July 11, 1864---The Battle of Washington D.C.

JULY 11, 1864:
           

The Battle of Fort Stevens (The Battle of Washington D.C.) (Day One):

After raiding and burning Rockville, Maryland and Silver Spring, Maryland to the ground (including the country home of Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster-General of the United States), Jubal Early’s jubilant troops march southward (ironically enough) on Washington D.C. 

During the Civil War Washington was a very different place than it is today. Although L’Enfant’s elegant street grid plan was in place, away from central Washington most of the roads were unpaved dirt tracks. Everything on the far side of the Anacostia River was a shantytown. Georgetown was a separate city in the District of Columbia. Until 1847, the city of Alexandria had been part of the District as well (Alexandria County), but because of its remoteness from official Washington (Washington County), it was retroceded to Virginia. Today’s crammed Beltway was a bucolic land of farms and quiet villages a day’s carriage ride away. The “Summer White House” was Soldiers Home, a rural rest home for military personnel located off Georgia Avenue, miles (and a half-day’s ride) north of the official White House. Even when President Lincoln had to stay in the city, he liked to send Mary and Tad to Soldiers Home in the summer. A stay at Soldiers Home was considered a healthy change from hot, swampy, low-lying, and still malarial Washington City (as it was called unofficially).

On this July 11^th, the President is in the Executive Mansion (though white, it was not formally called the White House yet, not until President Theodore Roosevelt’s day), and is considering riding out to Soldiers Home. He receives word, however, that Confederate troops have appeared just north of the Washington defensive ring.

Washington, thanks to the engineering skill (if not the combat skill) of General George McClellan, is the most heavily fortified city in North America, perhaps even in the world. According to the report of the army’s official engineer, Washington’s defensive ring boasts 68 enclosed forts with 807 mounted cannon and 93 mortars, 93 unarmed batteries with 401 emplacements for field guns and 20 miles of rifle trenches plus three blockhouses. Moreover, miles of military roads, a telegraphic communication system and supporting infrastructure, including headquarters buildings, storehouses and construction camps, all ring the city in D.C., Maryland, and Union-held Virginia.

Thanks to General Grant (and not a little to General Lew Wallace as well), the entire Sixth Corps, a very well-blooded unit, is now manning what was until the day before an empty bastion.  And the numbers only increase. Elements of the Nineteenth Corps join them. Several retired Generals come to the forts carrying their own guns. The lightly wounded in Washington’s military hospitals are given leave to man the forts. It is a hobbling and hopping line of men --- even amputees --- who reach the forts and are assigned duties, freeing up more soldiers of the Sixth to man the defenses. The defensive ring is meant to accommodate 25,000 men. There are more than 40,000 angry men facing Jubal Early’s troopers this morning.

 

The Battle of Fort Stevens is really anticlimactic, but for two elements: By chance or design, Early approaches Washington via 7^th Street --- Georgia Avenue --- the selfsame road that runs past Soldiers Home. The battlefield itself is now occupied by the old Walter Reed Army Hospital campus near Quackenbos Street.  Georgia Avenue passes into the heart of Washington itself (near the current-day National Archives), closest to, and just a brief march away from the White House. Guarded by Fort Stevens, it is not the weakest point in the ring, but perhaps the most vulnerable. If Early can force a breach here he can visit “Old Abe” in his office in a matter of minutes. 

Instead, “Old Abe” visits him. Versions of the story vary (right down to the date, either July 11^th or July 12^th), and the names of those involved vary, but the basic facts are not in dispute. The ever-curious Lincoln decides, much against advice, to visit Fort Stevens as an observer. He stops at Soldiers Home along the way to pick up the First Lady.

When they arrive at the massive block-long fort, it is said by some sources that they are assigned a guide to show them around the fort. This guide, who is a Major and an Army surgeon, accedes to the President’s request to tour the outer parapets after Mary, upset at the smoke and racket, returns to the Presidential carriage. 

After the two men mount the parapet, the President decides to stand not behind the breastwork but atop it. From there, he has a perfect view of the battle, which consists of Confederate and Union pickets firing at each other, with cannonfire from the fort that trembles the walls and blasts the rebel positions. The Major courteously points out that the flashes the President can see are Confederates firing in the direction of the fort.

“Do you think they can hit us here?” Lincoln asks, more curious than concerned, to which the Major answers, “Oh no, they are too far off.”  In truth, the closest Confederates are only about 1,000 feet away. The 6’4” President in his trademark long coat and stovepipe hat, makes an unmistakable prize target.

Some versions of the story say that the two men chat for a few minutes more; others, that “the words were barely out of his mouth” when the Major is struck in the chest and killed by a bullet, thrown from the top of the parapet by the impact. Other accounts say the man is only wounded. 

Lincoln’s reaction also varies from account to account. Some say he turns to a young trooper standing on the other side of him, and aghast, says, “Did you see that? The Major has been shot!” Some leave this detail and the young trooper entirely out of the story.  In some, again, “the words were barely out of his mouth,” when the young trooper takes a bullet in the throat. 

The President does not have time to react when yet another young soldier (either a captain or a lieutenant depending on the source), realizing that someone has drawn a bead on the President and that the next shot might be fatal, body-slams the President to the deck with words that vary from, “Get down you fool!” to “You goddamned fool, get down!” Again, any of a dozen men are stated to have uttered these words, though the most frequently mentioned name is Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, later an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. 

Lincoln’s response is variable, according to the source quoted:  “As it seemed like wise advice, I did not demur,” a simple gasped “Thank you,” or a subsequent handwritten note of thanks.

In sum, Abraham Lincoln becomes and remains the only sitting President of the United States to come under direct enemy fire. The President gets down, stays down, and returns to the White House none the worse for wear.

For almost 150 years, historians doubt that any Civil War weapon could be so accurate as to hit a man at that range --- that this was a “lucky shot” and no more. Theories also abound that a Confederate sniper had crept into the Union lines and was hidden in a tree or a bush (or perhaps a grassy knoll?). 

Other theories claim that the shot(s) came from a disaffected Union soldier, or perhaps were misdirected friendly fire. However, more recently, it has been proven forensically that a very skilled Confederate sharpshooter using a Whitworth rifle could have taken the shot successfully from his own lines, and that it was only overcorrected or undercorrected windage that saved the President’s life that day.

But for the adventure on the parapet, Early’s men do not do well. Jubal Early later claims that by the time they reached Fort Stevens his men were “exhausted” from the summertime heat and from constant marching, but the truth is that the Washington defenses were just too strong, much more than he had bargained for. Early, an up-to-the-last-minute Unionist, might also have chosen not to press the battle against the Founders’ city. In any event, the battle became a Confederate “demonstration” that lasted all day. As night fell, Early’s troops withdrew and bivouacked just out of range of the fort. 



This post is for Sandi, Washintonian, Marylander, and Birthday Girl!

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

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.  

July 8, 1864---"Lookit what them Yankees is doin’! What sort a critters be they anyway?”

JULY 8, 1864:              

Skirmishes erupt all around central Maryland as Jubal Early’s forces continue to move northward toward the District of Columbia. Minor engagements are fought at Antietam, near Frederick, and near Sandy Hook. Although the Confederates take losses they continue to move toward Washington. 

Washington D.C. is a fortress, but a thinly-manned one. Most of the garrison troops have recently been pulled out of position to fight in the Overland Campaign, or even more recently, been sent to Petersburg to invest that Confederate city. It is a calculated risk, but General Grant feels a justifiable one, given that the Union is on Richmond’s doorstep. Now Grant must rush troops back to his own doorstep.

General David Hunter U.S.A.’s decision to flee away from the Eastern Theatre when threatened by Early in the Shenandoah Valley on June 13th is having unforeseen consequences. The Valley might as well have been a modern interstate, and the small battles in Maryland, defeats or not, may have delayed but have not disheartened the Confederates in their move on the U.S. capital. 

Jubal Early, their commander, is a mulish man, a trait he showed even as a young cadet at West Point when Lewis “Lo” Armistead (later a C.S. General killed at Gettysburg) broke a plate over Early’s head in an argument. According to witnesses, this did not even distract Early. And although he lacks any of Robert E. Lee’s panache, Early was, like Lee, deeply conflicted by secession but a proud Virginian. He was an effective, if stubborn, leader of men.   If the Union was expecting Early to break off and return to Virginia, they badly misread their man.

Union forces in Georgia ford the Chattahoochee River and flank Joseph E. Johnston’s positions.  Some of the Union troopers strip naked in an effort to keep their clothing dry, and capture several surprised Confederate pickets that way, clad in nothing but their rifles. Others discover that the Spencer repeating carbine can be fired underwater; they shoot as they swim submerged. Although nobody is hit, several amazed Confederates surrender to the armed mermen: “Lookit what them Yankees is doin’! What sort a critters be they anyway?”