Battle of Antietam

Sharpsburg is a town in Washington County, Maryland, United States, approximately 13 miles south of Hagerstown. The population was 705 at the 2010... census. During the American Civil War, the Battle of Antietam was fought on what is now Antietam National Battlefield, in the vicinity of Antietam Creek. Joseph Chapline was the first to settle in the area, circa 1740. At the end of the French and Indian War in 1763, Chapline founded a town, naming it in honor of his friend Horatio Sharpe, the Proprietary Governor of the Province of Maryland. Its original settlers were mostly of German or Swiss origin. Located east of the Potomac River, Sharpsburg attracted industry in the early 19th century, especially after the Chesapeake and Ohio Canal was extended to Sharpsburg in 1836. The town was incorporated in 1832. Sharpsburg gained national recognition during the American Civil War, when Confederate General Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland with his Army of Northern Virginia in the summer of 1862 and was intercepted near the city by Union General George B. McClellan.
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The Maryland Campaign—or Antietam Campaign—occurred September 4–20, 1862, during the American Civil War. Confederate Gen. Robert E.... Lee's first invasion of the North was repulsed by the Army of the Potomac under Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan, who moved to intercept Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia and eventually attacked it near Sharpsburg, Maryland. The resulting Battle of Antietam was the bloodiest single-day battle in American history and is widely considered one of the major turning points of the war. Following his victory in the Northern Virginia Campaign, Lee moved north with 55,000 men through the Shenandoah Valley starting on September 4, 1862. His objective was to resupply his army outside of the war-torn Virginia theater and to damage Northern morale in anticipation of the November elections. He undertook the risky maneuver of splitting his army so that he could continue north into Maryland while simultaneously capturing the Federal garrison and arsenal at Harpers Ferry. McClellan accidentally found a copy of Lee's orders to his subordinate commanders and planned to isolate and defeat the separated portions of Lee's army. While Confederate Maj. Gen.
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