by Quint, Ryan;
For General Grant’s part, he believed Wallace had been promoted above his ability. Grant approached the situation passive-aggressively, leaving the post-Shiloh writings to his staff officers, many of whom zeroed in on Wallace, blaming him for not getting to the battlefield in time. Leaving Grant’s army, Wallace did not help his own situation by testifying in front of a Congressional committee. Pivoting blame back towards Grant and Halleck, Wallace criticized the lack of any pursuit of the defeated Confederates after Shiloh: “I waited for those orders and waited; but they never came. Why they did not, I do not know, nor did General Grant ever tell me.”
Garrett visited the Eutaw House Hotel, where Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace rented out several rooms as headquarters for the Middle Department. The hotel burned down in 1912 and is now the site of the Hippodrome Theatre, which opened in 1914. (loc)
Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace had served as the commander of the Middle Department/VIII Army Corps since March 1864. Garrett’s call for help would be his first chance for major action since a series of unfortunate events that started at the battle of Shiloh on April 1862. (loc)
The word-sparring continued in the summer of 1863, when Wallace asked for a poorly-timed court of inquiry into the Shiloh matter, still wanting to present his case against Grant and Halleck. Grant had just captured Vicksburg, opening the Mississippi River to total Union control, and frankly no one cared what Lew Wallace thought or did. Halleck punctuated that philosophy by replying to Wallace’s request: “I do not think that Genl. Wallace is worth the trouble & expense of . . . a court of inquiry . . . His only claim to consideration is that of gas.” Wallace meekly withdrew his request but continued to look for ways back into the fight as he sat on the proverbial sidelines.
In March, 1864, just one-month shy of the two-year anniversary of Shiloh, Wallace received new orders. They did not give him a combat role, but rather command of the Middle Department, headquartered in Baltimore. Overseeing land in four separate states, it was an administrative job, whose main responsibility consisted of keeping the genteel of Baltimore—a city that had been a thorn in the side of the Union war effort—happy. Even that was too much in Halleck’s opinion, who complained, “It seems but little better than murder to give important commands to such men as. . . Wallace, and yet it seems impossible to prevent it.”
The luster of the position soon wore off, and Wallace grew bored, bemoaning the fact that he would miss yet another campaign, and thus the military glory that came with great battles.
And then John Garrett came.
Garrett explained the situation and wanted Wallace’s help. It seemed, Garrett said, that not only did no one seem to grasp the importance of Early’s movements through the Valley, but also, if Early was truly moving up for the purpose of invading Maryland, just how unprepared Baltimore or Washington were to defend themselves. “You know,” Garrett stressed, “there are no troops at Washington—at least not much more than enough to enable . . . to keep the peace in the city?”
Wallace understood well the predicament. As Grant pushed continuously south during the Overland Campaign, casualties piled higher and higher. To replace them, he stripped cities like Washington and Baltimore of their defenses, mainly consisting of “heavy artillerists” who had sometimes trained for years on handling the cities’ big cannon. Giving the artillerists rifles, Halleck shipped the soldiers south by the thousands to fill the thinning gaps in Grant’s infantry lines.
As the commander of the Middle Department, Wallace technically commanded the VIII Army Corps, but calling his force a corps was being overwhelmingly generous. The troops numbered, at most, about 3,200 men, and most of them were 100-day enlistees. Named for their terms of enlistments—only about three months—the soldiers were designed to take the place of the garrisons heading South. One such Ohioan in Wallace’s command later wrote that the transitions allowed some units, “2200 strong, as fine a body of men as I ever saw” to be “sent to the front,” while in their place remained, “800 Ohio hundred day men.”
Wallace’s command for the time being consisted of a mix of troops: two Ohio National Guard units and a Maryland infantry battalion, all three serving as 100-day units, as well as two traditional three-year regiments, and an artillery battery. These men meant well, but even Wallace described them years later in relation to the rebel veterans they would soon have to fight as “inefficients.”
Commanding a division of infantry at Shiloh, Wallace was accused of getting lost on his way to the Shiloh battlefield. It was a false accusation, but Federal high command continued to blame Wallace, especially because of his status as an officer with no formal military education. Wallace spent the rest of his life trying to clear his name. (loc)
Chief of Staff Henry W. Halleck was Wallace’s political foe during the Civil War. For all of his bias against Wallace, though, Halleck’s performance during Early’s campaign through Maryland left much to be desired. (loc)
Similar commands now defended Washington— and it was no secret. In the same message to Lee describing his planned march North, Early assuaged his commander, “I hear there is nothing at Washington but the same kind of men,” meaning 100-day militia units that had never seen combat.
The defenses of the city took on increased significance in the summer of 1864, separated only by a matter of a few months from the presidential election in November. Although no Democratic candidate had been chosen yet—that would not come until August with George B. McClellan’s platform—if Early could threaten the capital, it would improve the chances of pro-peace Northerners who favored an end to the war at any cost. Abraham Lincoln already faced turmoil in his own party and administration, and any bid for re-election would be all but crushed if Early managed to get into Washington.
It would be a Herculean task for the 100-day units to face off against Early, but with Grant and Halleck all but asleep at the wheel of command, someone had to act. The nation’s capital lay all but undefended, and without any action, Early would march straight in unopposed. In his autobiography, Wallace dramatically recounted his reply to Garrett’s plea for help in defending the iron railroad bridge. Likely written with his novelist’s touch, embedding a touch of fiction, the lines still read dramatically and portend what Wallace’s decisions led to in the coming days:
“It is very clear,” I said, “that your iron bridge over the river at the Monocacy Junction is essential to communication with Harper’s Ferry, and as I have a block-house, with two guns in it, on the eastern bank covering the bridge, I will assume guardianship of the structure from my end of it to the other. You may take with you my promise—the bridge shall not be disturbed without a fight.”
* * *
Brig. Gen. Erastus Tyler served as Wallace’s second-in-command within the Middle Department. Tyler had served ably in the Shenandoah Valley as well as at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville before he, too, made political enemies of his own in the Union army’s command structure. (na)
The day after Garrett’s visit, Wallace began to set his troops in motion. While Wallace stayed in Baltimore, he sent orders to his direct subordinate, Brig. Gen. Erastus B. Tyler. Tyler had seen plenty of action, even fighting against Jackson in the Shenandoah Valley in 1862, but the gruff veteran was another officer who had seemingly been exiled to the Middle Department. His feud did not come with someone as high as Grant or Halleck but rather the Army of the Potomac’s Chief of Staff, Andrew Humphreys, who levied charges of misconduct against Tyler for actions during the battle of Fredericksburg in December 1862. Though acquitted for most of the charges Humphreys threw at him, Tyler was still an unwelcome figure in the Army of the Potomac’s hierarchy.
Tyler’s initial orders from Wallace read to deploy the 3rd Maryland Potomac Home Brigade (PHB). Wallace doubted that the single unit of infantry would be enough, and because of this, Tyler’s orders continued, “if necessary push . . . any other available troops forward to Monocacy Junction”—a stipulation Tyler soon exercised. In Baltimore, the mobilization
of the artillerists of Frederick Alexander’s local battery ended the “good time had so near home, where we could go three or four times a week, and get a square meal, have a good bath and change clothes, go to the theatre and other amusement,” as the battery’s historian noted years later. The gunners got to watch the July 4th fireworks over Baltimore—one last treat of home— before having to make their way to the Monocacy.
Other units also prepared to head towards the Monocacy and the railroad bridge, units including the newcomers, the Ohio National Guards. “[W]e received orders to be ready to take the [trains] in 30 minutes with 3 days [sic] rations . . .” one of the guardsmen wrote. “Not having any provisions cooked, we filled our haversacks with hard tack and raw sowbelly.”
As Wallace and Tyler pulled their troops together, no one yet had a clear picture of what exactly was coming North. Mystery and confusion zipped through the telegraph lines from Harpers Ferry to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. On Independence Day, July 4, Grant still insisted that “If General Hunter is in striking distance there ought to be veteran force enough to meet anything the enemy might have.” He even sent orders for Hunter that, when he arrived, he was to take command of the whole operation against whatever Confederate force may be in the area. Such orders were impractical, however; Hunter was still in the Kanawha, and it would be days before he arrived back in the theater of operations. And then, as Grant continued to depend on Hunter’s arrival from West Virginia, the telegraph lines west of Frederick went dead. “Telegraphic communication cut west of Frederick,” Tyler reported from the Monocacy River. From Harpers Ferry to Frederick, a distance of almost thirty miles, was now dead space.
“[T]he front which I had thought myself too far behind for any disturbance was swinging my way and demanding my presence,” Wallace wrote in his memoirs. He sent a request to Garrett: prepare a personal train for him.
Wallace may have been overly dramatic in his postwar reminiscences, but at the time, even he did not have a full grasp of the situation as it was unfolding, as suggested by his wife, Susan, writing from his Baltimore headquarters. “Lew buckled on his sword saying he would go down to Point of Rocks (the extreme limit of his Department) and look after a gang of guerillas there, would be back day after tomorrow,” she wrote, adding, “Once there he found things more serious than he expected.”
Wallace grabbed one aide, Maj. James Ross, and immediately after midnight of July 5, made his way to Camden Station. He hopped aboard a waiting engine and sped off towards the Monocacy River.
One of the most iconic stadiums in Major League Baseball, Camden Yards is home to the Baltimore Orioles and is near the spot where Lew Wallace climbed aboard a train to make his way to the Monocacy River. The famed warehouse at the stadium was built in 1899. (sr)
Looking down from the summit of Maryland Heights, one can soon see how the high ground dominated Harpers Ferry and allowed Federals to deny Jubal Early’s intentions. (sb)
Sigel Delays at Harpers Ferry
CHAPTER FOUR
JULY 3-6, 1864
Today Harpers Ferry is best known for abolitionist John Brown’s raid, hoping to spark a slave insurrection, against the Federal armory in October 1859. Quickly put down, Brown’s insurrection and subsequent execution made him a martyr to the cause of abolition and provided yet another spark to the tumultuous years leading up to the outbreak of war. Now Federal soldiers routinely went into battle singing “John Brown’s body lies a-mouldering in the grave,/ But his soul goes marching on.”
Located at the conflux of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers, Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, offered strategic avenues of approach for both sides. A Union force marching south could follow the Shenandoah like a dagger into the heart of the Valley; along the Potomac, a Confederate force had a clear shot towards Washington.
On July 3, a day after first making contact with Federal forces in the lower Valley, Early’s men broke camps and continued marching north. Their objectives were the two Federal depots at Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry; capturing both would net them a wealth of provisions as well as scattering any opposition capable of slowing them down.
John Brown (above) brought national attention to Harpers Ferry, then part of Virginia, when he attacked the Federal arsenal there in October 1859. When Brown’s raid started to fall apart, he positioned himself in the engine house of the arsenal (below), where United States Marines attacked and captured him. He was executed less than two months later. (loc)(rq)
Major General Franz Sigel, commanding at Martinsburg, knew Early’s men were on their way. He tried to gather as many of the supplies as possible and send them back down the track towards Harpers Ferry, even as his outposts began to make contact with Early’s vanguard. By the late afternoon of July 3, telegraph lines were clacking with reports of “severe fighting” at Martinsburg. The B&O operator in Martinsburg made his way out of the town as the Confederates closed in and reported back to Baltimore that, Sigel’s attempts notwithstanding, “Not more than one-half of the Government stores was removed. . . . Most that left is forage.” Sigel knew he had no choice but to pull his small force out of the town, abandoning the left-behind supplies to the incoming Confederates. Sigel marched his men to Shepherdstown and its crossing points over the Potomac River. As he crossed the river late on the hectic July 3, Sigel telegraphed a subordinate, Brig. Gen. Max Weber, another immigré commander, at Harpers Ferry. “I shall march to Harper’s Ferry at 2 a.m. to-morrow” Sigel told Weber.
Weber spent July 3 trying to get a response from Washington, D.C. He begged Halleck that night: “I need infantry very much.” The following day, Independence Day, Weber again tried to raise a response from Halleck, bemoaning, “I have but 400 men” but then also reiterating, “I shall not leave the town, except at the last necessity.”
Franz Sigel commanded at Martinsburg, West Virginia. As Early’s troops closed in, Sigel ordered out as many trainloads of supplies he could, then retreated towards Harpers Ferry. (loc)
As the Federals tried to prepare for the Confederates, Early’s men moved in. On July 3, Early had split his force, sending Maj. Gen. John Gordon’s division towards Martinsburg while Rodes’s and Ramseur’s divisions marched on Harpers Ferry. By July 4, those two division commanders closed in on the Federal positions. Weber scattered his small force throughout the town, with some of his troops positioned at Bolivar Heights while Union artillery protected the infantry from the dominating Maryland Heights. Ramseur and Rodes deployed skirmishers, and soon the air filled with the sharp crackle of rifles and musketry. Looking back at the fighting around Harpers Ferry, one civilian remembered, “At no time during the war was there as deep a gloom on Harper’s Ferry as on that anniversary of the birth of our nation.”
The fighting on July 4 around the town went quickly as Confederate numbers soon overwhelmed Weber’s force. “No regular line of battle was engaged in the attack,” wrote Thomas Wood, a soldier in Rodes’s division, “but our sharp shooters drove the enemy from Bolivar, and part of the town of Harper’s Ferry, capturing thereby quite a quantity of Commissary stores, even a plenty of luxuries.” The Confederates were all too happy to seize the stores, and Wood continued, “How strange to see ‘Confeds.’ with cigar, sugar, coffee, lemons, whiskey, and everything which the most fastidious soldier could desire.” The looting of supplies at Harpers Ferry by Confederate forces became one of the most talked-about incidents of the whole campaign, with one Georgian remarking that they “consumed” the spoils “and continued the celebration by a considerable display of fireworks— or firearms” and pushing the Federals further back.
Born in the Germanic state of Baden in 1824, Max Weber graduated from a military academy and, soon after, joined forces in the Revolution of 1848, serving under Franz Sigel, the same man he would cooperate with in 1864. Weber fled Europe in the aftermath of the failed revolution and settled in New York, where he joined the Federal army when the Civil War began. (loc)
The July 4 celebrations went on at Martin
sburg, as well, with one Georgian scribbling, “the yankes dident know that we was every whers. . . . Busy they were fixing up for a grate Juberlee goin to give a Big Diner Barbacure. They had every thing that could mention.”
At Harpers Ferry, Weber’s heavy cannon, most notable a 100-pounder Parrott rifle, continued to fire into the town as the Confederates celebrated their luxurious spoils. Jedediah Hotchkiss, Early’s topographer, described the fire as little but a nuisance, “doing little damage.” Even if the Federal artillery fire was more bark than bite, Jubal Early grew unsure of his troops’ combat readiness at both Martinsburg and Harpers Ferry. As they continued to loot, he tried to stress that “It is absolutely necessary that the most rigid discipline be enforced, else disgrace and disaster will overtake us.” There was still fighting to do—made all the more difficult on the night of July 4-5 when Weber decided to give up the entirety of Harpers Ferry and instead retreat up the high bluffs of Maryland Heights.
As Weber’s beleaguered force made their way up the Heights, they were joined by Franz Sigel’s column from Martinsburg, so that by morning of July 5, the Federals had about 6,000 men safely ensconced behind fortifications, looming overhead of Harpers Ferry. Sigel’s men brought with them 26 pieces of artillery that joined Weber’s battery and the 100-pounder Parrott.
Sorely outnumbered, Weber’s forces, soon joined by Sigel’s, retreated to the summit of Maryland Heights. With a height of 1,380 feet, Maryland Heights (top) overlooked the town and nearby Loudoun Heights. Though they lacked infantry, the Federal troops did have a 100-pounder Parrott rifle (bottom), named for the weight of its projectile. Firing from Maryland Heights, the 100-pounder could throw a shell almost 4.5 miles. (loc)(hfnhp)
