When Union forces began their advance on the positions occupied by Confederate General Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia, along the banks of Antietam Creek, one of Lee's commanders, General S.D. Lee, hastily assembled a strong line of artillery along this ridgetop near today's battlefield visitor center. Lee's guns did deadly work on the assaulting Federal battle lines, as Stonewall Jackson's infantry, amassed around the Dunker Church, prepared to begin their counter-attack.
