Page:Southern Historical Society Papers volume 31.djvu/41

 The Baltic of Antietam. 33

day, September 14) the battle of South Mountain, or Boonsboro, fought by General Lee to protect his trains and to enable General Jackson to rejoin him.

The Federals carried the passes of South Mountain at Crampton's and Turner's Gaps, and General Lee drew up his army on the west side of Antietam creek, north and south of the village of Sharps- burg, and in easy communication with General Jackson by Boteler's ford, on the Potomac, near Shepherdstown.

As soon as the necessary arrangements for the surrender of Har- per's Ferry could be made on the I5th, General Jackson, leaving General A. P. Hill at Harper's Ferry to complete these arrange- ments, marched that afternoon for Shepherdstown with his own corps (Jones' and Lawton's Divisions) and Walker's Division, and crossed the Potomac at Boteler's ford on the morning of the i6th. McLaws* Division, with which R. H. Anderson's was serving, did not reach Sharpsburg until the morning of the lyth, and A. P. Hill's Division, with the exception of one, brigade left at Harper's Ferry, not until the afternoon of the i7th, after a march of seventeen miles, but just in time to save the day against Burnside's attack.

General McClellan had placed his army in position on the east side of Antietam creek by the night of September 15, and his failure to attack on the i6th, when General Lee's army was still divided, was fatal to his success.

This article must be limited to the operations of Jackson's old division ( J. R. Jones') on the extreme left, as the writer was a staft officer of the 44 Stonewall Brigade" (Winder's), commanded by Colonel Andrew J. Grigsby, of the 2yth Virginia Regiment, and later in the day of the division, as Colonel Grigsby succeeded to the command of the division after the stunning of General Jones by a shell and the death of General Starke, commanding the Louisiana brigade.

TAKING POST NEAR SHARPSBURG.

After crossing the Potomac at Boteler's ford, on the afternoon of September 16, Tuesday, this division was marched to the extreme left, through Sharpsburg and the woods around the Dunkard Church on the Hagerstown turnpike, and took position in an open field to the left of the turnpike and in front of these woods; that is, the " Stonewall " Brigade, or First Brigade, as it was also known, com- manded by Colonel Grigsby, in the open field, right resting on the Hagerstown turnpike, the Second Brigade (Jones') prolonging the