• Choose a category
• All
• Classic-Fiction

The time the Confederates lost during the Battle of Monocacy and the frolic at Silver Spring allowed Washington to mobilize its defenses. In his initial panic, Stanton had sent his secretary to take his bonds and gold from a War Department safe and place them under his mattress at home. He took heart from Lincoln’s calm demeanor, however, and thereafter, the two worked together as one during the crisis. They telegraphed Grant, who put his highly respected Sixth Corps on a fast route to the capital. They called up the militia, supplied government clerks with muskets, and ordered “all convalescents capable of defending the forts and rifle-pits” to report for duty.

Throughout the tense days, Lincoln remained “in a pleasant and confident humor,” observed John Hay, not seeming to be “in the least concerned about the safety of Washington. With him the only concern seems to be whether we can bag or destroy this force in our front.” Welles noted approvingly that Stanton “exhibits none of the alarm and fright I have seen in him on former occasions.” As nervous farmers with homes in the Confederate path poured into Washington, the president and the war secretary drove together through the streets in a open carriage, “to show the people,” one resident thought, “that they were not frightened.” Such calm evinced by the administration had a salutary effect, allowing the residents of Washington, who had despaired in the wake of Bull Run, a measure of solace. Some “could even appreciate,” as Fred Seward noted, “the grim humour of their predicament, in being thus suddenly attacked from the north, after having sent their available troops to the south.”

By the time the Capitol dome was visible to the rebel force, the opportunity for a successful attack had receded. “Before even the first brigade of the leading division was brought into line,” General Early later acknowledged, “a cloud of dust from the direction of Washington” revealed that Grant’s reinforcements had arrived. Furthermore, inspection of the Union fortifications revealed them “to be exceedingly strong…with a tier of lower works in front of each pierced for an immense number of guns.” Stretching “as far as the eye could reach,” the earthworks appeared in many places to be “impregnable.”

Still, Early refused to withdraw. He was determined to show the North how close he had come and sent a small force to engage the Union troops at Fort Stevens, about five miles from the White House. The skirmishing continued for several days, during which time Lincoln witnessed the action from a parapet, accompanied by Mary on one occasion, by Seward and Welles on another. The tall president’s presence in the line of fire made a vivid impression upon those who were there. “The President evinced a remarkable coolness and disregard of danger,” recalled General Horatio G. Wright. Even after a surgeon standing by his side was shot, “he still maintained his ground till I told him I should have to remove him forcibly. The absurdity of the idea of sending off the President under guard seemed to amuse Lincoln, but in consideration of my earnestness in the matter, he agreed to compromise by sitting behind the parapet instead of standing upon it.”

Still, Lincoln would periodically stand, provoking concern on the part of a young captain who shouted, “Get down, you fool!” Years later, the captain, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., son of the poet whom Lincoln greatly admired and himself to become a distinguished Supreme Court justice, would recall this unusual incident. For the normally sedentary Gideon Welles, to witness live action “was exciting and wild,” until the sight of dead soldiers carried away on stretchers instantly sobered his mind. “In times gone by I had passed over these roads little anticipating scenes like this, and a few years hence they will scarcely be believed to have occurred.”

Having made his point, Early retired as swiftly and mysteriously as he had come, leaving behind a spate of recriminations. The misguided