Edward Porter Alexander, Military memoirs of a Confederate: a critical narrative

[233] corps of nine brigades was sent there. They might have marched on the 13th from their position, three miles east of Jefferson, but did not until the 14th. Having only about 10 miles to go, they arrived in the forenoon, and at once deployed and formed for attack. The Gap offered fairly good positions for defence of its eastern outlet, had there been troops enough to hold its flanks; but the task imposed upon McLaws, with his four brigades and Anderson's six, was beyond his strength. To protect his own rear, and to prevent the escape from Harper's Ferry of the 13,000 men to be besieged there, while he captured the heights above them and cannonaded them into a surrender, it was essential that he should occupy Pleasant Valley. This lay between the Blue Ridge (here called South Mountain) on the east, and Elk Ridge (or Maryland Heights) on the west. The protection of his rear required him to hold in force Crampton's Gap in the Blue Ridge, and to observe Brownsville Gap, about a mile south of it, and also Solomon's Gap in Elk Ridge opposite on the west. At Weverton, where the Potomac breaks through the Blue Ridge, five miles from Crampton's, he had to protect against an advance from the direction of Washington, and at Sandy Hook, where the road from Harper's Ferry comes around South Mountain into Pleasant Valley, he had to guard against an attack by the whole garrison of Harper's Ferry. Besides this, he had to send a force along Elk Ridge strong enough to defeat the intrenched brigade which held the extremity, overlooking Harper's Ferry, and to hold it while his guns bombarded the town. There was thus one point to be attacked, two others to be observed, and three to be defended against large forces. The two most important points, —Crampton's Gap and Sandy Hook, —were over five miles apart. Considering the proximity of the immense Federal force, McLaws and Anderson were within the lion's mouth, and that they ever got out of it was no less due to good management, than it was to good luck on their part, and mismanagement by the enemy.

Holding Crampton's Gap were only Munford's cavalry and Mahone's brigade of infantry, under Parham. Cobb's brigade and part of Semmes's were near in reserve. From noon on the 14th until near five o'clock there was sharp skirmishing and