BGuthrie Photos: MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain)

MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain):

Bruce Guthrie Photos Home Page: [Click here] to go to Bruce Guthrie Photos home page.

Recognize anyone? If you recognize specific folks (or other stuff) and I haven't labeled them, please identify them for the world. Click the little pencil icon

underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.

Slide Show: Want to see the pictures as a slide show? [Slideshow]

Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

Help? The Medium (Email) links are for screen viewing and emailing. You'll want bigger sizes for printing. [Click here for additional help]

Share: Facebook Twitter Digg
[1] FOXGAP_060903_03.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[2] FOXGAP_060903_04.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[3] FOXGAP_060903_08.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[4] FOXGAP_060903_13.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[5] FOXGAP_060903_19.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[6] FOXGAP_060903_28.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[7] FOXGAP_060903_32.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[8] FOXGAP_060903_42.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[9] FOXGAP_060903_50.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)	[10] FOXGAP_060903_57.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)
[11] FOXGAP_060903_64.JPG Medium (Email) (Bigger?)

Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. FOXGAP_060903_03.JPG: The Battle for Fox's Gap: "Hell is empty and all the devils are here": As Confederate Gen. D.H. Hill's division struggled to hold the gaps of South Mountain on September 14, 1862, the fighting here at Fox's Gap raged throughout the day. About 9am, Gen. Jesse L. Reno's corps attacked Confederate Gen. Samuel Garland's line approximately 3/4 of a mile south of here and began pushing the men north toward Fox's Gap. Sometime around midmorning, Garland fell mortally wounded and the Confederates scattered into the gap. The fighting died down at midday as both sides delivered more men to the contest. Hill sent two regiments of Gen. George B. Anderson's brigade to replace Garland's scattered forces. Union Gen. Jacob D. Cox posted his regiments south of here along the edge of Daniel Wise's field and waited for the remainder of Reno's corps to reinforce him. As more units arrived, Hill sent Gen. Thomas F. Drayton's and Col. George T. Anderson's brigades along the "wood road" to attack the Federals. They formed in the Sharpsburg Road and attacked about 4pm. B this time, the rest of Reno's corps had pulled itself up onto the mountain. As Draytons' men moved through Wise's open field, well-aimed Union volleys struck them from behind stone walls. The Federals then counterattacked, and some Georgia troops sheltering in the sunken road soon found themselves trapped. Outnumbered four to one and suffering 51 percent casualties, Draytons' brigade broke and fled down the mountain. Fox's Gap was in Union hands by 5:30pm.
2. FOXGAP_060903_04.JPG: Deaths of Two Generals: "Hello, Sam, I'm dead!" The fight for Fox's Gap on September 14, 1862, claimed the lives of two generals, one from each side. Confederate Gen. Samuel Garland, a Lynchburg, Virginia native, attended the Virginia Military Institute at Lexington and later obtained his law degree. Married in 1856, he suffered tragedy early in the war when both his wife and four-year-old son died in an influenza epidemic. Grief-stricken, he left Lynchburg as captain of the Lynchburg Home Guard, excelled during the Peninsula Campaign and Seven Days' Battles, and soon attained a general's rank. Charged with defending Fox's Gap, he fell mortally wounded y a bullet through his chest while rallying his men about 3/4 of a mile south of here. As evening fell and the Confederates fell back through the gap and off to the north, Union Gen. Jesse L. Reno rode by here and into the field across from Wise's cabin to investigate what he believed was a delay in the push for Turner's Gap. Just then, Gen. John Bell Hood's Texans arrived on the field and fired the final Confederate volley, mortally wounding Reno. Carried on a stretcher to his friend Gen. Samuel D. Sturgis's headquarters, Reno called to him, "Hallo, Sam, I'm dead!" A few minutes later he died, the first Union Corps commander killed during the war. His monument is the second oldest one erected for the Maryland Campaign.
3. FOXGAP_060903_08.JPG: The Maryland Campaign of 1862: On September 4, 1862, General Robert E. Lee, hoping to shorten the war by winning a decisive victory on Northern soil, crossed the Potomac River into Maryland. Lee planned to draw the Army of the Potomac through South Mountain into Pennsylvania and fight on ground of his choosing. His plan depending on securing his supply line down the Shenandoah Valley past Harpers Ferry -- then garrisoned by nearly 13,000 Federal troops. When the Federals did not withdraw, Lee decided to attack them. From his camp near Frederick, Maryland, he divided his army into five parts. Lee gambled he could take Harpers Ferry and regroup before the Federals realized what he had done. He sent three units under the command of General T. J. "Stonewall" Jackson from Frederick to Harpers Ferry. A fourth marched into Hagerstown to guard against a rumored movement of Union troops from Pennsylvania. A fifth unit formed the rear guard at Boonsboro. General George B. McClellan organized the Army of the Potomac into three wings and marched out of Washington along a twenty-five mile front. Learning that Lee's army was divided and marching in opposite directions well to the west, McClellan began his pursuit into western Maryland of September 11. Moving faster than Lee expected, he entered Catoctin Valley on the 13th and reached the foot of South Mountain on the 14th. The Battle of South Mountain smashed Lee's plan to invade Pennsylvania but did buy him time to concentrate his scattered army. Lee assembled his army at Sharpsburg and set up a defensive position behind Antietam Creek on the 15th. The Harpers Ferry garrison surrendered that morning. This event allowed Jackson to rejoin Lee. The Battle of Antietam was fought two days later.
4. FOXGAP_060903_13.JPG: The Lost Orders: No other document of the Civil War has generated so much controversy as Lee's Special Orders No. 191. These "Lost Orders" detailed the movements of Lee's army for the operation against Harpers Ferry. On September 9, Lee sent copies of the order to his subordinate commanders. The copy that General George B. McClellan read on September 13 was found by three Federal soldiers in an abandoned campsite near Frederick in an envelope wrapped around three cigars. The envelope was addressed to General. D. H. Hill. Due to confusion between General Lee's and General T.J. Jackson's headquarters over HIll's place in the chain of command, two copies of Special Orders No. 191 were sent to Hill. Hill received his copy from Jackson while the copy from Lee was lost. McClellan's good fortune permitted him to move with a certainty he had never before displayed. Lee was puzzled by McClellan's uncharacteristic speed and took actions to protect his army until it could be concentrated. Later, McClellan was criticized for not destroying Lee's army. Whatever criticism was due, it is unfair to argue that McClellan lost an opportunity presented to him by S.O. No. 191. By the time the Federals found the orders, they were already dated. Jackson was safely on the Confederate side of the Potomac and General James Longstreet could easily have crossed the Potomac at Williamsport. Had Lee chosen to seek safety across the Potomac, the Union troops in the Catoctin Valley could not have prevented him from doing so. On September 12, even before learning of S.O. No. 191, McClellan issued orders that would lead to the Battle of South Mountain. These orders placed the vanguard of General. Ambrose F. Burnside's troops in the Catoctin Valley on the 13th. McClellan's main force did not arrive at the foot of South Mountain until the 14th.
5. FOXGAP_060903_19.JPG: Confederate Brigadier General Samuel Garland's marker
6. FOXGAP_060903_28.JPG: The Reno monument
7. FOXGAP_060903_57.JPG: Stonewall Regiment: The 17th Michigan Volunteer Infantry Regiment was among the units of General Ambrose E. Burnside's 9th army corps that were engaged in battle here on September 14, 1862. The fighting began around 9am just south of this site. Around noon, a Confederate battery opened fire on the regiment, which was supporting Cook's Massachusetts Battery. The 17th held its position for several hours. At 4pm, the command was given for an assault along the entire Union line. The Confederates came out of the woods to meet the charge at a fence line in the middle of the field., then moved back to the stone walls along the crest of the hill. The 17th advanced and captured the stone walls. Of the 500 men of the "Stonewall Regiment" engaged in battle here, 27 were killed and 114 wounded, many mortally.
Multi Column: Number of columns of thumbnails to appear per page (normally defaults to 3): [1 col] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9] [10]
Wikipedia Description: Battle of South Mountain
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Battle of South Mountain (known in several early Southern accounts as the Battle of Boonsboro Gap) was fought September 14, 1862, as part of the Maryland Campaign of the American Civil War. Three pitched battles were fought for possession of three South Mountain passes: Crampton's, Turner's, and Fox's Gaps. Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, commanding the Union Army of the Potomac, needed to pass through these gaps in his pursuit of Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia. Despite being significantly outnumbered, Lee's army delayed McClellan's advance for a day before withdrawing.

Background:

South Mountain is the name given to the continuation of the Blue Ridge Mountains after they enter Maryland. It is a natural obstacle that separates the Shenandoah Valley and Cumberland Valley from the eastern part of Maryland.

After Lee invaded Maryland, a copy of an order, known as order 191, detailing troop movements that he wrote fell into the hands of McClellan. From this, McClellan learned that Lee had split his forces and the Union general hoped to attack and defeat some of these isolated forces before they could concentrate against him. To reach Lee, McClellan had to move across South Mountain. Lee learned of McClellan's intelligence coup and quickly sent forces to reinforce the passes to block his advance.

McClellan temporarily organized his army into three wings for the attacks on the passes. Maj. Gen. Ambrose Burnside, the Right Wing, commanded the I Corps (Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker) and IX Corps (Maj. Gen. Jesse L. Reno). The Right Wing was sent to Turner's Gap and Fox's Gap in the north. The Left Wing, commanded by Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin, consisting of his own VI Corps and Maj. Gen. Darius N. Couch's division of the IV Corps, was sent to Crampton's Gap in the south. The Center Wing (II Corps and XII Corps), under Maj. Gen. Edwin V. Sumner, was in reserve.

Ba ...More...
Bigger photos? To save server space, the full-sized versions of these images have either not been loaded to the server or have been removed from the server. (Only some pages are loaded with full-sized images and those usually get removed after three months.) I still have them though. If you want me to email them to you, please send an email to guthrie.bruce@gmail.com and I can email them to you, or, depending on the number of images, just repost the page again will the full-sized images.
Directly Related Pages: Other pages with content (MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain)) directly related to this one: [Display ALL photos on one page]:
- 2011_MD_Fox_Gap: MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain) (27 photos from 2011)
- 2009_MD_Fox_Gap: MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain) (14 photos from 2009)
- 2004_MD_Fox_Gap: MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain) (6 photos from 2004)
- 2001_MD_Fox_GapPD_010428: MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain) -- Event: Park Day (2001) (13 photos from 2001)
- 1999_MD_Fox_Gap: MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain) (20 photos from 1999)
- 1998_MD_Fox_Gap: MD -- Fox's Gap (Reno Monument, South Mountain) (8 photos from 1998)
Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Civil War] [Park (State)]
2006 photos: Trips this year: Florida (two separate trips including Lotusphere and taking care of mom), three weeks out west (including Yellowstone), Williamsburg, San Diego (comic book convention), and Georgia. Equipment this year: I was using all six Fuji cameras at various times -- an S602Zoom, two S7000s,a S5200, an S9000, and an S9100. The majority of pictures this year were taken with the S9000. I have to say, the S7000s was the best camera I've used up to this point.. Number of photos taken this year: 183,000.
Connection Not Secure messages? Those warnings you get from your browser about this site not having secure connections worry some people. This means this site does not have SSL installed (the link is http:, not https:). That's bad if you're entering credit card numbers, passwords, or other personal information. But this site doesn't collect any personal information so SSL is not necessary. Life's good!
Limiting Text: You can turn off all of this text by clicking this link: [Thumbnails Only]
Photo Contact: [Email Bruce Guthrie].