. . . . . . . . and if it gets too bad you can call on him to come here. he is a week away. time is getting of the essence as the days kick by and as they continue to dismiss those concerns. that somebody else is lou wallis. his headquarters is on utah street not very far from where the baltimore orioles play. he is bored. he has political connections and she there to kind of keep baltimore in check. baltimore since the beginning of war has been a nuisance, a thorn in the union war effort. you have the riots in 1861 and this kind of dis -- they have been keeping a lid on that that's when john garrett arrived and explains the situation. this is wallis's chance to come to the front. wallis had been at the battle of shiloh. the first day wallis had been given orders to come to grant's aid to attack those confederate camps and grant will insist that wallis is lost. he will insist he had the right idea. henry hates him because he is not west point. he has one condition to like you or not. are you a west point graduate. if you're not you're not worth the time of day. so when he had been given command in baltimore how could it it seems better than murder. it seems impossible to prevent it. so she wringing his hands. so with him come to go baltimore and saying i need help on my railroad slou it. if he asking henry for help what are they going to say? don't worry about it. it's not your job. wallis will kind of return that no love loss kind of situation. he writes he had no genius. it is one who frustrates or ruins a plan by undertaking it or increasingly meddlesome. he is calling him a busy body he promises he will defend that railroad. wallis's department, the middle department, the western boundary is the river. he cannot officially go across that river. it is his boundary. so he is going to say to garrett, i will defend your iron railroad bridge. you'll do that. at midnight without telling anybody he grabs one staff officer, hops on a train and rides out. it is important he doesn't tell him. she worried he will be told no. he does it anyways. he will kind of do first, ask permission later kind of attitude. it is okay to have an attitude about getting ready far fight and another thing to be ready and prepare far fight. his department is connected to what's called the eighth army corp. wallis has about 2,500 men at his disposal. they are not hard line veteran soldiers. they have been raised in maryland, raised in ohio, brought to baltimore to hold those forts down while everybody else is stripped. the good news is wallis has a good commander who is also on that west point train. they kind of mush in that sense. so in their hands lies washington. tyler will be sent out with those 2,500 men. ton right hand side you can see that railroad bridge between the hills an things. you can see the federal soldiers starting to build block houses. they are starting to build rifle pits because they are waiting for the confederate force. they are not sure what's coming. it does not actually report to wallis. when he arrives on the field wallis says you got it. tell me where you need me. they have experienced troopers to add to that campaign. he also has more help. finally by july 6th of 1864, almost a week after garrett first raised the alarm maybe there is something going on. as the reports of these federal build up continues they finally decide something has got to be done. so on july 6th they order one division to leave the trenches of petersburg. that is james b ricketts. he had been shot in the chest. recovers and goes on. so if you need one man to do the job he is a good choice. his men will leave petersburg and load onto steamers and make their way to baltimore. that day he says he will not until there is a necessity for it. there is nobody except this hodgepodge of soldiers there. he is still kind of doing the sand counting. here is the union division. so that will continue to delay the union response. wallis has broken that middle department barrier. he has decided he is not going to be there, which is on the right hand side of the map. he decides we'll slow them down here. he sends the rangers up to the mountain passes to hold the passes. so what's going on interesting is that the confederate army is bradley johnson's brigade. what you have are unionist virginians fighting against marylanders. those rangers are not ready to fight the confederate veterans. so they fall back. johnson will follow them. so the fighting will continue around the fields outside of frederick. it becomes known as battle. wallis will deploy other units and together they will help drive back johnson by the evening of july 7th. what's happening here is wallis is continuing to delay. he realizes if he can old on far little while it might get reenforcements. he is aided byron. he saves the day. it's not a situation you get to say very often. he wanted to head straight for the gut of washington. you know the one key position of that is maryland heights. so they have to march around. they see the graves of the day from september 1862 battle. they march to the passes of south mountain. they see the fighting that dr. jordan talked about last night. as more and more soldiers continue to build up in south mountain wallis is starting to get reenforcements. the first of soldiers arrive. an interesting thing about this is the fact that they were not ordered to help wallis. their objective was to land in baltimore, get on trains and go to harpers ferry. to go there you have to go through the junction. wallis will waive down the first train. it will demand who stopped this train on whose authority. he'll explain the situation. henry will agree i needed more than is here. others will also off load. he had already reported back. i have had the best little fight of the war. she feeling pretty good about himself. he is delaying the confederate forces. as they continue to come and as they continue to come both sides building themselves up. wall wallis's fool good attitude starts to pass away a little bit. you can see the dust build up. more and more are coming down up to the south mountain passes and down towards frederick. he realizes it is not the place to fight the battle. and so what he'll do is he'll move back ton evening of july 8th he falls back across the river. he know to get to baltimore he needs to cross. if wallis can hold it long enough he can get reenforcements to both of those cities. by the morning of saturday his 6,500 men or so have fallen back to his positions. it is to strike, find that advantage to attack. wallis isn't doing that. he will sit here and wait for confederates to come. it is kind of waxed and he says now there is nobody but us. if we can maintain ourselves here and by cook or crook get 36 or 40 hours on early that added to the marching required of him will give him ample time to get into washington and make it. so it is another hour to allow the reenforcements to washington. the abiding theme remains that of time. every minute, every second, every hour will come into play. so the battle will begin. the battle will begin early in the morning with skirmishing. it will continue into 9:00 a.m. and 10:00 a.m. at 10:00 a.m. they discover a fort he haggles over a $200,000 ransom. so this confederate brigade had that and is playing a man of blind man's bluff. they are riding forward and they expect malitia they can wipe off the map pretty easily. they will run into the two brigades from the army of pa tommic. as those virginian troopers advance it will wait as veterans wait. they will wait for the virginians to get 150 yards away, 100 yards away and they will open fire. save and accept the attacking force had vanished. they will start to reform and try it again they will attack towards the thomas form this time fighting with union reenforcements being rushed up. they will say with very heavy los especially on our left when the road and yard were literally filled with the dead and dying. they will fight against rods. they are fighting against the best they have so offer. as he deploys down the baltimore pike they will meet them head on. they will skirmish heavily in the fields outside of frederick. that fighting has one participant then came to tug of war. and then because as the second of that attack is around the thomas farm now you finally have confederate infantry crossing. the louisiana tigers, these three brigades total around 3,300 men. they get ready to attack. at 3:30 they attack and hit them head on. this attack here that i like to describe is a stand up knock down fight. you the veterans duking it out and they are trading shot 1-1. by 1864 the name of the game is stop, dig a rifle pit and dig in. there is no time he says the bullets fell like hailstones. the boys fell all around me. it will devastate these soldiers. his own brother is wounded in front of the georgetown pike. they fall back towards what is called the georgetown pike. after years of travel has sunken down. they dig in. this is their final position. again gordon's men attack and trade shots back and forth. the new jersey infantry looses 40% and looses four color barrie barriers. the flag goes down. the flag comes up. so that by 4:30, 4:45, 5:00 his men continue to attack. they are starting to gain ground. his men have beaten back gordon once. their ammunition is running out. they are running up high on those casualties. by 5:00 his men break back towards the baltimore pike by the end of the day there are about 2,200 casualties. about a thousand cob fed rat losses. those thousand losses came in the form with one of the hardest hitting units. if the day was lost to me measured by his descienigns my was worth a pinch of good scotch snuff. that's the last thing he ever wrote. his mwere unfinished his wife will finish it and publish it for him in 1906. wallis, even though he is defeated talks about a grae defense. every minute, every hour counts. on the night of july 9th the rest of the union core loads up on steamers and make theirs way not towards baltimore but washington. we aren't going to defend harpers ferry. now it is against washington, d.c. so we come towards the tail end of the campaign. we come towards as he continues his march against washington. he was forced to police the battlefield, clean it up on the night of july 9th into july 10th. he makes a b line for the outer limits of washington d.c. it is extremely hot on july 10th. the soldiers drop out from heatstroke. columns stretch out as that heat continues. he has to stop on july 10th and continue on july 11th. on july 11th he'll reach the outskirts of washington. and chris mentioned these last night. yes, washington has a string of almost 68 forts. they don't mean anything if they are not empty. they are being manned by clerks from the war department. montgomery megs had written to him saying my guys don't know the manual of arms. they don't know how to load a musket. he is teaching them. it is on july 10th, on july 11th. it comes up on july 11th and starts to skirmish. confederates can see the dome of the capital building. it's right there. all we have to do is reach out and take it. fighting stiffens. as early arrives on the field and he swears and he looks because he notices the flag starting to mount the ramparts have greek crosses on them. greek crosses are the unit symbol and they arrive on july 11th and start off loading. lincoln is there personally waiting for them. baltimore's sole objective is to whisk him off. he is angry when he finds out baltimore was waiting for him. they rush through the treats of washington to those defenses on the outer limits of the city. washington an hour before was in panic. now as people saw the veterans marching through their streets the excitement subsided. union soldiers, veterans and petersburg mount the works around fort stevens. that night will have a conference of commanders and he explodes at them. he will accuse them. you ruined our whole campaign because they didn't press the advantage on july 9th, 10th or 11th. he is frustrated. by july 12th now they are fully manned and now the position if it had any chance at all of breaking through is sealed shut. so the campaign for washington ends. i think july 14th is one year since the battle of falling waters. it is one year since he retreated. we talk about it as the last invasion of the north, not quite. so what about wallis? it goes back to baltimore. they are not taking part. you tllost the battle without instruction. before it realizes it was a big deal and then he gets that job back. so it's a defense for reputation that had been beaten up is suddenly restored. people start blame others. it will focus in on who is to blame. he says how can stanton have any confidence in hallick. they suggest he should be out to the northwest. so his star will rise out of this. i will give the last word. in 1885 there's a book about that. as he finishes grant writes there is no telling mhow much i was contributed to by what might be a war on hope. if early had been but one day earlier. general wallis contributed by his defeat a greater benefit to the cause that falls to a lot of commander to render by means of a victory. when we talk about great defenses great defense does not have to be a victory, as it's clearly not here. it saves washington. it is known as the battle that saved washington. glenn worthington every second, minute, hour mattered in this situation. he will become territory y'all governor, deal with billy the kid. he will write becoming the best selling american novel. it will be his legacy. it's a legacy she proud of. it will continue onto this day. i want to thank you all so much. we are all set. [ applause ] >> do you have any idea why they retreat east towards baltimore instead of southeast towards washington? >> yes. that's a good question. kind of a couple of different circumstances. one, baltimore is wallis's responsibility. he has to go back to it. secondly, as gordon will attack on the thomas farm it's almost as a matter of you have to. you'll almost seal off the georgetown pike. some of his men are almost captured. by the time the order is given they can't retreat. there is already confederates on it. everybody else is forced to go back towards baltimore. >> yes. >> i'm jim. i loved your presentation on this battle. >> thank you so much. >> i wanted the to ask you, can you tell us some of the details where he was relieved of command and what orders took over so he was put back into his officer ship? >> right. so what's going to happen is wallis is going to get relieved for the eight army corp. she going to be told you're still in command so you still have that capacity. that's what's going to strike a low blow to wallis. he talked with that glory he won. she goi he is going to kind of sulk until they realize they really reinstated by late july of 1864. wallis found himself trying to figure out his place in this post defeat but kind of a weird oddly situation. by the spring of 1865 his stars continue to shoot up. he will be second in command of the lincoln assassination trials. david hunter is in charge. wallis is number two. so his star continues to rise up. do i have a command and not really. >> time for one final question. >> i'm from richmond. you said there was a dispute between wallis and grant because of what happened. does history determine who was right and who was wrong in that dispute? >> i laugh because no. 155 years later you still have camp a, camp b. historians said back and forth so wallis for the last 45 years trying to clear his name to the point he would bring people and walk them on the ground and say see, i wasn't lost. so it will continue to this day more has started to swing towards wallis. you historians he is more towards wallis. a book is also talking about wallis. grant will also kind of admit, not totally, that he is kind of right. he didn't know lou wallis had fig yu figured out a plan to use a road. grant didn't know that. so when lou wallis used that road he thought he was going in that direction. he was killed in the course of that fighting. his widow had that letter and she didn't forward that to grant until after he published an article in battles and leaders. so that by 1885 when grant is writing his mem -- he writes a footnote or end note. problem is nobody reads end notes. people read the battles and leaders argument but grant is admitting she kind of right. you'll have historians that go back and forth. i think the pendulum is swinging towards wallis. >> ladies and gentlemen, ryan quinn. [ applause ] author dan welch talks about stone wall jackson's defensive stand at the battle in virginia which took place in late august 1862. jackson's troops held their ground against repeated assaults by union troops, bying time for the confederates to launch an attack and send the union army into retreat. this 50 minute talk was part of of a symposium on great defenses of the civil war most