Acquia (or Aquia) Creek is a minor tributary to the Potomac, at a bend where the river passes close to the Rappahannock at Fredericksburg. At the opening of the Civil War, it was the terminus of a rail line to Richmond.

Even before Virginia seceded, the Confederates started building cannon emplacements at Acquia Creek. This battery could have served to protect the rail head. More alarmingly to Lincoln, it could have threatened shipping or naval traffic on the Potomac, a principal supply route to northern Virginia -- and Washington itself.

Still hoping that Virginia would remain in the Union, Lincoln withheld military action. Within hours of the secession, however, Federal forces took Alexandria and Fairfax, just across the river from Washington. A few days later the Pawnee attacked at Acquia Creek.

The results were inconclusive, but the Confederate guns were later withdrawn. By mid-1862 the Acquia Creek area was firmly in the hands of Union forces, which used it for a supply depot and winter quarters.

In a handwritten note in the margin of the original manuscript, my grandmother (the author's daughter) observes:

Gen. Peyton Conway March, Chief of Staff during the World War, was her son.

The Sharpsburg battle is more commonly referred to as Antietam.