Jones’s Crossroads

Jones’s Crossroads. Forts Facing Forts. For the first time since the Battle of Gettysburg, most of the Union army faced Gen. Robert E. Lee on July 12, 1863. The Federals were firmly entrenched on a ridge parallel to the Sharpsburg-Hagerstown Turnpike a quarter mile west. Less than a mile further west, the Confederates had completed four miles of formidable fortifications a day earlier to protect Lee’s avenues of retreat across the Potomac River. Union Gen. George G. Meade paused and reconnoitered on July 13. By the next day, as he prepared to probe for weaknesses, Lee had retreated to Virginia. , (Quote 1): “[T]heir line of works ... were by far the strongest I have seen yet; evidently laid out by engineers and built as if they meant to stand a month’s siege. The parapet was a good six feet wide on top, and the guns, which were very thick, were all placed so as to get a perfect cross fire.” , Col. Charles S. Wainwright, U.S. Army, July 14, 1863, (Quote 2): “ There is a difference between the people of Maryland and those of Pennsylvania. A man of some fifty or more stood looking at our men pull down the fences to start their breastworks. ... Having a fellow-feeling for the owner as a brother farmer, I spoke to the man and said it was hard on the owner of the land to destroy his crops and fences so. ‘Oh,’ says he, ‘you may destroy my whole farm if you will only whip the rebels.’ If the eastern Marylanders are the most bitter of the rebels, those west of Frederick are the truest Union people I have met with anywhere.” , Col. Charles S. Wainwright, U.S. Army, July 10, 1863.