Reviewer: Michael Russert
Michael Russert, a member of the North Shore Round Table of Long Island and the Company of Military Historians, has a MALS plus 60 hours in American Studies. He is Coordinator of The New York State Veteran Oral History Program.
Review:
How important was the battle of Monocacy? Did it indeed save Washington, D.C., from Confederate occupation in the summer of 1864? And was it, as the author of Desperate Engagement suggests, a battle that actually altered American history?
The battle of Monocacy was fought on July 9, 1864, in farm fields some four miles south of Frederick, Md. Approximately 12,000 Confederates under Jubal Early defeated a Union force of half that number under Lew Wallace along the Monocacy River. The battle was part of Early’s 1864 Valley Campaign.
Following the engagement, as Wallace’s troops retired toward Baltimore, Early’s Confederates marched toward Washington. This event created great chaos in the capital since a mere skeleton force defended the city.
Marc Leepson’s thesis proposes that, although the Confederates won a victory at Monocacy, it delayed Early long enough for the entire Sixth Corps from the Army of the Potomac and the Nineteenth Corps to arrive to strengthen Washington’s defenses. He, like other historians before him, agrees that this battle did perhaps save the capital from Confederate occupation.
However, Leepson contends the battle actually “Changed American History,” as stated in the book’s subtitle. (Interestingly, the dust jacket title proclaims the battle “Changed American History,” while the title page subtitle states, the battle “Changed the Course of American History.”)
Leepson begins his study with the Antietam Campaign and concludes with the Overland Campaign as an introduction to his narrative about Monocacy. He follows Early into the Valley, through his defeat of Hunter and his march toward Washington.
Ironically, as Leepson notes in his title, Monocacy is a “little-known Civil War battle” that saved the capital, yet only 35 pages of the 236-page text are devoted to the actual Monocacy engagement. If Monocacy is the focus of the book, perhaps more of the narrative should have reflected this.
Others, like the author, have concluded that Monocacy saved the capital from Confederate occupation in July of 1864; however, from a close reading of the text, one wonders how close the Confederates were to investing the city of Washington, D.C., or did they have any real intension to occupy the city?
Certainly Early was not that rash, and his three excellent division commanders — Stephen Ramseur, John B. Gordon and Robert Rodes — realized the military improbability that they could occupy the city even for a brief time. Early, it appears, was more concerned with a perceived threat, rather than an actual assault on the city’s defenses.
The author gives great credit to Lew Wallace for his delaying battle that prevented Early from seizing the capital.
He fails to fully comprehend the importance of the goals accomplished by Early for removing Hunter from the Valley, diverting the Sixth and Nineteenth Corps from Grant, and thus extending the length of the war. Early’s primary goal was to relieve pressure on Lee and to make the Northern politicians apprehensive.
In his conclusion, Leepson bases much of his analysis on the jaundiced commentary of the caustic Assistant Secretary of War, and Grant ally, Charles Dana. When the author suggests that there was no single overall commander on site, he is critical of everyone except the commander of all Union forces, Grant.
The author has made use of a variety of primary sources including accounts by participants, period newspaper articles, letters, diaries and after-action reports. His premise that if the battle at Monocacy was not fought the war may have had a different outcome is arguable.
Desperate Engagement is a readable history of this little-known action. Leepson, however, does not present any new information. He admits that he relied heavily on the previously published studies of Monocacy by Benjamin Franklin Cooling, Ed Bearss and Glen Worthington.
Three maps, only one of which is devoted to the battle, accompany the text, whereas Bearss’ monograph has five detailed battle maps of troops movements at Monocacy.