Scott Hanko
Joseph Poffenberger Farm
The Joseph Poffenberger Farm: The night before the battle, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s I Corps camped in and around this house and outbuildings on the northern end of the battlefield. Hooker made his headquarters here and formulated and launched the initial attack at Antietam from this position. The woods in this area, dubbed the North Woods, separated the Poffenberger property from those around it, including the David R. Miller Farm and the adjacent cornfield to the south. At 5:43 a.m. on September 17, Hooker sent his men in their battle lines toward the little white church on the Old Hagerstown Pike, toward the Rebels. Hooker wanted the men of Brig. Gen. John Gibbon’s “black hats,” the men of the Iron Brigade (see "Legendary Combat Units," July 2008 ACG), to move down the Pike and strike into the Southerners. As the lead column on the left set out — the men of Brig. Gen. James B. Ricketts — they approached the cornfield ahead of them and, just at first light, met a thunderous fire by Confederate artillery from ahead. As the battle raged, waves of men set off from the Poffenberger Farm and then retreated to it, while shells struck around the premises. Wounded and dead struggled back to the property, turning the area into an aid station and a makeshift morgue. Nurses tended the wounded here, and you will see a monument to Clara Barton, commemorating her service on the Antietam battlefield. However, a description of the cellar in the house Barton wrote about shows she did not work as a nurse here, but at the Samuel Poffenberger House, to the southeast.
The acreage of the Poffenberger Farm is some of the most charming of the battlefield, very rolling with the usual rock ledges, hills and swales dominated subtly by a commanding ridge just beyond the majestic Pennsylvania bank barn. The house is perched on high ground affording those who, long ago, lounged on its front porch a delightfully detached view of the old Hagerstown pike.
The view from that porch in the wee hours of September 17, 1862 would have been altogether different; both eerie and disconcerting.
In the predawn murkiness of first light an onlooker from that front porch would have had the impression that the ground itself was moving, slowly and lethargicallyat first, accompanied with occasional busts of coughing. And as the gloom just began to barely lighten in the eastern sky the ground would seem to roil as dark spectral shapes, by the thousands, arose and began to stumble into formation as orders rang out in the early hours and the long roll was sounded on countless field drums.
This was the last morning for many of the men of Hooker’s First Corps of McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. The last evening prior to this last morning was spent by these nearly 8,600 men on the grounds of the Poffenberger Farm where they passed the damp darkness in bivouac – camping without shelter or, in this instance, cooking fires. These men would be the spearhead of the Union effort on this historic day. And the silent buildings of the Poffenberger Farm that remain to this day would be witness to the passing of the First Corps.
Later that morning the Farm would again play host to Union soldiers, as terrified and battered survivors of Sedgwick’s Division fresh from the so-called “Disaster in the West Woods” would seek shelter, succor, and solace among the gentle swales of the farmstead.
Some of those men would receive aid from a volunteer nurse from Massachusetts; that nurse would provide the last kind voice heard by many of those young men.
Joseph Hooker was there, Sedgwick was there, Meade was there, and Clara Barton was there; and, this morning, I was there.
The armies have moved on, time has moved forward, but on the grounds of the Poffenberger farm it could all have happened a week ago, or a week from now. Although today, while the buildings still stand and comprise the most intact of the original battlefield farmsteads, much work must be done to preserve them.
Acquired by the park fairly recently, the farm is in its second year of a five-year initiative to restore it to its 1862 appearance.
Already the wagon shed and washhouse have been stabilized and restored with rebuilt foundations, replaced timbers, and a fresh coat of white wash. Original fence lines are again graced with post and rail fences. And now the effort is on to restore that magnificent barn as well as the Poffenberger house.
Antietam Battlefield-Sharpsburg Md.
Joseph Poffenberger Farm
The Joseph Poffenberger Farm: The night before the battle, Maj. Gen. Joseph Hooker’s I Corps camped in and around this house and outbuildings on the northern end of the battlefield. Hooker made his headquarters here and formulated and launched the initial attack at Antietam from this position. The woods in this area, dubbed the North Woods, separated the Poffenberger property from those around it, including the David R. Miller Farm and the adjacent cornfield to the south. At 5:43 a.m. on September 17, Hooker sent his men in their battle lines toward the little white church on the Old Hagerstown Pike, toward the Rebels. Hooker wanted the men of Brig. Gen. John Gibbon’s “black hats,” the men of the Iron Brigade (see "Legendary Combat Units," July 2008 ACG), to move down the Pike and strike into the Southerners. As the lead column on the left set out — the men of Brig. Gen. James B. Ricketts — they approached the cornfield ahead of them and, just at first light, met a thunderous fire by Confederate artillery from ahead. As the battle raged, waves of men set off from the Poffenberger Farm and then retreated to it, while shells struck around the premises. Wounded and dead struggled back to the property, turning the area into an aid station and a makeshift morgue. Nurses tended the wounded here, and you will see a monument to Clara Barton, commemorating her service on the Antietam battlefield. However, a description of the cellar in the house Barton wrote about shows she did not work as a nurse here, but at the Samuel Poffenberger House, to the southeast.
The acreage of the Poffenberger Farm is some of the most charming of the battlefield, very rolling with the usual rock ledges, hills and swales dominated subtly by a commanding ridge just beyond the majestic Pennsylvania bank barn. The house is perched on high ground affording those who, long ago, lounged on its front porch a delightfully detached view of the old Hagerstown pike.
The view from that porch in the wee hours of September 17, 1862 would have been altogether different; both eerie and disconcerting.
In the predawn murkiness of first light an onlooker from that front porch would have had the impression that the ground itself was moving, slowly and lethargicallyat first, accompanied with occasional busts of coughing. And as the gloom just began to barely lighten in the eastern sky the ground would seem to roil as dark spectral shapes, by the thousands, arose and began to stumble into formation as orders rang out in the early hours and the long roll was sounded on countless field drums.
This was the last morning for many of the men of Hooker’s First Corps of McClellan’s Army of the Potomac. The last evening prior to this last morning was spent by these nearly 8,600 men on the grounds of the Poffenberger Farm where they passed the damp darkness in bivouac – camping without shelter or, in this instance, cooking fires. These men would be the spearhead of the Union effort on this historic day. And the silent buildings of the Poffenberger Farm that remain to this day would be witness to the passing of the First Corps.
Later that morning the Farm would again play host to Union soldiers, as terrified and battered survivors of Sedgwick’s Division fresh from the so-called “Disaster in the West Woods” would seek shelter, succor, and solace among the gentle swales of the farmstead.
Some of those men would receive aid from a volunteer nurse from Massachusetts; that nurse would provide the last kind voice heard by many of those young men.
Joseph Hooker was there, Sedgwick was there, Meade was there, and Clara Barton was there; and, this morning, I was there.
The armies have moved on, time has moved forward, but on the grounds of the Poffenberger farm it could all have happened a week ago, or a week from now. Although today, while the buildings still stand and comprise the most intact of the original battlefield farmsteads, much work must be done to preserve them.
Acquired by the park fairly recently, the farm is in its second year of a five-year initiative to restore it to its 1862 appearance.
Already the wagon shed and washhouse have been stabilized and restored with rebuilt foundations, replaced timbers, and a fresh coat of white wash. Original fence lines are again graced with post and rail fences. And now the effort is on to restore that magnificent barn as well as the Poffenberger house.
Antietam Battlefield-Sharpsburg Md.