The Battle of Monocacy, which took place on the blisteringly hot
day of July 9, 1864, is one of the Civil War's most significant yet
little-known battles. What played out that day in the corn and
wheat fields four miles south of Frederick, Maryland., was a
full-field engagement between some 12,000 battle-hardened
Confederate troops led by the controversial Jubal Anderson Early,
and some 5,800 Union troops, many of them untested in battle, under
the mercurial Lew Wallace, the future author of "Ben-Hur." When the
fighting ended, some 1,300 Union troops were dead, wounded or
missing or had been taken prisoner, and Early---who suffered some
800 casualties---had routed Wallace in the northernmost Confederate
victory of the war.
Two days later, on another brutally hot afternoon, Monday, July 11,
1864, the foul-mouthed, hard-drinking Early sat astride his horse
outside the gates of Fort Stevens in the upper northwestern fringe
of Washington, D.C. He was about to make one of the war's most
fateful, portentous decisions: whether or not to order his men to
invade the nation's capital.
Early had been on the march since June 13, when Robert E. Lee
ordered him to take an entire corps of men from their Richmond-area
encampment and wreak havoc on Yankee troops in the Shenandoah
Valley, then to move north and invade Maryland. If Early found the
conditions right, Lee said, he was to take the war for the first
time into President Lincoln's front yard. Also on Lee's agenda:
forcing the Yankees to release a good number of troops from the
stranglehold that Gen. U.S. Grant had built around Richmond.
Once manned by tens of thousands of experienced troops,
Washington's ring of forts and fortifications that day were in the
hands of a ragtag collection of walking wounded Union soldiers, the
Veteran Reserve Corps, along with what were known as hundred days'
men---raw recruits who had joined the Union Army to serve as
temporary, rear-echelon troops. It was with great shock, then, that
the city received news of the impending rebel attack. With near
panic filling the streets, 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 and the ensuing march, Early paused
before attacking the feebly manned Fort Stevens, giving Grant just
enough time to bring thousands of veteran troops up from Richmond.
The men arrived at the eleventh hour, just as Early was
contemplating whether or not to move into Washington. No invasion
was launched, but Early did engage Union forces outside Fort
Stevens. During the fighting, President Lincoln paid a visit to the
fort, becoming the only sitting president in American history to
come under fire in a military engagement.
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." "Praise for Flag: An
American Biography"
"There is no story about the flag that he omits.... [We] now have a
comprehensive guide to its unfolding."---"The Wall Street Journal"
"The fascination of history is in its details, and the author of
"Flag: An American Biography" knows how to find them and turn them
into compelling reading. This book brings out the irony, humor,
myth, and behind-the-scenes happenings that make our flag's
228-year history so fascinating."---"The Saturday Evening Post"
""Flag "is a valuable addition to American history, and
Leepson...certainly is due a portion of authorly glory for this
absorbing account of America's national icon."---"Richmond
Times-Dispatch"
"Timely and insightful."---"The Dallas Morning News"
"To understand the USA and her citizens, it is necessary to
understand the
origins, the legends, and the meaning of our flag. Marc Leepson's
"Flag "
is a grand book, worthy of its grand subject."
---Homer Hickam, author of "Rocket Boys and" "The Keeper's
Son"
" "
""Flag" is a very significant contribution to our history. And it
is a book that everyone who cares about the United States should
read."---"Veteran Magazine"
" "
General
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