Existing comment:
The Battle of South Mountain: Fox's Gap:
On September 13th, the Union 9th Corps marches west to Middletown. In the early hours of September 14, Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart sends the 5th Virginia Cavalry and a section of horse artillery to Fox's Gap. Meanwhile, Confederate General D.H. Hill thinks Union forces have already occupied Fox's Gap. He sends Garland's brigade to secure it. They find the 5th Virginia Cavalry, not Union forces.
By 6 am, the 9th Corps' Kanawha Division leaves Middletown, moving towards Fox's Gap. They arrive at 9 am, find the Confederates in force, and attack. The artillery is forced out. By late morning, General Garland has been killed and his line has broken. The Confederates fall back to the western base of the mountain and the Wise farmhouse. By noon, Union forces hold the gap.
Feeling that their position is too far extended, the commanding officer pulls the Kanawha Division back south of the road to a stonewall at the south end of the Wise farm. The Confederates reoccupy Fox's Gap. Early afternoon brings a lull in the fighting as both sides await reinforcements.
Willcox's Division of the Union 9th Corps arrives around 2 pm. Of the three brigades of Confederate reinforcements, one brigade marches too far west, another gets lost in a mountain laurel thicket, and the third sets up a line from the Wise farm west along the Old Sharpsburg Road, facing south. At about 4 pm, Union forces attack, hitting the Confederate Brigade at the Wise Farm. More Union reinforcements join the battle. More Confederate reinforcements arrive just before sunset.
Combat lasts until nightfall. Confederate forces occupy the mountain ridge; Union forces hold the Wise farm. At 11:00 pm, Confederate General Robert E. Lee orders his forces to leave South Mountain, having delayed the advance of the Union forces long enough to reassemble his divided army in Sharpsburg. Union forces are left in possession of Fox's Gap. |