Desperate Engagement How a Little-Known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C., and Changed American History

The July 9, 1864, Battle of Monocacy is one of the Civil War's most significant, yet little-known, battles. What played out that day in the corn and wheat fields near Frederick, Maryland, was a full-field engagement between 12,000 battle-hardened Confederate troops led by the controversial Jubal Early, and 5,800 Union troops, many of them untested in battle, under the mercurial Lew Wallace, best known as the author of Ben Hur. When the fighting ended, some 1,300 Union troops were dead, wounded, or captured, and Early-who suffered some 800 casualties-had won the northernmost Confederate victory of the war.

Journalist and historian Marc Leepson has written for many newspapers and magazines, including Smithsonian, Preservation, The Washington Post, The New York Times, The New York Times Book Review, and Military History. He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Americana and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography. A former staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, he has been interviewed on The Today Show, CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, All Things Considered, and Morning Edition. He is the author of six books, including Saving Monticello and Flag: An American Biography, and teaches U.S. history at Lord Fairfax Community College in Warrenton, Virginia. Please visit his website at www.marcleepson.com.