[
286]
Chapter 19: the battle of Antietam; I succeed Sedgwick in command of a division
The two columns of the Army of the Potomac, fighting their way through Turner's Gap and Crampton Pass and pressing their pursuit of
Lee, debouched into the valley west of the mountains; one appeared at
Boonsboro and the other southward at
Rohrersville.
The stretch of valley from
Boonsboro to the
Potomac is named the
Antietam Valley, because the
Antietam, a small river which runs near
Hagerstown and a little east of
Sharpsburg, enters the
Potomac a few miles below.
The general course of this crooked stream is south.
September 15th, the day after the defeat at Turner's Gap,
Lee rapidly gathered his material and troops upon the peninsula which is formed by the
Antietam and the
Potomac.
The bends of the
Potomac cause the intercepted space to be broadened here and there, yet, higher upstream, the neck of the peninsula is scarcely two miles across.
The country around
Sharpsburg is fertile and beautiful and afforded
Lee special advantages as a position in which to halt and stand on the defensive till he could gather in his several scattered columns.
A main road, the
Sharpsburg Pike, coming across the
Potomac at
Shepherdstown where there was a good ford, ran northeast through
Sharpsburg, crossed
