Sharpsburg, Maryland in Go Down, Moses (Location)

Sharpsburg was the site of a very bloody Civil War battle on September 17, 1862. Known in the North as Antietam, its importance is usually measured by the fact that there Union forces repulsed Robert E. Lee's first attempt to invade the North and threaten Washington, D.C. The novel doesn't provide that context, but as part of his argument that the Southern cause was lost to an unjust fate, Cass Edmonds does refer to the time "Lee's battle-order" accidentally became known to his enemies; and the way "Lee divided his forces" before the battle (272).