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Battle of Monocacy: Union Order of Battle
Middle Department, Maj. Gen. Lewis Wallace
- Eight Army Corps
- 1st Separate Brigade, Brig. Gen. Erastus B. Tyler
- 1st MD Potomac Home Brigade (5 companies), Capt.
Charles J. Brown
- 3rd MD Potomac Home Brigade, Col.
Charles Gilpin
- 11th MD Infantry Regiment, Col. William
T. Landstreet
- 144th OH Infantry Regiment (3 companies),
Col. A.L. Brown
- 149th OH Infantry Regiment (7 companies),
Col. A.L. Brown
- Baltimore Artillery (6 guns), Capt.
F.W. Alexander
- Cavalry, Lt. Col. David R. Clendenin
- 8th IL Cavalry Regiment, Lt. Col.
D.R. Clendenin
- Detachment 159th OH Mounted Infantry,
Capt. Edward H. Leib
- Detachment Mixed Cavalry, Maj. Charles
H. Wells
- Loudoun Virginia Rangers
- Sixth Army Corps
- Third Division, Brig. Gen. James
B. Ricketts
- 1st Brigade, Col. William S. Truex
(w), Col. W. Emerson
- 14th NJ Infantry Regiment, Lt. Col.
C.K. Hall
- 106th NY Infantry Regiment, Capt.
E.M. Paine
- 151st NY Infantry Regiment, Col. W. Emerson
- 87th PA Infantry Regiment, Lt. Col.
J.A. Stahle
- 10th VT Infantry Regiment, Col. W.H.
Henry (w)
- 2nd Brigade,
Col. Matthew R. McClennan
- 9th NY Heavy Artillery, Col. W.H.
Seward, Jr.
- 110th OH Infantry Regiment, Lt. Col.
O.H. Brinkley
- 122nd OH Infantry Regiment (detachment),
Lt. Col. C.J. Gibson
- 126th OH Infantry Regiment, Lt. Col.
A.W. Ebright
- 138th PA Infantry Regiment, Maj.
L.A. May
Sources: Monocacy National Battlefield, National Park Service, Official Records of the Union and Confederate
Armies.
Recommended Reading: Jubal Early's Raid on Washington.
Description: "Cooling has produced what is sure to become the definitive scholarly account of the campaign. Drawing on a vast
array of sources, including seldom-used veterans' accounts, Cooling presents a comprehensive campaign study from origins to
aftermath. Not only does Cooling masterfully describe the specific movements of the opposing forces, but he also never loses
sight of the wider context in which the campaign was fought. Continued below…
In fact, Cooling's greatest contribution may be his clear demonstration that Grant was fooled by Early's
operations and took an uncommonly long time to react to a very serious threat." - American Historical Review." About the Author:
B.F. Cooling is chief historian of the Department of Energy and has won the Douglas Southall Freeman Award and the Fletcher
Pratt Award for best Civil War history book.
Recommended Reading: Desperate Engagement: How a Little-Known
Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C.,
and Changed American History. Description: 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 12,000 battle-hardened
Confederate troops led by the controversial Jubal Anderson Early, and 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, 1,300 Union troops were dead, wounded
or missing or had been taken prisoner, and Early---who suffered 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, 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 capitol. Continued below...
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 Among the more memorable key-players
are Early, the daring general of the valley; Lew Wallace (who would later author “Ben Hur”), who attempts to block
Early's advance; and George Davis, from Vermont, who was
awarded the Medal of Honor during this fiercely contested campaign. This is a fine recounting of a relatively obscure but
quite interesting series of events, and both the general reader and Civil War aficionados will enjoy it. The book also contains
sixty-one illustrations.
Recommended
Reading: The Official Virginia
Civil War Battlefield Guide. Review: This
is one of the most useful guides I've ever read. Virginia
was host to nearly one-third of all Civil War engagements, and this guide covers them all like a mini-history of the war.
Unlike travel books that are organized geographically, this guide organizes them chronologically. Each campaign is prefaced
by a detailed overview, followed by concise (from 1 to 4 pages, depending on the battle's importance) but engrossing descriptions
of the individual engagements. Continued below…
These descriptions
make this a great book to browse through when you're not in the car. Most sites' summaries touch on their condition--whether
they're threatened by development (as too many are) and whether they're in private hands or protected by the park service.
But the maps are where this book really stands out. Each battle features a very clear map designating army positions and historical
roads, as well as historical markers (the author also wrote “A Guidebook to Virginia's Historical Markers”), parking, and visitors'
centers. Best of all, though, many battles are illustrated with paintings or photographs of the sites, and the point-of-view
of these pictures is marked on each map!
Recommended
Reading: Reveille in Washington,
1860 - 1865. Description: Winner of the 1942 Pulitzer Prize in History, it is an authentic, scholarly description of life in Washington during the Civil War, written in a highly readable style. The "star" of the book
is, indeed, the city of Washington D.C. Many players
walk across the D.C. stage, and Leech's research paints vivid portraits not seen before about the Lincolns, Walt Whitman,
Andrew Carnegie, Winfield Scott, John Wilkes Booth, and many others. Continued below...
It's the "Capitol" that you have never really seen or heard that much about… It's a scrappy,
dusty, muddy, unfinished city, begging for respect. Washington City,
as it was called then, was both a respite for Union soldiers, as well as the Union Army’s “prostitution headquarters.”
From the so-called 'highlife to the lowlife', the politician to the pauper, all receive their respectful, or rightful, place
in this delightful but candid prose.
Recommended
Reading:
Freedom Rising: Washington in the Civil War. Description: In this luminous portrait
of wartime Washington, Ernest B. Furgurson–author of the widely acclaimed Chancellorsville 1863, Ashes of Glory, and
Not War but Murder--brings to vivid life the personalities and events that animated the Capital during its most tumultuous
time. Continued below...
Here among
the sharpsters and prostitutes, slaves and statesmen are detective Allan Pinkerton, tracking down Southern sympathizers; poet
Walt Whitman, nursing the wounded; and accused Confederate spy Antonia Ford, romancing her captor, Union Major Joseph Willard.
Here are generals George McClellan and Ulysses S. Grant, railroad crew boss Andrew Carnegie, and architect Thomas Walter,
striving to finish the Capitol dome. And here is Abraham Lincoln, wrangling with officers, pardoning deserters, and inspiring
the nation. Freedom Rising is a gripping account of the era that transformed Washington
into the world’s most influential city.
Recommended
Reading: The
Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 (McFarland & Company). Description: A
significant part of the Civil War was fought in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, especially in 1864. Books and articles
have been written about the fighting that took place there, but they generally cover only a small period of time and focus
on a particular battle or campaign. Continued below...
This work covers
the entire year of 1864 so that readers can clearly see how one event led to another in the Shenandoah Valley and turned once-peaceful
garden spots into gory battlefields. It tells the stories of the great leaders, ordinary men, innocent civilians, and armies
large and small taking part in battles at New Market, Chambersburg, Winchester, Fisher’s
Hill and Cedar Creek, but it primarily tells the stories of the soldiers, Union and Confederate,
who were willing to risk their lives for their beliefs. The author has made extensive use of memoirs, letters and reports
written by the soldiers of both sides who fought in the Shenandoah Valley in 1864.
Recommended
Reading: The
Shenandoah Valley Campaign of 1864 (Military Campaigns of the Civil War) (416 pages) (The University of North
Carolina Press). Description: The 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign
is generally regarded as one of the most important Civil War campaigns; it lasted more than four arduous months and claimed
more than 25,000 casualties. The massive armies of Generals Philip H. Sheridan and Jubal A. Early had contended for immense
stakes... Beyond the agricultural bounty and the boost in morale to be gained with its numerous battles, events in the Valley
would affect Abraham Lincoln's chances for reelection in November 1864. Continued below...
The eleven
essays in this volume reexamine common assumptions about the campaign, its major figures, and its significance. Taking advantage
of the most recent scholarship and a wide range of primary sources, contributors examine strategy and tactics, the performances
of key commanders on each side, the campaign's political repercussions, and the experiences of civilians caught in the path
of the armies. The authors do not always agree with one another, but, taken together, their essays highlight important connections
between the home front and the battlefield, as well as ways in which military affairs, civilian experiences, and politics
played off one another during the campaign.
Recommended
Reading: Shenandoah Summer: The 1864 Valley Campaign. Description: Jubal A. Early’s disastrous battles in the Shenandoah Valley
ultimately resulted in his ignominious dismissal. But Early’s lesser-known summer campaign of 1864, between his raid
on Washington and Phil Sheridan’s renowned fall campaign, had a significant impact on the political and military landscape
of the time. By focusing on military tactics and battle history in uncovering the facts and events of these little-understood
battles, Scott C. Patchan offers a new perspective on Early’s contributions to the Confederate war effort—and
to Union battle plans and politicking. Patchan details the previously unexplored battles at Rutherford’s Farm and Kernstown
(a pinnacle of Confederate operations in the Shenandoah Valley) and examines the campaign’s
influence on President Lincoln’s reelection efforts. Continued below…
He also provides
insights into the personalities, careers, and roles in Shenandoah of Confederate General John C. Breckinridge, Union general
George Crook, and Union colonel James A. Mulligan, with his “fighting Irish” brigade from Chicago.
Finally, Patchan reconsiders the ever-colorful and controversial Early himself, whose importance in the Confederate military
pantheon this book at last makes clear. About the Author: Scott C. Patchan, a Civil War battlefield guide and historian, is
the author of Forgotten Fury: The Battle of Piedmont, Virginia, and a consultant and contributing writer for Shenandoah, 1862.
Review
"The author's
descriptions of the battles are very detailed, full or regimental level actions, and individual incidents. He bases the accounts
on commendable research in manuscript collections, newspapers, published memoirs and regimental histories, and secondary works.
The words of the participants, quoted often by the author, give the narrative an immediacy. . . . A very creditable account
of a neglected period."-Jeffry D. Wert, Civil War News (Jeffry D. Wert Civil War News 20070914)
"[Shenandoah
Summer] contains excellent diagrams and maps of every battle and is recommended reading for those who have a passion for books
on the Civil War."-Waterline (Waterline 20070831)
"The narrative
is interesting and readable, with chapters of a digestible length covering many of the battles of the campaign."-Curled Up
With a Good Book (Curled Up With a Good Book 20060815)
"Shenandoah
Summer provides readers with detailed combat action, colorful character portrayals, and sound strategic analysis. Patchan''s
book succeeds in reminding readers that there is still plenty to write about when it comes to the American Civil War."-John
Deppen, Blue & Grey Magazine (John Deppen Blue & Grey Magazine 20060508)
"Scott C. Patchan
has solidified his position as the leading authority of the 1864 Shenandoah Valley Campaign with his outstanding campaign
study, Shenandoah Summer. Mr. Patchan not only unearths this vital portion of the campaign, he has brought it back to life
with a crisp and suspenseful narrative. His impeccable scholarship, confident analyses, spellbinding battle scenes, and wonderful
character portraits will captivate even the most demanding readers. Shenandoah Summer is a must read for the Civil War aficionado
as well as for students and scholars of American military history."-Gary Ecelbarger, author of "We Are in for It!": The First
Battle of Kernstown, March 23, 1862 (Gary Ecelbarger 20060903)
"Scott Patchan
has given us a definitive account of the 1864 Valley Campaign. In clear prose and vivid detail, he weaves a spellbinding narrative
that bristles with detail but never loses sight of the big picture. This is a campaign narrative of the first order."-Gordon
C. Rhea, author of The Battle of the Wilderness: May 5-6, 1864 (Gordon C. Rhea )
"[Scott Patchan]
is a `boots-on-the-ground' historian, who works not just in archives but also in the sun and the rain and tall grass. Patchan's
mastery of the topography and the battlefields of the Valley is what sets him apart and, together with his deep research,
gives his analysis of the campaign an unimpeachable authority."-William J. Miller, author of Mapping for Stonewall and Great
Maps of the Civil War (William J. Miller)
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