“General Walker with his division...will take possession of the Loudoun Heights, if practicable by Friday morning (September 12), ...He will as far as practicable co-operate with General McLaws and General Jackson in intercepting the retreat of the enemy.

“General D.H.  Hill’s division will form the rear-guard of the army, pursuing the road taken by the main body.

“General Stuart will detach a squadron of cavalry to accompany the commands of Generals Longstreet, Jackson, and McLaws, and, with the main body of the cavalry, will cover the route of the army and bring up all stragglers.

“The commands of Generals Jackson, McLaws and Walker, after accomplishing the objects for which they have been detached, will join the main body at Boonsboro’ or Hagerstown.”

The second paragraph was afterwards modified by General Lee so as to place Longstreet at Hagerstown.

CHAPTER 2.19.  SHARPSBURG.

1862.  September 17.

It is a curious coincidence that not only were the number, of the opposing armies at the battle of Sharpsburg almost identical with those of the French and Germans at the battle of Worth, but that there is no small resemblance between the natural features and surrounding scenery of the two fields.  Full in front of the Confederate position rises the Red Hill, a spur of the South Mountain, wooded, like the Vosges, to the very crest, and towering high above the fields of Maryland, as the Hochwald towers above the Rhineland.  The Antietam, however, is a more difficult obstacle than the Sauerbach, the brook which meanders through the open meadows of the Alsatian valley.  A deep channel of more than sixty feet in width is overshadowed by forest trees; and the ground on either bank ascends at a sharp gradient to the crests above.  Along the ridge to the west, which parts the Antietam from the Potomac, and about a mile distant from the former stream, runs the Hagerstown turnpike, and in front of this road there was a strong position.  Sharpsburg, a village of a few hundred inhabitants, lies on the reverse slope of the ridge, extending in the direction of the Potomac, and only the church steeples were visible to the Federals.  Above the hamlet was the Confederate centre.  Here, near a limestone boulder, which stood in a plot which is now included in the soldiers’ cemetery, was Lee’s station during the long hours of September 17, and from this point he overlooked the whole extent of his line of battle.  A mile northward, on the Hagerstown pike, his loft centre was marked by a square white building, famous under the name of the Dunkard Church, and backed by a long dark wood.  To the right, a mile southward, a bold spur, covered with scattered trees, forces the Antietam westward, and on this spur, overlooking the stream, he had placed his right.

(Map of Sharpsburg, Maryland)