Civil War: The Battles of South Mountain • Fox's Gap • Turner's Gap • Crampton's Gap • Frostown Gap
Park Info: George Townsend • Gathland • Washington Monument • AT North • AT South
Park Tours: South Mountain State Battlefield Driving Tour • Fox's Gap Walking Trail

Turner's Gap

At the summit is an old inn that in 1862 was known as the Mountain House. It served as General D.H. Hill's headquarters during the battle. From the heights surrounding Turner's Gap, Hill first glimpsed the Union army's advance. On September 13, Confederate cavalry commander General J.E.B. Stuart informed Hill that only two brigades of Union infantry were approaching the gap. Imagine Hill's surprise on the morning of the 14th when he observed "the vast army of McClellan spread out before" him. Hill later wrote that "The marching columns extended back as far as eye could see... It was a grand and glorious spectacle. It was impossible to look at it with out admiration. I had never seen so tremendous an army before, and I did not see one like it afterward."

Until reinforcements could arrive from Hagerstown, the fate of the Army of Northern Virginia rested with Hill's lone division of 5,000 men. It proved to be D.H. Hill's finest hour. From 9:00 am until 3:00 pm, Hill's Confederates held the northern gaps unaided against the combined assault of elements from two Union army corps. Later, with the help of General James Longstreet's exhausted troops, he continued to hold into the night. Sometime during the late evening General Lee issued orders to withdraw and regroup his scattered forces. Hill pulled his men back at 11:00 pm to quietly move towards Sharpsburg, Maryland. For one long, vital day, General Daniel Harvey Hill had blocked an enemy drive that could have spelled disaster for Lee's army.

In 1897, the United States War Department erected six cast iron tablets which described the battle. They were relocated to their current position by the Central Maryland Heritage League in 1997.