Lieutenant-General Jubal Early’s Confederate Army of the Valley was just outside Washington, D.C., threatening Fort Stevens, which comprised the capital’s northernmost defenses. An attack on the fort had been unsuccessful on July 11, but Early wrote, “I determined to make an assault on the enemy’s works at daylight next morning, unless some information should be received before that time showing its impracticability.”
Early and his four division commanders took up headquarters in the country mansion of Francis P. Blair, Sr., a political icon since the days of Andrew Jackson. The officers did not damage the home other than helping themselves to Blair’s wine cellar. Early learned that Federal reinforcements had arrived in Washington in the form of Major-General Horatio G. Wright’s Sixth Corps. He also learned that the Nineteenth Corps would be there by morning. However, Early did not want to withdraw without at least trying to fight, so he ordered a probe the next day to look for an exploitable weakness in Fort Stevens.
Meanwhile, a Confederate cavalry detachment under Brigadier-General Bradley Johnson wreaked havoc throughout Maryland. According to Navy Secretary Gideon Welles:
“The Rebels captured a train of cars on the Philadelphia and Baltimore Road, and have burnt bridges over Gunpowder and Bush Rivers… General demoralization seems to have taken place among the troops, and there is as little intelligence among them as at the War Office in regard to the Rebels… no mails, and the telegraph lines have been cut; so that we are without news or information from the outer world.”
Early’s Confederates advanced again on the 12th, but the panic had subsided among the Washington residents now that Federal veterans were on the scene. Many curious onlookers came to see the action, including President Abraham Lincoln once again. Despite warnings from Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton about possible assassination attempts, Lincoln adjourned a cabinet meeting and visited several forts around Washington with Secretary of State William H. Seward. The visit ended at Fort Stevens, where Lincoln watched the action with General Wright.
Wright unwisely invited Lincoln to watch from the parapet, where he was exposed to enemy fire from the waist up. According to legend, young officer (and future Supreme Court justice) Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. shouted to him, “Get down, you damn fool, before you get shot!” Lincoln sat down but repeatedly jumped up to see the action. As he watched the Federals charge, a nearby surgeon was shot and Wright insisted that Lincoln leave or else be forcibly removed. Wright later recalled, “The absurdity of the idea of sending off the President under guard seemed to amuse him…”
The Federals drove the Confederates off by 10 p.m., and the last enemy threat to Washington of the war was over. Federal General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant wanted Early pursued, but he found it almost impossible to coordinate such an operation from his City Point headquarters (near Petersburg, Virginia). He told Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck that Wright should be placed in overall command: “He should get outside the trenches with all the force he possibly can, and should push Early to the last moment.”
But this was easier said than done because the Federals in and around Washington were part of four different military departments, and Washington officials were reluctant to put Wright in charge of them all. Moreover, Halleck refused to directly organize the troops into a viable pursuing force, opting instead to “carry out such orders as you may give.” This meant that Grant would have to try putting everything together from City Point.
Meanwhile, Early’s Confederates withdrew unmolested. While they left the elder Blair’s home intact, his son was not so lucky; the troops burned the home of Postmaster General Montgomery Blair. Early wrote, “The fact is that I had nothing to do with it, and do not yet know how the burning occurred.” Early stated that it was unwise “to set the house on fire when we were retiring, as it amounted to notice of our movement.” Some claimed that it was Confederate retaliation for the Federals burning the home of Virginia Governor John Letcher. Montgomery angrily blamed the “poltroons and cowards” in the War Department for allowing this to happen.
As his soldiers formed columns to begin their march back to Virginia, Early told an aide, “Major, we haven’t taken Washington, but we’ve scared Abe Lincoln like hell!”
Bibliography
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- Catton, Bruce, Grant Takes Command. Open Road Media, Kindle Edition, 2015.
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- Donald, David Herbert, Lincoln. New York: Simon & Schuster, (Kindle Edition), 2011.
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