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.
