July 10, 1864---"This house is sacked in retaliation for the many homes made desolate in Virginia."

JULY 10, 1864:           

With word of the Union defeat at Monocacy on everyone’s lips, Washington D.C. prepares for the invaders from the South. 

Mary Henry, the daughter of physicist Joseph Henry, the first President of the Smithsonian Institution, writes a long diary entry about official Washington’s preparations for war. It reads in part:

July 10th Sunday. Several persons were called out of church this morning exciting our curiosity and on coming out after service we were startled by the intelligence that a large body of Southern troops 40 or 50,000 in number were marching on Wash[ington] . . .  there are various conflicting opinions entertained in regard to the supposed object of the enemy whether a raid, merely for purposes of plunder or a demonstration on Wash. to call off Gen. Grants troops from the vacinity of Petersburg is still a matter of conjecture. The quartermaster's clerks have all been ordered to report themselves for service in the defence of the city . . . The city in a state of intense excitement. Southerners said to be at Rockville & skirmishing with our pickets . . . An Englishman called in the evening had also been at the scene of conflict. Had found upon the walls of one of the houses he visited numerous rebel inscriptions. On a marble top table the only article of furniture left in the parlor was inscribed, "This house is sacked in retaliation for the many homes made desolate in Virginia." On one of [the] bedroom walls "our complements to the ladies Sorry not to find them at Home." . . . A note picked up on the stairs contained an apology & regrets of the Officer in charge to the young lady of the house for the destruction of her wardrobe . . . The following is the purport of a letter addressed to the President found in the yard [:]

Dear Uncle Abraham—

We like the way you fight-- we hope you will be reelected.

We have come this time to show you what we can do we will return & give you another lesson. We have inlisted for 40 years or the war.

Yours

The biggest rebel in the T country