Eight thousand Confederates under Gen. Lafayette McLaws marched by Christ Reformed Church on September 10-11, 1862, heading south to Harpers Ferry. Because no Federals were in the area, McLaws expected no encounters with the enemy. Unknown to him, Union Gen. George B. McClellan had obtained a copy of Gen. Robert E. Lee's Special Order 191 containing the Confederate plans, and McLaws's column was soon in danger. Most of McClellan's Army of the Potomac marched west on the National Road, present-day Alt. U.S. Rte. 40, on September 14, en route to the gaps of South Mountain. During the battle that followed, the steeple of Christ Reformed Church served as a Union observation station. A soldier in the Thirty-Fifth Regiment Massachusetts Volunteers later recalled the morning of September 14 as stiff and sore, beginning with thoughts of breakfast, fresh beef broiled on ramrods, and a tea kettle and cabbage brought back from town, before artillery fire began and, at two o'clock in the afternoon, the order came to fall in, leaving the cabbage uncooked but still hanging from Walsh's belt.