Yeah, with 20/20 hindsight, Vicksburg would have made a huge difference but by this time Lee had lost Thomas Jackson and had too many fronts to supply, plus havin' to maintain armies north, west and south of Richmond... Had it not been fir the swamps to the east he would have had to fortify that front as well...

Bobert