the distance between crampton's and turner's gaps is about six miles. the terrain between them made each part of the battle a separate fight. the fighting went on all day at turner's gap and all afternoon at crampton's gap. turner's gap was fought on a larger scale, was more costly and took longer than the other actions. this delaying action was also a large deception by the confederate forces. the union forces thought the mountain was swarming with confederates when in fact only one division guarded the passes until later in the afternoon. union forces could have easily swept them aside had they known how few there actually were.