This image shows a computer simulation of an aerial view above and a little behind the North Woods. The view is looking toward the southwest. The North Woods appear in the lower right of the image; the East Woods are at the left edge, and the West Woods at the top. The small white-washed Dunker Church, the objective of the opening Union I Corps attack, can be made out near the upper left of the image, at the intersections of the Hagerstown Turnpike and the Smoketown Road. The Miller Cornfield stretches between the East and West Woods.

This is the ground over which the Union I, XII, and II Corps crossed to assault Confederate positions in and around the West Woods. Profile maps are available for 3 lines of advance along this ground. As can be seen, this ground is not flat, and it can be easily imagined how Union lines attempting to cross this ground could become confused and disorganized, as regiments on the flanks would lose sight of each other. In advancing south (toward the upper left of the image), the I and XII Corps would first encounter a gentle rise as they moved through, and emerged from, the North Woods. The ground then levels off in Miller's plowed field and the grassy area beyond. Inside the Cornfield, the ground to the left begins to drop while on the right it rises, such that at its southern boundary, the right of the corn is at a much higher elevation than the left. Notice how troops in and around the corn, east of the Turnpike, do not have a line of sight of the ground west of it, as the area at the foot of the West Woods lays below a ridge; troops in the corn are isolated from action just west of them. The folds of this terrain will have significant impact as both Union and Confederate troops move in and around the northern portion of the West Woods.

As the advance toward the Dunker Church emerges from the Cornfield, the center ground falls away into a large depression, largely dominated by the high ground east of the Dunker Church (just a hint of that rise is visible in the upper left of the image). That high ground was initially occupied by S.D. Lee's artillery, and it made good use of this position, until finally being driven off after the Confederate infantry around the West Woods collapsed upon the arrival of the XII Corps.