The dense formation that constituted the Army of the Potomac’s Black Hat Brigade formed up on Joseph Poffenberger’s farm at dawn on September 17, 1862. They then dutifully tramped south through the gray mist of the damp morning as the crump of artillery and rattle of musketry increased in intensity in the farm fields and woods along Hagerstown Pike near the whitewashed Dunker Church.
“You’re in open range of rebel batteries,” Brig. Gen. Abner Doubleday informed brigade commander Brig. Gen. John Gibbon as his men prepared to engage the enemy. Confederate shells and case shot exploded on and around them as they advanced. The storm of iron sent men and equipment flying through the air. The horrific experience sorely tested the discipline of the Wisconsin and Indiana troops who made up the brigade, but they had fought admirably at Brawner’s Farm and South Mountain, and possessed the grit necessary to withstand the shelling.
The 6th Wisconsin spearheaded the brigade’s advance through David R. Miller’s farm on the east side of the pike toward his sprawling 30-acre cornfield, led by Lt. Col. Edward Bragg. The mature corn was as tall as the soldiers who would fight their way through it that morning. Rebel skirmishers fell back steadily before the advance of a sea of blue-coated soldiers.
