The 1862 New York state election was held on November 4, 1862, to elect the Governor, the Lieutenant Governor, a Canal Commissioner, an Inspector of State Prisons and the Clerk of the Court of Appeals, as well as all members of the New York State Assembly.
Hello, my name is Tracy Evans I'm a park ranger at Monocacy National Battlefield. Currently I'm detailed here at Gettysburg working as a curator which has been a lot of fun. They have asked me to do a program about Monocacy which is nice because it is a battle that not a lot of people have heard about we're getting a little bit more well-known. It is a very significant battle it doesn't have the big names and big numbers as Battles such as Gettysburg but hopefully by the end of this presentation you will understand the significance of the battle and how important it really was in the scope of the war regardless of the smaller numbers. So this is beautiful picture of the 14th New Jersey Monument and I was just talking to a couple of people about the 14th New Jersey, you will hear more about them as we go through the slide presentation. We talk about the 14th New Jersey a lot because we actually have a monument on the field and it has the 14th New Jersey and their nicknamed the Monocacy regiment because they actually were stationed in that area protecting the junction of the B and O Railroad for about nine months during the war but we'll talk about them in a little bit. Let's get started, so here is Jubal Early this is who Lee referred to as his bad old man. I don't know if anybody is from the Frederick area for our sesquicentennial the local brew company did a nice very light beer which I thought was sort of ironic and called it bad old man. It might still be around I don't know. So Jubal Early was in charge of the forces that are going to be diverted out of Virginia in 1864. 1864 predominantly in the East the fighting is going on around the Petersburg-Richmond area Grant and Lee are vying for position there obviously. So what happens is Grant needs as many men as he can get in Virginia to help fight the Confederate forces. He believes there won't be a threat on the capital because most of the action is occurring there. He talks to Lincoln about diverting the forces to where he is in Virginia pretty much leaving the forts around Washington empty except for convalescing soldiers and clerks who are pulled in to work the heavy artillery if it was necessary, which is not necessarily a good idea. They're going to be sent down to Grant and Lee knows that. He knows that the capital is pretty well undefended, now he also knows that Union general Hunter has been in the valley pretty much wreaking havoc. Hunter is trying to get control of the valley, the Union and Confederate forces are always vying for position here, they want to keep communication open, this is where the Confederates were getting their supplies, and where they're feeding their army from. So Hunter has come down here with Union forces and Lee has sent Breckenridge and a small army into the Shenandoah to try to get rid of Hunter. He is not being successful in doing that and so what Lee decides to do is send his bad old man with an army of approximately 30,000 soldiers into the valley to reinforce Breckenridge and continue to go down the valley until he can get Hunter out. Early is going to be pretty successful in doing that this is where you hear about the famous battle or skirmish with the VMI soldiers and eventually Hunter is going to be sent out of the valley Not only is he going to be sent out of the valley he is going to be in the Ohio valley. This is what is going to cause a big communications problem for Grant because Grant, Halleck and Stanton in Washington, and the Union forces basically think that Hunter's not completely out of the picture and that he is going to take care of any remaining Confederate forces in the area. Also, that Early once he has been able to get Hunter out of the valley that he will return to Lee. Lincoln and Grant are convinced that Early has come back to Lee, however that's not going to be the case at all. There is a letter from Early to Lee while he is in the valley basically stating that they had a conversation before Early went into the valley to talk about what whether or not he should continue and try to march on Washington. The decision had not been made prior to his going into the Shenandoah. Once he was able to get Hunter out and he realized that the valley was pretty much open to the Confederates he sends this letter to Lee saying I'm going to continue going down the valley and try to get as close as I can to Washington. So what is the point of that? Well they know that the forts are fairly emptied out. If you can get to Washington they know they won't hold it and end the war. It's certainly going to be detrimental to the North in terms of its an election year and Lincoln didn't think he was going to be reelected at that point, the morale in the North is extremely low get into the enemy's capital and you can cause some destruction it's going to be a huge blow to the North, and thirdly and very important to the Confederates is that it will force Grant to move those soldiers out of Virginia and back into the forts of Washington and relieve pressure on the Confederate army. So, there are many objectives to this particular movement and even if they can't get into Washington they're hoping that by threatening it it will at least relieve pressure on the Confederate army in Virginia. So the Confederates go into Maryland pretty much undetected and unbeknownst to Union forces. Now enters in John Garret the president of the railroad and he was a very influential man at the time. He understands that there is a large Confederate contingent that is still in the valley and moving into Maryland. He has his folks out on the railroads working on the railroads and they are telling him the railroads are being torn up telegraph lines are being torn up this is a larger force than remnants of Breckenridge and McCausland in the Shenandoah Valley. So, he tries to convey this to both Lincoln and Grant and they are still convinced that Hunter will be coming back to take care of these remnant soldiers but it's not Early who is there and so no one's really paying attention. This has always been somewhat of a surprise to me because I know he was extremely influential at the time and they did respect him. I think there must have been they really believed that Early had joined back with Lee. John Garrett gets a hold of Union Major General Lew Wallace. Lew Wallace is in the Middle Department in Baltimore he has the 8th Army Corps he has about 1500 soldiers. These guys are basically 100 day men, they have signed up for 100 days they're going to guard duty they don't necessarily usually get into any sorts of battles but they're there just in case. The reason that Wallace is in Maryland is because of the upcoming election. Wallace has been very good at dealing with both the army, the politicians, and the electorate. He is there to sort of be in the middle and help quell any rioting that might actually take place in Washington. So, there are some similarities to what we have going on today in the midst of our election process, same thing was happening in the 1860s and Lew Wallace was there to try to quell any of that that might occur. So, he contacts Lew Wallace and tells him what is happening. Lew Wallace is going to send one of his men, General Tyler, out to Monocacy Junction. Monocacy is actually his westernmost boundary of his Middle Department. Tyler is going to go there he is going to send out some men to find out if there are Confederates coming and where they may be heading too. In fact citizens of the town and his men are telling him that yes there is a mass of Confederates making their way towards Frederick and we believe that its Early and his army. Wallace was going to take those 1500 100 days men they're going to be put on trains supplied by John Garret and they're going to be brought to the Monocacy Junction. He gets his 1500 men there and they are actually going to skirmish on two days on the 7th and 8th of July as Early and his men are making their way over the Catoctin Mountains. In the meantime, he had been getting word to Grant that he needed reinforcements. Actually, after Early and his men passed through Harpers Ferry now Lincoln and Grant are on alert that yes Early is there and they need these reinforcements. Wallace is going to be able to get 3,000 reinforcements, the 3rd division of the 6th Corps under Union General James Ricketts. They are going to get there literally just in time. They will be arriving the night of the 8th into the wee hours of the night of July 9th. The skirmishing will occur for about two days until the Union forces are going to fall back onto the east side of the Monocacy River. That's a really good strategic location and defensive location for them to be in. They know that well I say they know, Wallace knows and Ricketts knows, that they are not going to win this battle because even with Ricketts men there they have between 6 and 7,000 Union troops. Approximately 3,000 of which are veteran soldiers, meaning they have actually been in battles the other ones not so much mostly just guard duty. They're going to face Early's army and he has at his disposal approximately 15,000 Confederates. They come with approximately 30 pieces of artillery, meanwhile the Union has six. When they arrive at Monocacy Junction they will find in the block houses there for the railroad two more pieces of artillery. Because there at Monocacy Junction that's where the B and O Railroad bridge is and that bridge was always being protected during the Civil War. It's a strategic location and every time the Confederates come through there they try to blow it up. So, that's how we talk about the 14th New Jersey they were the regiment that was there for 9 months protecting that. Ironically enough they're going to be with the 3rd division of the Sixth Corps that comes back with Ricketts to fight in battle. In the junction area there are two pieces of artillery one was a mountain howitzer and the other was a 24 pounder howitzer. The 24 pounder had artillery with it but the mountain howitzer did not have any. They couldn't use that at all but the 24 pounder they made really good use of in the morning and then somebody loaded it backwards, so they couldn't use that one. Alexander's Baltimore battery came with six pieces of artillery, their big claim for the battle is that they arrived with six pieces of artillery and they left with eight because they did take those two pieces back to Baltimore with them and risking their lives to do so. They were under fire when they did that and they just didn't want the Confederates to get that artillery. Ricketts comes to the rescue and so we'll talk about the early morning battle that is going to occur on what is now 355. Has anybody been to that area on 355? Alright, a good bit of hands. Except for a few adjustments that's basically the Georgetown Pike and that was the main road from Frederick to Washington. One of the things that Wallace was trying to determine when he was bringing his forces there is where is Early headed. As we saw in the Antietam Campaign and in the Gettysburg Campaign it wasn't necessarily Washington being the object. They were maybe trying to get into Pennsylvania disrupt the railroad up there, try to get to Philadelphia, perhaps go to Baltimore raid the warehouses there, and then go towards Washington or where they just directly going to Washington. The way the forces were coming over the Catoctin Mountain they believed they were headed down the Georgetown Pike, the direct route to Washington, trying to get there as quickly as they could. What Wallace does is he is going to establish his men, as I mentioned, on the east side of the river. There is going to be two bridges. I'm going to skip forward here a little bit. This is the railroad bridge that you see up here. That's the railroad station on the B and O and then you have the bridge that goes over the river. There are two bridges that are going to be here. This bridge was a wooden covered bridge at the time. This is the direct line the Georgetown Pike the direct route to Frederick. So, the forces are going to be coming down here in the morning towards the Junction area. They're going to be trying to get as quickly as they can across that covered wooden bridge. They will ultimately try to destroy the Baltimore railroad bridge but they are just trying to get the forces across the wooden covered bridge. Now up on this side there is a bluff and there are entrenchments there from when troops had been there during the war protecting that railroad bridge they had put entrenchments up there. So, it's a great defensive position for the Union to be in as these Confederates are coming down here. General Ramseur ,who we see here, is going to be bringing his division of Confederates down into this area early in the morning. They are going to set up artillery on either side of the Georgetown Pike. You can tell this is an old picture because our Visitor Center is here now so this is a much older picture and this building isn't here anymore. Their forces are going to come down here they are going to set up their artillery and the Union forces will be on this side. Those 100 day men are going to be placed for the most part from this bridge over toward the railroad bridge here and then three miles from there is where the Baltimore Pike bridge is. He is going to place some of those men between there and the Baltimore Pike as well. Wallace knows at the end of the day he is going to have to retreat and he wants to make sure that he has got a retreat route down the Baltimore Pike to get his men back if they can't get the train. So, he is going to spread his men out there a little bit. There will be skirmishing down around the Baltimore Pike but its not going to be anything as fierce as what's going to happen in this area around the junction. Around 730 8 o'clock Ramseur is going to bring his men here, he is going to set up artillery, they are going to be putting pressure on the men on the east side of the river, and they're going to make pretty good work of it there will be several different assaults. Eventually, there are sharpshooters in one of the barns here on the Best Farm and they are going to be helping put the pressure on the Junction area. But, the artillery here eventually is going to get those sharpshooters out and that barn is going to burn. That's the first crop for that farmer who had just taken over for his father. They had been there for at least a generation and it was the first year he was taking over farming for his father and boom his first crop is gone. Don't feel too bad for him he was very successful postwar. What's going to happen is Wallace is going to send about 300 men into this little triangle right here. They have the river to their back, they have the road right here, and to their left and to their front and right they have the junction. They're going to be sent over there and their going to be in pretty close combat with these Confederates obviously. Now unfortunately for them what's going to happen is that somewhere around noon Wallace is going to see more Confederates coming he doesn't think his men can hold the bridge any longer and he orders the 9th NY heavy artillery to burn that bridge. When they do that it leaves these guys here on the other side. They're going to fight off about 3 more attacks by the Confederates until their fight is going to be over, but we will get to them later. I will mention George Davis. George Davis was a captain at the time and not in command of the unit. Amongst his 300 men who were sent over there was one company of the 10th Vermont and then a mix of those 100 day men. Captain Brown actually was the one who was in command of the 10th Vermont and the rest of the Potomac Home Brigade in MD who were over there. He had never he actually had never been in battle before and so he was not comfortable when he was confronted with the Confederates. The story is that either it was the dye in their uniforms being darker or that they had picked up and put on uniforms from the supplies in Hagerstown or Frederick and that they had Union uniforms on and he couldn't tell the difference. There is some debate about that I've read some quotes where they said the Confederates who were with them would not have worn Union uniforms. What we do know is that Brown, in disgust, gives his command over to Davis because he is afraid he is going to fire on his own men. Davis takes command and he is going to lead those 300 men over there for the rest of the day. That bridge gets burned unbeknownst to them. They have no orders around noon and they are going to continue to fight there until the end of the day or the end of the battle which is going to be around four or five o'clock. We are going to get back to these guys. I want to tell you about another part of the battle that's occurring at the same time. The Junction area starts around 8 o'clock in the morning, this is just another view, and its on this property here on the Best Farm where the barn is that burned down. We had a huge archaeological project that went on for about three years on that farm. One of the things they were trying to determine was where that barn was and unfortunately there were so many buildings on that property they really weren't able to find evidence of that. We know that is the approximate location of it. This shows you where the Confederates came down and where these Union troops were on the other side of the river right here. This would have been the Davis over here in that triangular field and then the support of the Union back here. This is how their movements went and this is where they would retreat. Basically what happens is we're going to get to fighting that occurs over here on the Worthington Farm. Once that bridge burned these men who had been here on the far side of the river supporting the Union they are going to change position and they are going to reinforce the 6th Corps men who are over here fighting the other Confederate forces. Here is John McCausland and he has with him about 1200 Virginia cavalrymen. He is given orders the day before the battle to find a ford in the river. Early's plan is is to send Ramseur's forces straight down the Georgetown Pike, get across the wooden covered bridge, and then have General McCausland find a ford in the river and then outflank them. They will much surround the Union and then be on their way to Washington. Decent plan if all he is facing are 100 day men. He thinks he can just push right through them. John McCausland finds the ford its about a mile south of the wooden covered bridge. That's going to take him on to the Worthington farm. With him is the 17th Virginia cavalry, we actually have this flag at the visitor center in a cabinet up in the museum if anybody wants to take a look at it. It was captured just after the battle and this is going to be the attack that occurs with McCausland. This is one company of 8th Illinois cavalry and they are basically doing reconnaissance up and down the river, burning some of the smaller bridges that farmers use, and they are going to be scouting it. Here comes McCausland's men fording the river and they are going to encounter those initial 8th Illinois. They are going to then go back to the Union line to let them know what's happening. Then you've got a Union skirmish line that's going to form up here. McCausland is going to attack and his men are going to march right into that line. They're going to get to about 100 feet of that skirmish line and then that front line of Confederates is going to be decimated. Now they are going to hurry up and retreat because what they had expected was somewhat of a coordinated attack. What they get was a line of 1,000 Union skirmishers who are well trained and they're resting behind a wooden fence and those Confederates can't see where they are. They're going to get to within about 100 yards of those Union soldiers and then they're going to pop up from that fence and fire that first volley. Very quickly those Confederates are going to be pushed back to the Worthington Farm. This is where the house on the Worthington Farm is beautiful house if nobody's been there. It opens only a couple times a year. I think maybe once a twice a year where we do some tours. John Worthington is watching from the second story and at the time of the battle 270 is not there that gets put in in the 1950s and it obstructs much of the view between Thomas and Worthington. But, at the time it was fairly flat with no trees so you could very easily see onto the Thomas Farm. Worthington is watching from his second story and he says they were marching as if on parade. Well they were fairly confident thinking they weren't getting into too big of a fight there until they encounter them. They will retreat and about the time of that retreat is when the bridge is going to be ordered to burn, around noon. Well that's when those Union reinforcements are going to come and help out that skirmish line of Union soldiers. Once that occurs the Confederates, they're not giving up, they're going to be doing reconnaissance of their own they know a little bit of what they've gotten themselves into. They are going to mount a second attack and basically they are going to try to outflank this line. Ultimately they are going to try to get towards the Thomas House and around to the Georgetown Pike. Araby Church Road that now goes by the Thomas House which is the administrative headquarters for Monocacy that is the Thomas House the road right there is the original alignment of the Georgetown Pike. Now that original alignment of the Georgetown Pike also had a slight not really a hill but a small area that was raised up. If you drive down that road you can still see that today and the soldiers said that they used that as a natural breastwork. It was somewhat convenient for them and they are going to reinforce that line as well as put sharpshooters in the Thomas House, which will be very effective. The Confederates will try to get in there as well. This house is going to be hotly contested throughout the day and there will be Union and sharpshooters in there. This house sustains more damage than any of the houses on the battlefield. So, here is McCausland and his men now outflanking or trying to outflank that Union line. They're going to make pretty good work of it until those reinforcements come. Now they're going to charge up and they're going to attack that Confederate line. There is a great letter from Vredenburg who was with the 14th New Jersey, we were just talking about them a little bit ago. He wrote back and forth to his mother and he says that the men charged up the Thomas Lane as if they were protecting their own homes. That's because you have the 14th New Jersey, the 10th Vermont, and the 87th Pennsylvania all in that charge but mainly the 14th New Jersey. As I mentioned those guys lived there in that area for 9 months. They knew these people they had dined with them and Vredenburg hunted with them. Vredenburg would bring his hunting dog he and Mr. Thomas would go hunting. He dined with them the night before Chauncey Davis with the 14th New Jersey. He apparently courted one of the daughters of Mr. Baker, I love her name Clementine America Baker. She is noted in Worthington's book as being a spinster at the age of 21. Chauncey Harris while he was there for 9 months met her and eventually they would marry. These people were entrenched into the community and so when they charged up Thomas Lane and attacked these Confederates it was in a sense as if they were fighting for their own homes. The second attack the Confederates actually do take the Thomas House at one point and they make pretty good work of it. Eventually obviously with the reinforcements that the Union get they are going to be pushed back again. Not to be completely setback, they would make a smaller third attack and be pushed back again. At this point you can imagine that Early was probably getting rather frustrated because he thought this would be an easy day. We actually don't know if he ever touched the battle field. Of course he was sending orders and getting reports but he was in Frederick all day ransoming the town for 200,000 dollars and supplies. That's what he had been doing in Western Maryland as he went from Hagerstown to Middletown to Frederick. Then with Bradley Johnson, who had actually detached from the Confederate army with some cavalry units, they were going to go to Westminster and Liberty town and some of these other places and try to ransom them as well. They were successful in some places not as successful in others. You know there was an interesting dynamic talking about that aspect of the campaign as well. A lot of the men who were with them were Marylanders. There are some stories of some of the small towns where the Marylanders would not help. They didn't want the towns to be ransomed and particularly some of the smaller towns. They didn't have the means for it. Early is of course getting this information and he thought this was going to be a pretty easy battle but now he is finding out that Ramseur was not able to get across the covered wooden bridge. There is still some fighting going on in the junction area they can't get across. McCausland and his cavalry have made several attacks onto the Union line they've been repulsed each time. So what to do now? He is going to send Major General John Gordon who is in reserve on the Buckeystown Pike throughout the day. He has a whole division who are pretty fresh, they've been resting all day listening to the battle. They are going to be ordered to cross the Worthington Ford. Now you've got a full division, 3,000 infantry, that are going to cross. They are going to be in three brigades under Clement Evans, Zebulon York, and William Terry. They are going to be sent to hit the Thomas farm in three different locations the left flank, the middle, and the right flank to try and collapse that line. Now keep in mind those veteran troops on the Union side they've been fighting all day and they also have a lot less artillery at their disposal than the Confederates do. The Confederates are going to bring at least two maybe three pieces of artillery across the river onto the Worthington farm. They also have artillery on the other side of the river that they are making use of there on the Thomas Farm, which is one of the reasons why that house is going to sustain so much damage. Now Gordon is going to be sent with these men. This is a great picture of the landscape you can kind of see the terrain. This is the Thomas House and this is Brooks Hill. To kind of put you on there in this map you've got Worthington here this is where McCausland and Gordon cross, this is the Union line, and this is Thomas over here. Now you've got three brigades of Confederates. Evans is gonna cross over Brooks Hill and he is going to engage the left flank of the Union army. When Evans crosses over there he is going to be in the front of his brigade, he is the first one to get shot. Where he gets shot is in his housewife, so he's got a housewife in his jacket. If nobody knows what that it is it is a sewing kit. Needles go into his body but he survives the encounter and he says that for the rest of his life occasionally he would be in excruciating pain and a needle would come out. Luckily it didn't completely do him in or hit any organs that would cause major damage for him. I can't imagine that being you're reminder of Monocacy. That would be Evans hitting the left flank there. Then you have York come up the middle and then as the two of them are making good work of that side they are going to go into retreat.Terry is going to come in and kind of sweep it all out. This action is going to occur within about a two hour period. Now for those of you who are familiar with the Civil War and familiar with Gordon at all you know he saw a great deal of action during the war. He was wounded at least four times at Antietam so he knows heavy fighting. He says of this battle that it was the hardest fought battle he ever had. I think that that is because it is in such a small area in comparison to some of the other battles and it was just condensed. It was a lot of people in a small area in a small time frame. Even though Gordon knew going into this fight that the Union soldiers were veteran soldiers at that point he knew it but his men going into the fight still didn't know it. The privates in those brigades when they were attacking the Union line they still thought they were attacking 100 day men and they are going to go into battle a little differently. It still put them to a disadvantage to some degree but ultimately they are going to outnumber. The Union the Union men have been fighting all day they don't' have as much artillery and they will retreat. There they go and the Confederates will go after them to some degree as they make their way past. Now keep in mind they don't need to really ultimately take the Confederates they just need to get across the river. They know that the Union will retreat, they are outnumbered. After the retreat the men who are at the junction area will continue to fight, while all of that was happening at the Worthington Farm. Ultimately Wallace thought they would be captured but that did not happen. Davis whose picture we saw before actually was able to lead his men across that railroad bridge. Now it was very dangerous but they were not under artillery fire anymore because the Confederates were afraid they would hit their own men being that they were literally right behind them on the bridge. In some cases they talk about them just grabbing the back of Union soldiers coats and throwing them off the bridge. So, it was a dangerous thing for them to try to do but they did it and most of them were successful. I think later in the 1880s, I don't know the exact date, but Davis would receive the Medal of Honor for getting the men across that bridge as many as he did. Ultimately the Confederates weren't going to continue to go across the bridge because if they did they would have been surrounded by Union soldiers. It was still pretty well defended up there so they will be in retreat as are the Union. They are going to try to get to the railroad because the trains had brought them there in the morning and they hoped the trains would take them back to Baltimore. However, when the artillery started in the morning the trains got out of there. They had to go back to Monrovia which was about 12-15 miles from there and they would ultimately get back to the Baltimore Pike, go to Monrovia, and then take the trains there to Baltimore. It wasn't completely over because the 16th Virginia would continue to follow the 8th Illinois Cavalry. The 8th Illinois Cavalry have been in this from the very beginning. They were the first ones to show up when Wallace had just arrived with those 1500 day men and they were assigned or ordered to Harpers Ferry. He knew the action at Harpers Ferry was over so he stops at Monocacy Junction and asks Wallace if he needs any help. Wallace says yes so he takes control of the 1500 100 day men and he was sort of in command of them for those two days they were skirmishing. It's his guys who are gonna be the companies and the first to engage McCausland's men as they come across the river. Not to be outdone, they are going to finish the day after everybody else retreats in Urbanna fighting the 16th Virginia cavalry. Who is going to chase them into Urbanna and a fight is going to ensue there. Ultimately, the 8th Illinois will kill the commander of the 16th Virginia, this is at least their 2nd commander to be killed that day, and they are going to capture the flag. That flag was given to Wallace as spoils of the battle and it's actually owned by the Lew Wallace study in Crawfordsville Indiana but Monocacy has it on a long term loan. We had it restored along with his uniforms and so those are the pieces we have in our museum. These are the two Medal of Honor winners from the battle. We have Corporal Alexander Scott, both of them being from the 10th Vermont, and he picked up a flag from two different soldiers who had been shot and the flag is of course very important. They are important symbols and it was a prestigious honor to be a flag bearer. They wanted to make sure those flags were not captured so as Alexander Scott was retreating from the field he would take two of those flags with him. Those men did not die of their wounds and eventually he would give them their flags back. He would receive the Medal of Honor for that. This is George Davis we talked about him getting the men across that railroad bridge that was an extremely brave thing for all those men to do and he is the one who led them over there. These are the monuments that we have on the field, largely done by veteran soldiers as it was for most of the battles. We have the 14th New Jersey the Monocacy Regiment. This is to the Pennsylvanians who were in the battle the 138th the 87th and I think there is one more regiment on there. They weren't actually at the battlefield there was a regiment that got the train and got as far as Monrovia and the train stopped they got their rations for the day and then they never went to the battlefield. Even though Wallace was asking where were they and they could hear the battle their commander was court martialed but their name got onto the monument. Then we have the 10th Vermont. These cows are no longer there nor is the pond. Funny thing about that pond, we had a lot of Canada geese. We have a neighbor and I can actually tell this story now because I know the neighbor better now and I tease him when I see him. He complained to the battlefield after this pond was removed that we needed to come get our geese back because now they were on his property. They weren't tagged they aren't ours, its pretty funny though. I tease him about it when I see him. The cows have been moved but there are these two monuments. There is one that was done to the Maryland Daughters of the Confederacy. The other is a Maryland monument and it is dedicated to Maryland soldiers who were on both sides of the war. Before we get into the houses which I'll just briefly go over before I run out of time. The significance of the battle of Monocacy was ultimately Early's men are going to get to Washington. They are going to get to outside of Fort Stevens but they will not make the attack when they maybe should have. These guys were tired it was July and in the 90s so there were stragglers. It took them two days to get to Washington which is about 40 miles. They waited another day before they attacked and by that time Early pretty well knew that soldiers were back into the forts. Grant did have reinforcements sent back to those forts as a result of the Battle of Monocacy. He knew that it was under threat so that part of the Confederate strategy was done. There was a panic in Washington. It was not significant enough that it rocked the election, created a mass panic, or a blow to the morale of the North so that didn't happen. Had the Confederates been able to get in who knows what would have happened. At that point in the war Lincoln didn't think he was going to be reelected but you don't know what is going to happen. So it is sort of a win loss for both. For the Union it was a surprise campaign they were not expecting it. So, the fact that Lew Wallace was able to delay them at Monocacy, so that by the time they get to Washington those reinforcements were there, was a huge coup for the Union. Wallace did that on his own. He had no orders to do it. In fact initially they thought he was gonna be in a lot of trouble until they realized what in the world almost happened and then he is congratulated for it. For the Confederates this was a really bold move for them. They got tons of wagon loads of supplies, clothes, animals, and all sorts of things so it was a pretty good campaign for them in terms of that they were able to relieve pressure for Lee in Virginia. Ultimately they are not going to be able to get into the city. Another tangent on that was a crazy idea they had that they were going to rescue the soldiers that were imprisoned at Point Lookout. That was stopped almost immediately because the Confederate Navy pulled out of that they weren't going to help. To think that there was going to be a raid through Maryland with Bradley Johnson and his men were supposed to go to Point Lookout and gather all these horses for these poor emaciated starving soldiers who were then going to be able to join the army it was a far flung conclusion that that was even going to be a possibility. That part of the campaign never came to any sort of fruition which Early thought was a ridiculous idea anyhow. Those really in balancing it out as sort of a win win a lose lose for both sides but ultimately it was called by Glenn Worthington. He was living in the Worthington house with his family during the Civil War. He would write the first full length book about the battle that came out in 1934 and it is entitled the Battle that Saved Washington. That in a nutshell is really the significance of the battle because it's the one campaign whose target was Washington and they got to the outskirts and had it not been for the battle of Monocacy they would've gotten in. Now would they have held it would the war have been over no but they could have done a significant amount of damage while they were there. There are all sorts of what ifs in history that we aren't going to talk about because it didn't happen. What we know are the facts but the fact is we do know they were ready to cause a lot of damage because of what they had seen in the Shenandoah. Hunter had just wreaked havoc in the Shenandoah Valley and they wanted revenge for what they had seen happen. Alright, I'll just briefly go over these houses. We are really lucky to have a lot of the historic structures still on the park. This is the Worthington House sort of as you see it today and it is as close as we could get to what it would have looked like during the battle. Glenn Worthington lived until I'm sorry his book came out in 1932 even though the copyright says 34 he died in 1934. He was part of an advisory committee that wanted to make this part of the military park system because when they were campaigning for it the battlefield, much like Gettysburg, was part of the military park system. In 1934 those battlefields would become part of the National Park Service. By the time that this became legislated it became part of the National Park Service. He and his group were actually successful in having this made into a national park. We will talk about the Worthington House a lot because Glenn Worthington was six years old when he watched the battle from this window down here. He would talk to veteran soldiers as they came back. He went to the University of Maryland law school and became a lawyer and then a well known judge in Frederick. He became part of this advisory group, he learned a lot about the battle, and then he wrote the full length account of the battle. To have a six year old child who watched the battle and then writes a full length account of it is pretty cool. It's a cool thing to relate to the kids who come to the park about how important what they see and what they do can be. It just is kind of showing you actually the different renditions so this is the 1930s you can see theres a lot more outbuildings. This building we believe would have been there in the 1860. It is very similar to what you would have had slaves or servants living in at the time. These other structures would not have been there there was a barn and other structures there but we don't know for certain they were there in the 1860s. This is a cleaned up version of what it looked like when the park service got a hold of it. This is after a lot of work of getting ivy and other things off of it and then this is what the restoration looks like. Its lovely the interior still needs to be redone and is number one on our list every year that goes before Congress of what we would like to have restored. Eventually we would like to have the downstairs as a museum, there still exists furniture from the Worthingtons. If anybody goes to the Frederick historical society you can see their sofa so we do have some artifacts that we can put in there. To put artifacts into the house a lot needs to be done to it. Uh oh. (slides freeze) Well that may be the end of the presentation. Alright, well there are several other houses on the property. We have the Thomas House, the Gambrill Mill, the Best House and the farm there. If anybody wants to come there is a great history that goes along with all those houses. Not just the fact that there was a battle fought there. The location itself of where the historic houses are and the battle logistically armies both Union and Confederate came through that area every year of the war because they are along the Georgetown Pike. The Battle of Antietam and Battle Gettysburg those campaigns troops came through there every time. A month after the battle of Monocacy Grant is going to hold a council of war in the Thomas House where he is going to relinquish Hunter of the valley and the western department. He gives them to Sheridan and he tells Sheridan to get rid of Early. That is going to happen at the Thomas House. In 62 during the Maryland Campaign the Confederate army will camp on the Best Farm for about three days. That is where Lee is going to write Special Orders 191. It is going to be found maybe on the farm or maybe just a little north of the farm but that is going to be a significant event that occurs. Basically, he was telling his commanders what he directed them for the next three days what he wanted them to do. One of those orders is going to be lost and then found by a soldier of Company F 27th Indiana. It is going to go up the ranks until it gets to McClellan that is a whole other lecture about the significance and the whose and whats of Special Orders 191. There is a lot of mystery that surrounds it but in a nutshell for anybody who knows about it and has ever questioned it I will tell you two cigars and an envelope. None of this three cigars wrapped or a letter wrapped around three cigars. That is a story that was told by Colonel Colgrove in the 1880s to the Century magazine and it may or may not have come to him wrapped around cigars but that is not how it was found. I have a letter from Bloss who was one of the soldiers who found it. He wrote a letter that is unpublished thirteen days after the fact from the barn hospital after Antietam. He says two cigars so that's what I'm going with he is the closest primary source we have to it. Everybody who doesn't know about it is asking what this have to do with cigars. I have no idea why it matters how many cigars but people are fascinated by those cigars that came with Special Orders 191 so its pretty much over anyhow.
The Constitutional Union state convention met on September 9 at Association Hall in Troy, New York. B. Davis Noxon was temporary chairman and made a speech stating that the object of this political body was to stop the American Civil War. Eli P. Morton was chosen president of the convention. Ballots were taken for governor and lieutenant governor. The vote stood as follows. For governor: Horatio Seymour 32, John Adams Dix 20, Millard Fillmore 6, Frederick A. Tallmadge 1, James Brooks 1, Lorenzo Burrows 1. For lieutenant governor: William C. Hasbrouck 29, Burrows 13, Washington Hunt 8, Brooks 3, William Duer 2, Tallmadge 1. No ticket was nominated, the Constitutional Unionists instead joined the Democratic convention on the following day.
The Democratic state convention met on September 10 at Tweddle Hall in Albany, New York. Henry C. Murphy was temporary chairman until the choice of Alonzo C. Paige as chairman. Ex-Governor Horatio Seymour (who was in office 1853–54, and had already twice lost the gubernatorial elections in 1850 and 1854) was nominated for governor by acclamation. Seymour then made a lengthy speech disagreeing with the political course of the Republican federal government.
The Republican state convention met on September 24 at Wieting Hall in Syracuse, New York. Ex-Chief Judge Alexander S. Johnson (a former Democrat) was temporary chairman until the choice of Henry J. Raymond as president. James S. Wadsworth was nominated for governor on the first ballot. Lyman Tremain (a former Democrat) was nominated for lieutenant governor.
The whole Democratic/Constitutional Union ticket was elected. The total votes cast were more than 70,000 less than in the previous election because the soldiers in the field were not allowed to vote, which is believed to have given a slight majority (about 10,000 votes of a total of more than 600,000) to those opposed to the American Civil War.
The incumbent Skinner was re-elected. The incumbent Hughes was defeated.
64 Republicans and 64 Democrats were elected for the session of 1863 to the New York State Assembly.
^ Since many former Democrats had joined the Republican Party and participated in the Republican convention, the Republican ticket became known as the Republican Union ticket.