General Jubal Early's Raid
General Jubal Early
In 1864 Union General Ulysses
S. Grant began his coordinated attack on the confederates on several fronts.
The Army of the Potomac crossed into the Virginia Wilderness and engaged the
Army of Northern Virginia in a series of battles known as the Overland
campaign.
President Lincoln and US Grant
This was President
Lincoln’s idea, to attack and use the Union’s overwhelming manpower to defeat
all the Confederate forces in the field, breaking the Rebellion. General Grant
and General William Tecumseh Sherman
were the men for the job, but General Benjamin Franklin Butler was ineffective and David Hunter was out-generaled by General Robert E. Lee and General Jubal Early.
Forces and Movements:
General Sherman
General Sherman marched
towards Atlanta from the north Georgia Mountains.
General Butler
General Hunter
General Hunter was to
disrupt the supply line to the Army of Northern Virginia from the Shenandoah
Valley, without which provisions the Army of Northern Virginia could not be
sustained in the field.
Confederate Forces:
General Robert E. Lee
Robert E. Lee was concerned about General Hunter's advances in the Valley,
which threatened critical railroad lines and provisions for the Virginia-based
Confederate forces. He directed General
Jubal Early's corps to sweep Union forces from the Valley; “If possible…” as
General Lee often included in his orders, “to menace the Federal Capital in
Washington City.” This was done in the
hope of compelling General Grant to dilute his forces against General Lee at Petersburg.
Portrait General Jubal Early
Arriving June 19th in Lynchburg, General Early got off to a good
start. He drove down through the Valley without opposition. General Hunter had
retreated to West Virginia claiming lack of supplies, crossed the Potomac into
Maryland. In the days that followed, panic swept the Capital and there were frantic
attempts to organize Union defenses. Many of the regiments that had manned the
ring of forts around Washington D.C. in relative safety and luxury, were now with
General Grant facing Lee at Petersburg. The political response in calling for
the troops to return to DC in the face of the military necessity of keeping
them in Petersburg was intense to say the least. Not for the first time, President
Lincoln was pressured from multiple sides.
As June stretched into July, and the Confederate forces moved ever closer
to the Union Capital, Grant bowing to the political necessity of saving the
frightened members of Congress, dispatched
two brigades of the VI Corps, about 5,000 men, on July 6, 1864. Until those
troops arrived however, the only Federal force between General Early and the Capital
was a command of 6,300 mostly green short term volunteers known as 100 Day men,
commanded by Major General Lew Wallace.
Union General Lew Wallace
At the time General Wallace, who would eventually become best known for his
book Ben Hur, was the head of the Union's Middle Atlantic Department, headquartered at Baltimore. General Wallace was a talented battlefield
commander, but his career was derailed when he was blamed for the high
casualties taken at the Union victory at the Battle of Shiloh. Uncertain whether
Baltimore or Washington, D.C. was the Confederate
objective, Wallace knew he had to delay their approach until reinforcements
could reach either city.
Wallace saw Monocacy Junction, also called Frederick Junction, three miles southeast of Frederick, as the most logical point of defense for both Baltimore and Washington. The Georgetown Pike to Washington and the National Road to Baltimore both crossed the Monocacy River as did the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. If General Wallace could stretch his force over six miles of the stream. Thus protecting turnpike bridges, the railroad bridge, and several fords, he could make General Early reveal the strength and objective of the Confederate force and delay him as long as possible.
After the War General Wallace proposed to collect the bodies of the dead in a burial ground on the battlefield where he proposed a monument to read; "These men died to save the National Capital.” They did in fact save it, unfortunately the monument was never built.
Monocacy cost General Early a day's march and his chance to capture Washington. Thwarted in the attempt to take the capital, the Confederates retreated back into Virginia, ending their last campaign to carry the war into the North.
General Early wrote in a report of the 1864 campaign; “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 also assessed Wallace's delaying tactics at 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.”
After the battle Early resumed his march on Washington, arriving at its northeast border around noon on July 11th, near Silver Spring. This is where the Union Fort Stevens was located. Because of the battle at Monocacy and the march through stifling summer heat, and unsure of the strength of the Federal position in front of him, Early decided to not send his army against the fortifications around Washington until the next day.
Around 3 p.m. in the afternoon, with the bulk of their force present, the Confederates attacked. At this time the lead elements of the Union veteran reinforcements arrived at the fort, bolstering the defenses at the critical moment. The battle intensified around 5 p.m. when Confederate cavalry pushed through the advance Union picket line, but a counterattack drove them back and the two opposing lines confronted each other throughout the evening with periods of intense skirmishing.
Monocacy Junction, also called Frederick Junction
Fort Stevens Washington DC
Union Battery at Fort Stevens Washington DC
Spectators Watched from the Hill Tops
President Lincoln with his wife Mary, accompanied by some
officers rode out to observe the attack, on July 11. They were briefly under
enemy fire that wounded a Union surgeon standing next to Lincoln on the Fort
Stevens parapet. Lincoln was brusquely ordered to take cover by an officer,
possibly Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., who
shouted, “Get down, you damn fool.”
Additional Union reinforcements from the VI and XIX Corps
arrived overnight and were placed in reserve behind the line. The skirmishing
continued into July 12, when General Early finally decided that Washington
could not be taken without heavy losses which would be too severe to warrant
the attempt. He abandoned any further thoughts of taking the
city. Early withdrew during the night, marching toward White’s Ford on the
Potomac, thus ending his invasion of Maryland. “We didn’t take Washington,” General
Early told his staff officers, “but we scared Abe Lincoln like Hell.”
Presented: Brother Gerard Devine MD, Patriotic Instructor
Major General Thomas H. Ruger Camp #1
Presented: Brother Gerard Devine MD, Patriotic Instructor
Major General Thomas H. Ruger Camp #1
