The next phase of battle is the advance of Doubleday's 1st Division to the West Woods, his line straddling the Hagerstown Pike. Colonel Phelps's 1st Brigade of New Yorkers takes heavy fire from Virginia and Alabama infantry hidden in the treeline, and begin to break, but the brigade stays intact and, rather than moving forward into that murderous musketry, form a line and begin returning volleys. Their fire causes some of Stonewall's veteran regiments to break.
Gibbon's 4th Brigade has a harder time of it, the Wisconsin boys halting to trade volleys with the Virginians of Jones's Brigade. Marsena Patrick's 3rd Brigade begins working the rebel left flank, and I detach a brigade from George Meade's 3rd Division to support Ricketts in the cornfield. Thus ends turn 1.
