34 Southern Historical Society Papers.
tween Colonel Colquitt and General Hill was necessarily in all parts of the field, and had a good opportunity to observe most of the movements of the different troops.
On the afternoon of the 13th, while in camp near Boonsboro, the town situated on the west side of the South Mountain, and not far from the pass, Colonel Colquitt received an order from General Hill to move his brigade to the top of the mountain to guard the pass, where the pike leading. from Frederick City to Hagerstown crosses the South Mountain, known as Boonsboro or Turner's Gap.
We reached the top of the mountain with the head of the line, at about the same time General Stuart, with his cavalry falling back from Frederick City, got there. The infantrv was ordered to move to the side of the road while the cavalry passed down the West side of the mountain, and as this was being done. Colonel Colquitt had a conference on the road-side with General Stuart, at which I, as his aide, was present, and heard what General Stuart said in regard to the advance of the enemy. My distinct recollection is that General Stuart reported that there were no troops following him but cavalry and that Colonel Colquitt would have no difficulty in holding the pass with his brigade. I remember that Colonel Colquitt requested that two companies of Calvary might be left with him for picket duty, but General Stuart thought it unnecessary, and declined to leave them. Colonel William Allan, in his "Account of the Sharps- burg Campaign," says that General Stuart learned from a friendly citizen of Maryland, on the afternoon of the 13th, that the lost order had come into the possession of McClellan, and so informed General Lee. Colonel Allan is generally remarka- bly accurate in all his statements, but I am very sure that in this he was mistaken. Certainly General Stuart, at sundown on the 13th. when he met Colonel Colquitt, had no such infor- mation, and General Hill in his official report savs that General Stuart afterwards, on the same evening, told him that "only two brigades of cavalry were following him, and that one bri- gade of infantry could hold the pass.
