How would he bypass it if he would basically have to go south while Feds were still coming north from DC direction? He’d have to make a sweeping move and the MD mountains weren’t always so easy to get through without a fight anyway.
And he was without his “eyes” Jeb’s Calvary until the only choice was to fight right there. The re-enactment of Picket’s charge after the war comes to mind when the opposing lines came together. It makes me wonder how many deaths will have to happen in the present before the present participants will have the same feeling of sorrow and waste those veterans did on that day.