Desperate Engagement

This Civil War history offers a “sharp assessment of the single Confederate victory north of the Mason-Dixon line”—and the threat it posed to the capitol (Kirkus).

The Battle of Monocacy is one of the Civil War’s most significant yet little-known battles. On July 9, 1864, in the fields just south of Frederick, Maryland, some 12,000 Confederate troops led by the controversial Jubal Anderson Early were met by a much smaller and untested Union force under the mercurial Lew Wallace, the future author of Ben-Hur. When the fighting ended, Early had routed Wallace in the northernmost Confederate victory of the war. Yet that victory came at a pivotal cost.

Two days later, Early sat astride his horse on the doorstep of Washington, D.C., contemplating whether or not to order his men to invade the nation’s capital. Washington’s fortifications were maintained by a ragtag collection of walking wounded Union soldiers. The news of an impending rebel attack sent Union leaders scrambled to coordinate a force of volunteers.

But Early did not pull the trigger. Because his men were exhausted from the fight at Monocacy, Early paused before attacking, thus giving Grant just enough time to bring thousands of veteran troops up from Richmond.

Historian Marc Leepson shows that had Early arrived in Washington one day earlier, the ensuing havoc easily could have brought about a different conclusion to the war. Leepson uses a vast amount of primary material, including memoirs, official records, newspaper accounts, diary entries and eyewitness reports in a reader-friendly and engaging description of the events surrounding what became known as “the Battle That Saved Washington.”