Team of Rivals_ The Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln - Doris Kearns Goodwin [416]
The two sides met at Monocacy River on July 9. Young Will Seward, a colonel now, participated in the fierce engagement. “The battle lasted most of the day,” he proudly recalled years later, “and every inch of the ground was hotly contested, until our men were finally overwhelmed by superior numbers.” During the fighting, Will’s horse was shot from under him, hurling the young colonel to the ground and breaking his leg. Encircled by rebels when he fell, Will was assumed to have been captured.
Secretary Seward spent a tense night at the War Department waiting for news of his son. He had just returned home after midnight when Stanton appeared with a discouraging report from General Wallace that Will had been wounded and taken prisoner. “None of us slept much the rest of the night,” Fred Seward recalled, and in the morning, “it was arranged that Augustus should go over in the first train to Baltimore to make inquiries.” At 3 p.m., Augustus telegraphed more hopeful news. Though Will’s injury was confirmed, he had not been captured. “God be praised for the safety of our boy,” Frances exclaimed. “With the help of one of his men,” Will somehow “reached a piece of woods; where mounting a mule, and using his pocket-handkerchief for a bridle, he succeeded, after a painful ride of many miles during the night, in rejoining the forces.”
The routing of the Federals at Monocacy gave Early an unobstructed path to Washington. As the rebel troops ranged through the countryside, they destroyed railroad tracks, stores, mills, and houses, much as the Union men under David Hunter had done in Virginia. Reaching Silver Spring, they came upon Monty’s Falkland mansion. Blair’s carpenter reported that the troops had immediately “commenced the work of wholesale destruction, battering the doors, robbing all the bookcases, breaking or carrying off all the chinaware, and ransacking the house from top to bottom.” The next night, they torched the house, leaving only a “blackened ruin.”
At the nearby home of Monty’s father, the patriarch, the soldiers scattered papers, documents, and books. They rummaged through the wine cellar and the bedrooms, littering the lawn with furniture and clothing. Elizabeth Blair was told that “one man dressed in Betty’s riding habit, pants & all—another in Fathers red velvet wrapper.” Still others donned assorted coats and uniforms, dancing with “great frolic” on the lawn.
The “perfect saturnalia” that Elizabeth decried was brought to an immediate halt when Generals Jubal Early and John Breckinridge arrived. Cursing the marauding soldiers, Breckinridge made them return stolen items. He retrieved the scattered papers and documents and sent them away for safekeeping. He asked Early to station a guard on the grounds to preserve the trees, grapery, shrubs, horses, and crops.
When Early inquired why he would “fret about one house when we have lost so much by this proceeding,” Breckinridge replied that “this place is the only one I felt was a home to me on this side of the Mts.” He explained that some years earlier, during a difficult period in his life, the old gentleman had taken him in, providing a “place of refuge & of rest.” A neighbor told Blair Senior that Breckinridge “made more fuss” about preserving the house and its possessions “than if they had belonged to Jeff Davis.”
When the older Blairs eventually returned home, they found a note on the mantel: “a confederate officer, for himself & all his comrades, regrets exceedingly that damage & pilfering was committed in this house…. Especially we regret that Ladies property has been disturbed.” In