by Quint, Ryan;
Originally constructed in the late eighteenth century, the home once known as L’Hermitage has gone through several additions and stages. In 1864 when Union and Confederate forces clashed, the building seen above was not united, but was rather two separate structures—one the main home and the second a kitchen. (cm)
Follow the park access road back to the Urbana Pike and turn right. Continue on the Urbana Pike for 0.6 miles and then turn right onto Araby Church Road. Drive for 0.45 miles, and then turn right onto Baker Valley Road. Continue on Baker Valley Road for 0.64 miles and then, directly after the I-270 overpass, turn right onto the National Park Access Road for the Worthington farm. Follow the road to the parking area.
GPS: 39°21’42.0” N, 77°24’06.0” W
TOUR STOP 3: Worthington Farm
Clifton, the home of the Worthington family, played a vital role in the battle of Monocacy. The brick home was constructed in 1851, but the Worthington family did not move in until 1862. During the battle of Monocacy, most of the Worthington family—including the battle’s first historian, Glenn Worthington, who was six years old at the time— took cover in the basement of the home.
A loop trail brings you from Clifton down to the banks of the Monocacy in the general area of the Worthington-McKinney Ford, which was used first by Confederate cavalry, then Confederate infantry, to get across the Monocacy River. The exact location of the ford has been obscured over time as the Monocacy River goes through its geological evolutions.
During the climatic episode of the battle—Maj. Gen. John Gordon’s attack—his superior, Maj. Gen. John Breckinridge, made his headquarters in Clifton’s front yard. After the battle, wounded were gathered near Clifton before being treated for their wounds.
The cannon next to the home marks the location of the Monroe Artillery, commanded by Maj. William McLaughlin, which supported Gordon’s attack in the afternoon of July 9, 1864.
Follow the access road back to the Baker Valley Road. Turn left onto the Baker Valley Road and drive for 0.33 miles, and then turn left into the parking area for Thomas Farm A.
The Worthington family had only lived in their home for about two years when the armies came to battle in July 1864. (cm)
GPS: 39°21’26.1” N, 77°23’28.1” W
TOUR STOP 4: Thomas Farm A
Known as “Araby,” the main brick home was built circa 1780, making it the oldest extant building on the preserved portion of the battlefield. Christian Keefer Thomas bought the property in 1860 and owned it through the Civil War.
In late June 1863, the Army of the Potomac came through Frederick on its way to destiny at the battle of Gettysburg in early July. Over the course of three days, Araby acted as the headquarters for Maj. Gen. Winfield S. Hancock, commanding the II Corps.
A year later, Araby saw the climax of the battle of Monocacy. First, the property line between the Worthington and Thomas farms was the scene of Brig. Gen. John McCausland’s repulse around noontime (see Chapter Seven), and then Araby saw Maj. Gen. John Gordon’s bloody attack in the afternoon (see Chapter Nine). During McCausland’s second attack as well as during Gordon’s advance, the Thomas farm stood in the midst of the bullets and artillery shrapnel, and still bears the scars of combat today.
A series of trails leads around the Thomas farm. One of those trails, the Middle Ford Trail, brings you down toward the river, near where a rope ferry operated until the 1830s. Also visible on these trails are the road traces used by Federal soldiers for protection during Gordon’s attack.
The Thomas farm hosts National Park Service administrative offices today, and the building is closed to the public except for special occasions.
The fighting surged back and forth around the Thomas farm: First held by Federal forces, then pushed out by John McCausland’s troopers, then a Union counter-attack, and finally the climax with John B. Gordon’s division of Confederate troops. Here around Araby fell the most casualties of the battle. A walking trail, marked with blue arrows, curls around the property, covering the space that Gordon’s men attacked over. (rq)(cm)
Once finished with the Middle Ford and other trails, return to your car. Take a left onto Baker Valley Road and drive straight to the intersection of Baker Valley Road and Araby Church Road. Turn left onto Araby Church Road, and then turn into the gravel pull-off maintained by the National Park Service.
GPS: 39°21’41.7” N, 77°23’16.9” W
TOUR STOP 5: Thomas Farm B
This was the location of James Rickets’s last line of defense after having been pushed from the grounds of the Thomas farm. In the sunken cut of the Georgetown Pike, Ricketts’s men fired into John Gordon’s division before being outflanked on the right by William Terry’s Virginians. The Georgetown Pike was altered to its current form in the Urbana Pike after the Civil War.
A National Park Service wayside sign tells the story of the final push against the Federal forces inside the cut of the Georgetown Pike. (cm)
Two nearby monuments—one to Pennsylvania state forces and one to the 10th Vermont Infantry—mark the Federal line. The 10th Vermont held the left flank of Lew Wallace’s entire infantry force during the battle of Monocacy.
A month after the battle of Monocacy, in August 1864, the Thomas farm also served as the host site for a meeting of Union generals that included Ulysses S. Grant, Philip Sheridan, James B. Ricketts, and others, who had come to the Monocacy Junction to plan their next offensive.
Drive back to the intersection of Araby Church Road and the Urbana Pike (M-355). At the stop sign, drive straight across the Urbana Pike into the parking area for the Gambrill Mill.
GPS: 39°22’02.5” N, 77°23’14.7” W
TOUR STOP 6: Gambrill Mill
The Gambrill Mill marked the center of Lew Wallace’s battle line on July 9, 1864. Troops near the mill were drawing rations when the first Confederate artillery shells landed home, marking the commencement of the battle.
A short trail brings you down to the Monocacy River. The bridge for vehicular use on the Urbana Pike is constructed near the site of the wooden covered bridge that burned during battle. Also visible is a railroad bridge; this modern bridge is constructed on the same site as the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad Bridge—the bridge B&O President John W. Garrett so intensely wanted defended. During the battle, Federal skirmishers were forced to scramble over the railroad ties after the wooden bridge was burned to prevent its capture (see Chapter Ten).
A walking trail at the Gambrill Mill brings one down to the Monocacy River where the railroad bridge is visible as well as the Urbana Pike truss over the river—the original site of the wooden covered bridge. (cm)
The Gambrill Mill served as the National Park Service’s visitor center before the construction of the new center (Stop 1) in 2006. Originally two stories, the mill has been adapted over time. Behind the mill, on a small ridge, is a large home, architecturally in the Second Empire style, built by the Gambrill family in 1872. The Gambrills called the home Edgewood, but later owners of the home called it Boscobel.
In your car, turn right onto the Urbana Pike. Drive for 2.78 miles until getting to the intersection of the Urbana Pike and Monocacy Boulevard. Turn right onto Monocacy Boulevard. Drive on Monocacy Boulevard for 1.29 miles, and then turn right onto East Patrick Street (M-144). Drive on East Patrick Street for 0.16 miles. The road will fork, with opposite-direction one-way travel on the left while East Patrick Street continues on the right with a cut-through. Turn left onto the cut-through, and then right. Immediately after turning right, turn right again into the parking space for the Jug Bridge.
GPS: 39°24’18.3” N, 77°23’01.1” W
TOUR STOP 7: Jug Bridge
The Stone Bridge over the Baltimore Pike, defended by Brig. Gen Erastus Tyler during the battle of Monocacy, no longer exists. However, this “jug” did sit atop the bridge for decades, even witnessing the Marquis de Lafayette’s 1824 return trip to the United States. Rumor tells that a cask of whiskey was housed within the larger stone jug.
The area you are in now, extremely chaotic with traffic, in 1864 was rural countryside. This area was occupied Maj. Gen. Robert Rodes’s Confederate division. While the majority of the division stayed behind, Rodes deployed sharpshooters near here to engage with Tyler’s men (see Chapter Six).
Turn left onto East Patrick Street. Drive 0.23 miles to Monocacy Boulevard and turn left. You are now re-tracing the route you took to get to the Jug Bridge. Drive on Monocacy Boulevard for 1.29 miles back to the Urbana Pike. Turn right onto Urbana Pike and drive for 0.27 miles and then turn left into the entrance of Mt. Olivet Cemetery. The cemetery has two brick columns on each side of the entrance and, facing the street, has a black iron fence.
GPS: 39°24’23.0” N, 77°24’44.3” W
Though the stone bridge defended by Erastus Tyler’s Federals no longer exists, the “jug” that gave the bridge the nickname “Jug Bridge” still does. The name comes from a popular telling, likely apocryphal, that at one time a cask of whiskey sat inside the jug. (cm)
While stopping to see the jug, also notice the monument to the Marquis de Lafayette, a prominent French soldier who fought for the fledgling United States during the American Revolution. Lafayette made a return trip to the United States in 1824, where he was heralded as a hero and welcomed by thousands of grateful citizens, including at Frederick. (cm)
TOUR STOP 8: Mount Olivet Cemetery
Frederick’s most famous burial ground, Mount Olivet is home today to such luminaries as Francis Scott Key, who authored what would become “The Star Spangled Banner” while he watched the bombardment of Fort McHenry at Baltimore in 1814. Also buried here is Barbara Fritchie, a Frederick native who was made famous in an 1862 poem that purported her to flaunt an American flag in the face of “Stonewall” Jackson when the Confederates marched through Frederick in the fall of 1862. Glenn H. Worthington, the battle of Monocacy’s first historian, is also buried here.
More central to this book’s narrative, Mount Olivet also contains the resting place for hundreds of the Confederate dead from the battle of Monocacy.
For readers interested in seeing the resting place for the Union dead from the battle of Monocacy, you will need to drive to the Antietam National Cemetery. Originally buried on the battlefield or at nearby hospitals, Union soldiers were re-interred in the National Cemetery in post-war years.
A monument to Francis Scott Key, the most famous internment in Mt. Olivet Cemetery, dominates the cemetery’s main entrance. Key wrote “The Star Spangled Banner,” which became the national anthem by Congressional declaration on March 3, 1931. (cm)
The fifteen-foot high statue memorializing Confederate soldiers in Mount Olivet Cemetery (left) was unveiled in 1881 and constructed using Italian marble atop a granite platform. Conversely, the monument honoring Union dead, including those killed at Monocacy, at the Antietam National Cemetery (right), was unveiled in 1880 and weighs a grand total of 250 tons. (cm)(rq)
Turn left onto Urbana Pike, which in downtown Frederick is also called South Market Street. Drive for 0.233 miles and street park on South Market Street. Walk onto the campus of the Maryland School for the Deaf, which, during the pre-Civil War years, was known as the Hessian Barrack. During the Civil War, it was the site of U.S. General Hospital # 1.
GPS: 39° 24’539” N, 77° 24’578” W
TOUR STOP 9: Hessian Barracks (U.S. General Hospital #1)
Constructed to house Hessian prisoners of war during the American Revolution, the buildings here are now home to the Maryland School for the Deaf. Of the original barracks, only the eastern barrack remains. In the aftermath of the battles of Antietam and Monocacy, this site was used as a Union hospital to care for thousands of wounded soldiers (See Appendix B).
A soldier in the 151st New York Infantry became separated from his regiment during the battle of Monocacy and subsequently was detailed as a nurse at this hospital. “I am alone to wait on fifty or sixty patients, so you may judge how much time I have to write,” he quickly jotted a little over a week after the battle. About a month later, the soldier wrote on the progression of the wounded men: “Limbs that were taken off when they were first wounded are getting along nicely. A good many lose their lives because the doctors try to save the limb. If I am ever wounded in the joints, I will tell the doctors to saw it off at once.” (This contrasts starkly with the stereotypical-but-inaccurate depiction of Civil War doctors being incompetent butchers.)
Today on the campus for the Maryland School for the Deaf, this lone building is all that survives of the once-large complex for the Hessian Barracks, or General Hospital #1. Hundreds of wounded from the battle of Monocacy filtered through here. (rq)
From here, you have two choices. You can leave your car parked in its space and walk into town for the remaining stop, or you can drive there. Both follow the same directions, but street parking can be a scarcity in downtown Frederick.
Turn right, back onto Urbana Pike (South Market Street). Go straight for 0.45 miles, advancing through Frederick. In the middle of the block between West Church Street and West 2nd Street, is the final stop of the tour on the right side, the former City Hall and Market House, now the site of a popular Frederick restaurant.
GPS: 39°24’57.8” N, 77°24’38.3” W
TOUR STOP 10: City Hall and Market House—Where Frederick’s Ransom was demanded
This was the site of Frederick’s City Hall and Market House during the Civil War, though the present building dates to 1873. On July 9, 1864, Lt. Gen. Jubal Early issued a ransom for $200,000 from Frederick’s town leaders. If the demand were not paid, Early threatened to burn the town. After first delaying and refusing to pay the ransom, the city’s leaders turned to Frederick banks in the wake of the Federal defeat.
The building that exists today was not built until the 1870s. But on July 9, 1864, it was here that Jubal Early’s demand for a $200,000 ransom was delivered to Frederick’s market house. Though they originally resisted, the town’s leaders capitulated when it became clear that Lew Wallace was going to lose the battle. (jw)
Order of Battle
BATTLE OF MONOCACY
JULY 9, 1864
MIDDLE DEPARTMENT/ VIII CORPS
Maj. Gen. Lew Wallace
First Separate Brigade: Brig. Gen. Erastus Tyler
1st Maryland Potomac Home Brigade • 3rd Maryland Potomac Home Brigade
11th Maryland Infantry • 144th Ohio National Guard • 149th Ohio National Guard
CAVALRY: Lt. Col. David R. Clendenin
8th Illinois Cavalry • 159th Ohio Mounted Infantry • “Mixed Cavalry” and Loudoun Rangers
ARTILLERY
Baltimore Light Artillery • 8th New York Heavy Artillery (Detachment)
VI CORPS, ARMY OF THE POTOMAC (Detachment)
THIRD DIVISION: Brig. Gen. James Ricketts
First Brigade: Col. William S. Truex
10th Vermont • 14th New Jersey • 106th New York • 151st New York • 87th Pennsylvania
Second Brigade: Col. Matthew R. McClennan
9th New York Heavy Artillery • 110th Ohio • 122nd Ohio • 126th Ohio 138th Pennsylvania
ARMY OF THE VALLEY DISTRICT
Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early
BRECKINRIDGE’S CORPS: Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge
GORDON’S DIVISION: Maj. Gen. John B. Gordon
Evans’s Brigade: Brig. Gen. Clement Evans (w), Col. Edmund Atkinson
13th Georgia • 26th Georgia • 31st Georgia • 38th Georgia • 60th Georgia
61st Georgia • 12th Georgia Battalion
York’s Brigade: Brig. Gen. Zebulon York (This brigade consolidated the Louisiana Regiments from Harry Hays’s Brigade and Leroy Stafford’s Brigade—both of which had taken heavy casualties in the Overland Campaign.)
1st Louisiana • 2nd Louisiana • 5th Louisiana • 6th Louisiana • 7th Louisiana
8th Louisiana • 9th Louisiana • 10th Louisiana • 14th Louisiana • 15th Louisiana
Terry’s Brigade:
Brig. Gen. William R. Terry (This brigade consolidated the Virginia Regiments from the Stonewall Brigade, John Jones’s Brigade, and George Steuart’s Brigade in the aftermath of the Overland Campaign.)
2nd, 4th, 5th, 27th, 33rd Virginia Consolidated Regiments • 21st, 25th, 42nd, 44th, 48th, 50th Virginia Consolidated Regiments • 10th, 23rd, 37th, Virginia Consolidated Regiments
ECHOLS’S DIVISION: Brig. Gen. John Echols
Echols’s Brigade: Col. George S. Patton
22nd Virginia • 25th Virginia • 23rd Virginia Battalion • 26th Virginia Battalion
Wharton’s Brigade: Brig. Gen. Gabriel C. Wharton
45th Virginia • 51st Virginia • 30th Virginia Battalion
Smith’s Brigade: Col. Thomas Smith
36th Virginia • 60th Virginia • 45th Virginia Battalion • Thomas’s Legion
Vaughn’s Brigade: Brig. Gen. John C. Vaughn
1st Tennessee Cavalry • 39th Tennessee Mounted Infantry • 43rd Tennessee Mounted Infantry • 59th Tennessee Mounted Infantry • 12th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion 16th Tennessee Cavalry Battalion • 16th Georgia Cavalry Battalion
INDEPENDENT DIVISIONS (NO CORPS STRUCTURE)
RODE’S DIVISION: Maj. Gen. Robert Rodes
Grimes’s Brigade: Brig. Gen. Bryan Grimes
2nd North Carolina Battalion • 32nd North Carolina • 43rd North Carolina 45th North Carolina • 53rd North Carolina
Cook’s Brigade: Col. Philip Cook
4th Georgia • 12th Georgia • 21st Georgia • 44th Georgia
Cox’s Brigade: Brig. Gen. William Cox
1st North Carolina • 2nd North Carolina • 4th North Carolina • 14th North Carolina 30th North Carolina
Battle’s Brigade: Col. Charles Pickens
