Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 31.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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 Sharpsburg, 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 Harper's Ferry could be made on the 15th, General Jackson, leaving General A. P. Hill at Harper's Ferry to complete these arrangements, 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 16th. McLaws' Division, with which R. H. Anderson's was serving, did not reach Sharpsburg until the morning of the 17th, and A. P. Hill's Division, with the exception of one brigade left at Harper's Ferry, not until the afternoon of the 17th, 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 16th, 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 staff officer of the Stonewall Brigade (Winder's), commanded by Colonel Andrew J. Grigsby, of the 27th 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.