What if Lee's Army was destroyed at Antietam?

[gary]

Let's say Hill didn't arrive in time and Lee's Army was crushed at Antietam. Would it mean that Richmond would have been captured and the war ended in '62?

[Ter61]

If Lee's army had been crushed at Antietam, it is very possible that Richmond would have been captured and the war would have ended in 1862. When McClellan got the copy of Lee's Lost Orders, if he had been truly aggressive he could have destroyed Lee's Army while it was divided.

[OpnDownfall]

It would depend on whether Lee escaped or not. Remedmber Lee's Army was a ghost of what it had been at 2d Bull Run. Man Confederate soldiers did not feel defense of the south included Maryland and there was much straggling and not a few desertions.
If Lee escaped, then it is reasonable to assume that he could have rallied the majority of the missing troops and once again fighting on Va. soil, would probably become an effective army very soon.
The Ace in the Hole for the South would have been McClellan saving his command of the AoP by a victory at Antietem. We can safely assume that he would have wanted to encamp, entrench, resupply, reinforce, retrain his Army, while continuing his political infighting against Lincoln and Stanton. IMO the situation following the real battle would be pretty near to what would have happened if the the Southern Army had been crushed i.e., Little Mac wanting to delay an advance while being urged to do so by Lincoln and Stanton, except that with a crushing victory at Antietan, it would have been very difficult for Lincoln to have replaced his always balky general.
Long story short, the war would have continued, the real question would have been whether Lincoln could replace McClellan before he was defeated by Lee and a reconstituted AoNV.

[ole]

Interestion "what if" Gary. Good point, OD. So long as McC was in charge, thoroughly scattering Lee's army would have accomplished no more than diminished numbers of the reconstituted ANV with ample opportunity to concentrate and rebuild the remainder to a formidible force. There would have been a morale crisis in the Confederacy, but it is difficult to determine its effect. Now, if he'd have packed most of the CSA off to POW camps, there might have been a probability.

As an aside, McC's slows was described on another forum as being held in thrall by the "Austerlitz Chimera." When asked for a definition, the poster provided: the dream of concluding a war with a single, definitive battle -- something that seems to have been within McC's grasp at Sharpsburg.
Ole