Battle of South Mountain - Battle of South Mountain Civil War

Battle of South Mountain - Battle of South Mountain Civil War Battle of South Mountain - Conflict: The Battle of South Mountain was part of the 1862 Maryland Campaign during the American Civil War. Battle of South Mountain - Date: Union forces attacked the gaps on September 14, 1862. Armies Commanders: Union Major General George B. McClellan28,000 men Confederates General Robert E. Lee18,000 men Battle of South Mountain - Background: In September 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee began moving his Army of Northern Virginia north into Maryland with the goal of severing the rail lines to Washington and securing supplies for his men. Dividing his army, he sent Major General Thomas Stonewall Jackson to capture Harpers Ferry, while Major General James Longstreet occupied Hagerstown. Pursuing Lee north, Union Major General George B. McClellan was alerted on September 13, that a copy of Lees plans had been found by soldiers from the 27th Indiana Infantry. Known as Special Order 191, the document was found in an envelope with three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper near a campsite recently used by Major General Daniel H. Hills Confederate division. Reading the orders, McClellan learned Lees marching routes and that the Confederates were spread out. Moving with uncharacteristic speed, McClellan began putting his troops in motion with the goal of defeating the Confederates before they could unite. To expedite passing over South Mountain, the Union commander divided his force into three wings. Battle of South Mountain - Cramptons Gap: The Left Wing, led by Major General William B. Frankin was assigned to capture Cramptons Gap. Moving through Burkittsville, MD, Franklin began deploying his corps near the base of South Mountain early on September 14. At the eastern base of the gap, Colonel William A. Parham commanded the Confederate defense which consisted of 500 men behind a low stone wall. After three hours of preparations, Franklin advanced and easily overwhelmed the defenders. In the fighting, 400 Confederates were captured, most of who were part of a reinforcement column sent to aid Parham. Battle of South Mountain - Turners Foxs Gaps: To the north, the defense of Turners and Foxs Gaps was tasked to the 5,000 men of Major General Daniel H. Hills division. Spread over a two mile front, they faced the Right Wing of the Army of the Potomac led by Major General Ambrose Burnside. Around 9:00 AM, Burnside ordered Major General Jesse Renos IX Corps to attack Foxs Gap. Led by the Kanawha Division, this assault secured much of land south of the gap. Pressing the attack, Renos men were able to drive Confederate troops from a stone wall along the crest of the ridge. Exhausted from their efforts, they failed to follow up this success and the Confederates formed a new defense near the Daniel Wise farm. This position was reinforced when Brigadier General John Bell Hoods Texas Brigade arrived. Re-commencing the attack, Reno was unable to take the farm and was killed in the fighting. To the north at Turners Gap, Burnside sent Brigadier General John Gibbons Iron Brigade up the National Road to attack Colonel Alfred H. Colquitts Confederate brigade. Overrunning the Confederates, Gibbons men drove them back up into the gap. Widening the assault, Burnside had Major General Joseph Hooker commit the bulk of I Corps to the attack. Pressing forward, they were able to drive the Confederates back, but were prevented from taking the gap by the arrival of enemy reinforcements, failing daylight, and rough terrain. As night fell, Lee assessed his situation. With Cramptons Gap lost and his defensive line stretched to the breaking point, he elected to withdraw west in an effort to reconcentrate his army. Aftermath of the Battle of South Mountain: In the fighting at South Mountain, McClellan suffered 443 killed, 1,807 wounded, and 75 missing. Fighting on the defensive, Confederate losses were lighter and numbered 325 killed, 1560 wounded, and 800 missing. Having taken the gaps, McClellan was in prime position to achieve his goal of attacking the elements of Lees army before they could unite. Unfortunately, McClellan reverted to the slow, cautious behavior which had been the hallmark of his failed Peninsula Campaign. Lingering on September 15, he provided time for Lee to reconcentrate the bulk of his army behind Antietam Creek. Finally moving forward, McClellan engaged Lee two days later at the Battle of Antietam. Despite McClellans failure to capitalize on the capture of the gaps, the victory at South Mountain provided a much needed victory for the Army of the Potomac and helped to improve morale after a summer of failures. Also, the engagement ended Lees hopes for staging a prolonged campaign on Northern soil and put him on the defensive. Forced into making a bloody stand at Antietam, Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia were compelled to retreat back to Virginia after the battle. Selected Sources Son of the South: Battle of South MountainCWSAC Battle Summaries: Battle of South Mountain

Quotes From To the Lighthouse by Virginia Woolf

Quotes From 'To the Lighthouse' by Virginia Woolf To the Lighthouse is one of the most well-known works by Virginia Woolf. Published in 1927, this book is full of quotable lines. Part 1 Chapter VI Who shall blame him? Who will not secretly rejoice when the hero puts his armor off, and halts by the window and gazes at his wife and son, who, very distant at first, gradually come closer and closer, till lips and book and head are clearly before him, though still lovely and unfamiliar from the intensity of his isolation and the waste of ages and the perishing of the stars, and finally putting his pipe in his pocket and bending his magnificent head before her - who will blame him if he does homage to the beauty of the world? Chapter IX Could loving, as people called it, make her and Mrs. Ramsay one? for it was not knowledge but unity that she desired, not inscriptions on tablets, nothing that could be written in any language known to men, but intimacy itself, which is knowledge, she had thought, leaning her head on Mrs. Ramsays knee. Chapter X A light here required a shadow there. There were the eternal problems: suffering; death; the poor. There was always a woman dying of cancer even here. And yet she had said to all these children, You shall go through with it. Chapter XVII It partook...of eternity...there is a coherence in things, a stability; something, she meant, is immune from change, and shines out (she glanced at the window with its ripple of reflected lights) in the face of the flowing, the fleeting, the spectral, like a ruby; so that again tonight she had the feeling she had had once today, already, of peace, of rest. Of such moments, she thought, the thing is made that endures. Chapter XVII She had done the usual trick - been nice. She would never know him. He would never know her. Human relations were all like that, she thought, and the worst (if it had not been for Mr. Bankes) were between men and women. Inevitably these were extremely insincere. Part 2 Chapter III For our penitence deserves a glimpse only; our toil respite only. Chapter XIV She could not say it...as she looked at him she began to smile, for though she had not said a word, he knew, of course, he knew, that she loved him. He could not deny it. And smiling she looked out of the window and said (thinking to herself, Nothing on earth can equal this happiness) - Yes, you were right. Its going to be wet tomorrow. You wont be able to go. And she looked at him smiling. For she had triumphed again. She had not said it: yet he knew. Chapter VIII The Lighthouse was then a silvery, misty-looking tower with a yellow eye, that opened suddenly, and softly in the evening. Now - James looked at the Lighthouse. He could see the white-washed rocks; the tower, stark and straight; he could see that it was barred with black and white; he could see windows in it; he could even see washing spread on the rocks to dry. So that was the Lighthouse, was it? No, the other was also the Lighthouse. For nothing was simply one thing. The other Lighthouse was true too. Part 3 Chapter III What is the meaning of life? That was all - a simple question; one that tended to close in on one with years. The great revelation had never come. The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead, there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark; here was one. Chapter V Mrs. Ramsay sat silent. She was glad, Lily thought, to rest in silence, uncommunicative; to rest in the extreme obscurity of human relationships. Who knows what we are, what we feel? Who knows even at the moment of intimacy, This is knowledge? Arent things spoilt then, Mrs. Ramsay may have asked (it seemed to have happened so often, this silence by her side) by saying them? But one only woke people if one knew what one wanted to say to them. And she wanted to say not one thing, but everything. Little words that broke up the thought and dismembered it said nothing. About life, about death; about Mrs. Ramsay - no, she thought, one could say nothing to nobody. Chapter IX She alone spoke the truth; to her alone could he speak it. That was the source of her everlasting attraction for him, perhaps; she was a person to whom one could say what came into ones head.