Existing comment:
Best Family Farm.
7:00am, July 9, 1864: Confederate troops under Lt. Gen. Jubal A. Early streamed through the gaps of South Mountain and the Catoctins and headed south past Frederick. Bound for Washington D.C., they were stopped here at the Best family farm by Union troops defending the bridges over the Monocacy River.
General Early decided a head-on attack would be too costly and spread his men across these farmlands. While Maj. Gen. Stephen D. Ramseur pinned down the Union center, Early sent Brig. Gen. John McCausland and Maj. Gen. John C. Breckinridge around to the southwest, hoping to find a place to ford the river and attack the Union's left flank.
8:30am July 9, 1864: The John T. Best family was going about its chores of tending cows, hogs, chickens and fields of wheat, oats, and corn. The Bests were used to working amid soldiers, for Union and Confederate troops had camped here on the South Hermitage farm several times since the Civil War broke out in 1861.
This time, however, Confederate sharpshooters in the barn and artillery on the ridge behind the house hammed Union troops at the bridges spanning the Monocacy River on the farm's southern edge. Union artillery responded and set the barn ablaze. The Bests lost their grain, hay, and farm tools -- and the battle had just begun.
Lee's Lost Order: During the 1862 Maryland Campaign, Robert E. Lee's Order No. 191, which outlined his army's movements, was found wrapped around cigars in a grove of trees at an abandoned Confederate camp on the Best family farm. Ever cautious, Union Gen. George McClellan did not use the information to his full advantage at the Battle of Antietam. |