This is the Smoketown Road looking south toward the battlefield, in the same direction as the union advance. This road runs from the Keedysville road near the (now vanished) Hamlet of Smoketown, to the Hagerstown Turnpike at the foot of the Dunker Church. As such, it became the main conduit through which the Union I and XII Corps arrived on the battlefield.

This portion of the Smoketown road has little changed in appearance over the last 130 years, although it would have been strictly a dirt road at that time instead of the gravel road which it has become.