July 9, 1864---The Battle of Monocacy Junction, Maryland

JULY 9, 1864:             

The Battle of Monocacy (The Battle of Monocacy Junction).  General Jubal Early C.S.A. and his troops, numbering between 12,000-15,000 approach Monocacy Junction. Facing them is a scratch force of less than 6,000 Union troops, hurriedly organized by General Lew Wallace U.S.A.. Some of the Union men are exhausted; they have been in combat with Jubal Early nearly every day this week. Others are green garrison troops.

Even as Wallace’s troops face Early’s, Washington is in a flap: No one knows quite what is going on. President Lincoln is wiring the President of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad for more up-to-date information than his own advisors can give him. Someone (probably Edwin Stanton) has ordered a gunboat in the Potomac to keep up steam in the event that the First Family and the Cabinet must be evacuated. This harks back to an order given in the dark and confused days of April 1861. When the famously even-tempered President hears of the plan, he famously loses his temper. Rounding on his Cabinet, he asks acidly just what it is those distinguished gentlemen have been doing for the last three years?

The word going ‘round is that General David Hunter is in position to swoop down on Early (in fact, he is 300 miles away in Parkersburg, West Virginia resting his troops worn out by quick marching nearly to Ohio). No one quite knows where Early is, nor even that there is a battle going on for certain at Monocacy, though the boom of artillery can be heard in D.C.

The Rebels cross the Monocacy River not far from Frederick, Maryland. Three waves of attackers try to force the Union lines. Two are beaten back with heavy losses on both sides. In the third wave, the Union center and right flank fall back. This leaves the left flank “hanging in the air.” It is picked apart by Confederates, and the uninjured begin to retreat toward Baltimore.

The Union takes 1,294 casualties out of 5,800 men. The Confederates suffer only 800 casualties out of 14,000 men. General Lew Wallace, the future author of Ben-Hur, is temporarily relieved of duty when the first reports trickle in, but General Grant almost immediately reverses himself when he grasps the gestalt of the battle.  

Monocacy is a Confederate victory, the northernmost of the entire war, but a pyrrhic one as things transpire. Although it is a Union defeat, the tough, the tired, and the inexperienced in Lew Wallace’s ragtag force have succeeded in holding Jubal Early at bay for an entire, very long and critical, day. This delay permits Union siege troops from Petersburg to reach Washington, D.C. and fully man the capital’s immensely strong defenses. Due to the blood shed by Lew Wallace and his men, Early will never be able to take Washington D.C.

Jubal Early later wrote:

Some of the Northern papers stated that, between Saturday and Monday, I could have entered the city; but on Saturday I was fighting at Monocacy, thirty-five miles from Washington, a force which I could not leave in my rear; and after disposing of that force and moving as rapidly as it was possible for me to move, I did not arrive in front of the fortifications until after noon on Monday, and then my troops were exhausted . . .”

General Grant wrote of Monocacy:

If Early had been but one day earlier, he might have entered the capital before the arrival of the reinforcements I had sent . . . General Wallace contributed on this occasion by the defeat of the troops under him, a greater benefit to the cause than often falls to the lot of a commander of an equal force to render by means of a victory.