THE BATTLE OF SOUTH MOUNTAIN, OR BOONSBORO’.

FIGHTING FOE TIME AT TURNER’S AND FOX’S GAPS.

BY DANIEL II. HILL, LIEUTENANT-GENERAL, C. S. A.

T HE conflict of the 14th of September, 1862, is called at the North the bat-tle of South Mountain, and at the South the battle of Boonsboro’. Somany battle-fields of the Civil War bear double names that we cannot believethe duplication has been accidental. It is the unusual which impresses. Thetroops of the North came mainly from cities, towns, and villages, and were,therefore, impressed by some natural object near the scene of the conflict andnamed the battle from it. The soldiers from the South were chiefly from thecountry and were, therefore, impressed by some artificial object near the fieldof action. In one section the naming has been after the handiwork of God ;in the other section it has been after the handiwork of man. Thus, the firstpassage of arms is called the battle of Bull Run at the North,—the name ofa little stream. At the South it takes the name of Manassas , from a railroadstation. The second battle on the same ground is called the Second Bull Run bythe North, and the Second Manassas by the South. Stone’s defeat is the battleof Ball’s Bluff with the Federals, and the battle of Leesburg with the Confed-erates. The battle called by General Grant, Pittsburg Landing, a naturalobject, was named Shiloh, after a church, by his antagonist. Rosecrans calledhis first great fight with Bragg, the battle of Stone River, while Bragg namedit after Murfreesboro’, a village . So McClellan’s battle of the Chickaliominy, Ja little river, was with Lee the battle of Cold Harbor, a tavern. The Federalsspeak of the battle of Pea Ridge, of the Ozark range of mountains, and theConfederates call it after Elk Horn, a country inn. The Union soldiers calledthe bloody battle three days after South Mountain from the little stream,Antietam, and the Southern troops named it after the village of Sharpsburg.Many instances might be given of this double naming by the opposingforces. According to the same law of the unusual, the war-songs of a peoplehave generally been written by non-combatants. The bards who followed thebanners of the feudal lords, sang of their exploits, and stimulated them andtheir retainers to deeds of high emprise, wore no armor and carried no swords.So, too, the impassioned orators, who roused our ancestors in 1776 with thethrilling cry, “ Liberty or Death,” never once put themselves in the way of adeath by lead or steel, by musket-ball or bayonet stab. The noisy speakersof 1861, who fired the Northern heart and who fired the Southern heart, neverdid any other kind of firing . 5 ,

The battle of South Mountain was one of extraordinary illusions and delu-sions. The Federals were under the self-imposed illusion that there was a

JGaines’s Mill. — Editors. armies; for example, Banks , Baker, Frank P.

J>Of the political speakers of 1860 a number Blair, Jr., Logan, Garfield, Schurz, on the Unionmight be mentioned who afterward served, in side; and Breckinridge, Toombs, Cobb, Floyd, andsome cases with distinction, in the respective Pryor of the Confederates.— Editors.

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