Defeat Turns To Route (sic)

Defeat Turns To Route (sic). South Mountain State Battlefield. “I fired into the head of the column. I cut their colors down and I think I must have killed several of them. They come very nigh getting me several times.” Edgar Richardson, Troup Artillery, September 14, 1862 was not a good day for the Confederates commanded by Brigadier General Howell Cobb.Rushed to the top of Crampton’s Gap with little information, they were asked to defend too much ground. Unlike the Confederates who held the initial line along Mountain Church Road, Cobb’s men had no one to reinforce them., As the Confederates abandoned their positions on the mountain side, Cobb and his staff tried to stop them and form a line in Padgett’s field, the open area on the other side of Arnoldstown Road. Although some of the soldiers took shelter behind a stone wall, most ignored their leader and continued their rush down the west side of the mountain., As Union troops closely followed the retreating Confederates, two cannons of the Troup (Georgia) Artillery arrived in the gap. They took position at the intersection of the roads and managed to fire several times at the approaching Union mass. Doing little to stop the Union tide, they quickly joined the other Confederates in the retreat. With darkness covering the battlefield, the Union were in firm control of Crampton’s Gap., “Failing to join our command in time to discharge the most important duty of a soldier’s life, we entered upon the second, the care of the wounded and the burial of the dead.” Captain Newton Martin Curtis, Company G, 16th New York, Flag of Cobb’s Georgia Legion captured at Crampton’s Gap, Colonel John Basil Lamar, brother-in-law and personal aide-de-camp of Howell Cobb. Lamar was mortally wounded near here while trying to rally retreating Confederates.