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Wallace Defends Monocacy:
At Monocacy, Major General Lew Wallace attempted to delay the Confederate advance and give Grant more time to move troops into the defenses of Washington.
Wallace chose to fight along the banks of the Monocacy River, which offered the Confederates few crossings. In the pre-dawn hours of July 9, a train from Baltimore arrived at Monocacy Junction carrying 3,000 veteran soldiers from the Petersburg defenses -- a division of the Sixth Corps commanded by Brigadier General James Ricketts. By dawn, Wallace was ready for battle.
"Then I thought of the city, the library, the beautiful Capital, all under menace..."
-- Major General Lew Wallace, from his autobiography |