Monocacy 1864

In 1864 Lee sent Early north from the Shenadoah Valley with 15,000 to attack Washington in another desperate gamble.  At the Monocacy River near Frederick in Maryland, 35 miles from Washington, Lew (Ben Hur) Wallace blocked his route where it crossed the Monocacy River with 6,000 men, mostly green Baltinore Militia. There was a wooden covered bridge for the road and a railway bridge both defended by blockhouses.

Early declined to rush the bridges & instead sent his cavalry a couple of k's south to cross at a ford & outflank the Feds.  Wallace saw it coming & set up an ambush in some woods on the edge of a field that stopped the dismounted cavalry when they attacked his flank.  Early then had to send infantry over the ford to do the job.  The second attack succeeded in forcing Wallace to retreat, but Wallace had delayed Early for a day.  This ensured that the reinforcements Grant had sent from the Richmond front by steam boat had plenty of time to get into position to totally remove any optomistic hope the Rebs had of taking Washington by coup de main.

This battlefield wasn't on our list of objectives, but it happened to be only a couple of miles away from our motel on the outskirts of Frederick.  It even had its own visitors centre & a self guided tour route.  It seems to be given undue importance by the line that it saved Washington by buying time.  But surely even the home guard at Washington would have held off Early easily enough given it's defensive works. Or Wallace could have easily marched to Washington & help man the walls with this army.