At this point in the war, he was the commander of the unions middle atlantic department, which was basically his job was he was military governor of baltimore. It wasnt a very plum assignment. Well, reading the same intelligence that the union high command got and didnt do anything about, wallace did something. The other thing that helped him here was that the head of the b. N. O. Railroad, a man named john garrett, he had his network of intelligence who were the station masters all along the b. O. Railroad. They are heading your way. So wallace picked up on this and on his own, dont forget he was in hot water with grant and halllock, no orders, he gathered up 2800 men, about all he could get, and came down to the western most point of his jurisdiction, which was right here, and he set up on the eastern bank on the monacacy river. Lou wallace, after the war, became a novelist and he wrote the second most popular novel of the 19th century, which was benhur and also wrote an 800page memo
You can read faster than i can talk so i wont read the slides. I want you to see beautiful places i love. They are history and parks and recreation and National Resources and frankly the lungs of the city are largely these forts and the parks. So there we start. As frank said the city was unprotected down below. This is Fort Washington. If you havent been there, you should go. Its quite different from the forts that were built during the civil war. After bull run, lincoln knew the city was vulnerable. Thats when he ordered director Major General john g. Barnard to design forts around the city to protect it. Here they are. These are the ones available there. It was quite an amazing feat to build all those. It was just tremendous. Here they are there. Ive circled them here on this old map, the ones that are under government ownership today. The park service owns all the ones in washington, d. C. And one in maryland and one in virginia. The ones in virginia are owned by local governments.
Kind of oversaw the fortifications during most of the war, as they redid and reconstructed some of these forts, he decided new guns would go in and help cover this which it wasnt doing before. So your plans for the fortifications, the system of fortifications did change over the four years of the war. Coming back, i told you we would stop and i would show you what some of the 360degree angle guns look like. See, the carriage is a little bit different, but this shows you, and you notice the bottom, that gun could be turned 360 degrees so you can fire. Now, if the gun is mounted, basically youre probably only going to want about 180degree turn, but it could be fired the other way if needed. So that gives you a good idea. But you can see the abatee. Notice the abatee coming up, the pointed stakes that i mentioned on the outside. So its in the ditch on the outside to try to keep enemy from coming in. But you can see that it is clear field of fire in front. This is ft. Stevens which is one
There. Units from washington came out to do some skirmishing. The next morning, july 11th, early, whos one of those generals out on the horse leading the men, made it right out here, right to the outskirts of fort stevens. If you can picture washington, d. C. As shaped like a diamond, we are right at the very top of the diamond, in the northwest portion of washington, d. C. Early about noontime was out of the gates of fort stevens right out here. He had the capitol dome in his sight at noontime, and what did he see . He saw this very impressive series of forts. He saw this fort and it was connected to several other forts around here. It looks impregnable and he saw troops here. Early did not know these were 100 days men and the call went out for civilians to come out and help man the barricades, so you had clerks from the state department, men from the Quarter Master corps, people who have never fired a weapon in their life. The word motley comes up more than once, but early did not kn
Generals men. The president of the railroad is telling him its a real threat and grant is going to move rather slowly. As the confederates will now move toward isolating the union troops, which evacuated Harpers Ferry on Maryland Heights and close in on frederick, maryland. On frederick, maryland, they have occupied it on the 8th day of july. A union army has been assembled there on the banks of the river and on the 9th day of july at the battle, who would write the most popular novel written in the 19th century by american author ben purr. When evacuates and leaves the battlefield he falls back on baltimore leaving washington uncovered. Many of the thousands of men who had been manning the washington forts, the 87 forts and batteries had been called to fill the vacant ranks as we talked about in those wonderful songs we were led in as they are father abrahams call. And they are going to become instant infantrymen. Many of them we have just heard from our lecturer, many by the black me