The Battle of South Mountain, or Boonsboro' [1886]

Confederate Gen. D. H. Hill (1821-1889), brother-in-law to "Stonewall Jackson", provides a vivid firsthand account of one of the most unusual battles which occurred during the American Civil War. His assessment is that "from whatever stand-point it may be looked at, the battle of South Mountain must be of interest to the military reader, as showing the effect of a hallucination in enabling nine thousand men to hold thirty thousand at bay for so many hours, in robbing victory of its fruits, and in inspiring the victors with such caution that a simple ruse turned them back in their triumphal career. — Every battle-field of the Civil War beheld the deadly conflict of former friends with each other. South Mountain may be taken as a specimen of this unnatural and horrible state of things." — This account has been extracted from the May 1886 edition of "The Century Magazine."