Battle of Shepherdstown

Battle of Shepherdstown. Deadly Crossing. , After Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee's smashing victory over Union Gen. John Pope at the Second Battle of Manassas, Lee decided to invade Maryland to reap the fall harvest, gain Confederate recruits, earn foreign recognition of the Confederacy, and perhaps compel the Union to sue for peace. The Army of Northern Virginia crossed the Potomac River on September 4, 1862. Lee divided his force, detaching Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson's corps to capture Harper's Ferry. At Antietam Creek on September 17, Gen. George B. McClellan's Army of the Potomac fought Lee's men to a bloody draw. Lee retreated to Virginia September 18-19., If you had been here on September 19, 1862, you would have seen Federal troops across the river trading shots with the Confederates along this bank. The previous evening, after the bloody Battle of Antietam, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee had pulled his 30,000 troops, horses, and artillery away from Sharpsburg and crossed the Potomac River here. Rain turned the roads to mud and wounded Confederates begged to not be left behind. By the next morning, Lee and the bulk of his army, then across the river, headed to Williamsport planning to reenter Maryland there. Gen. William Pendleton commanded the army's rear guard on the bluffs here above overlooking Boteler's Ford, exchanging fire with Union Gen. George B. McClellan's men. Finally, a Federal charge scattered Pendleton's command. Pendleton rode through the night to inform Lee of the disaster. Lee turned his army back to Shepherdstown., On September 20, amid thunderous Union artillery fire, Confederate Gen. A.P. Hill's division slammed into the Union Fifth Corps on the bluffs here and drove the Federals into the river. Some died as they fell or jumped into the narrow ravine, and some were shot in the water. Fighting with defective weapons, the 118th Pennsylvania Infantry lost 271 of 737 men in its first battle. Confederate casualties were 30 killed and 231 wounded. President Abraham Lincoln used the end of Lee's Maryland Campaign as an opportunity to issue the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation on September 22., Confederate and Union forces periodically crossed the Potomac River here for the rest of the war.,

"Here we have no Sundays. I … see our dead men laying on the dam and the rocks. I pray God that this war soon may close and that it may be known no more in our country forever." , , Pvt. William Livermore, 20th Maine Infantry