ken 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,