cannon: the hostile guns of the enemy quickly swarmed up the summit he
had abandoned, and the Virginia crests of Loudon and Bolivar belched
with rebel artillery. The town was surrendered by Colonel Miles at
the very moment when McClellan, pressing forward through the passes
of South Mountain from Frederick, was at hand to relieve it: Miles was
killed, and the considerable military stores left in the village were
bagged by Stonewall Jackson. Flushed with this temporary advantage,
Jackson proceeded to join Lee, who then advanced from Sharpsburg and
gave unsuccessful battle to the Union forces at Antietam Creek.

This stream pours into the Potomac just above, from the Maryland side.
It gives its name to one of the most interesting actions of the war.
The fields of Antietam and Gettysburg were the only two great battle
grounds on which the Confederates played the rôle of invaders and left
the protection of their native States. Antietam was the first, and if
it could have been made for Lee a more decisive failure, might have
prevented Gettysburg. It occurred September 15th to 18th, 1862. Lee
had just thoroughly whipped that handsome Western braggart, General
Pope, and, elated with success, thought he could assume the offensive,
cross the Potomac, and collect around his banner great armies of
dissatisfied secessionists to the tune of "Maryland, my Maryland."
McClellan (then in the last month of his command over the army of the
Potomac) pushed with unwonted vigor over the mountains, inspired, it
is said, by the accidental foreknowledge of Lee's whole Maryland
plan, and clashed with Lee across the bridges of this pretty highland
stream. As an episode he lost Harper's Ferry; but that was a trifle.
It was a murderous duel, that which raged around the Dunker church
and over the road leading from Sharpsburg to Hagerstown. Lee's forty
thousand men were shielded by an elbow of the Potomac; his batteries
of horse-artillery under Stuart were murdering the forces of Hooker,