From an open plain near Frederick, Maryland, on July 8, 1864 General Lew Wallace took a long look through field glasses at the Blue Ridge off to his west. He spotted lazy clouds of dust tumbling down the Ridge in lengthening trails that day, only miles from where he stood. Through breaks in the trees, he’d noticed the sun glinting off what he took to be belt buckles, rifle bores, and cannons, sure signs of soldiers on the move. “There could no longer be room for doubt,” he later wrote, “what I saw were columns of infantry, with trains of artillery. They were good strong columns too, of thousands and thousands.”
Lew Wallace was commander of the Middle Department of the Federal Army, a region that extended from Baltimore west to the Monocacy River, just east of Frederick City. For days he had been receiving troubling reports at his office in Baltimore of a large-scale Confederate movement sweeping north up the Shenandoah Valley, inching closer by the day, destination unknown. He had first gotten wind of all this when railroad man, John Garrett – President of the Baltimore & Ohio Railroad – appeared in his office on July 2. Seems Garrett had also been receiving disturbing reports from his agents – from Harper’s Ferry all the way out to Cumberland, Maryland – regarding excessive Confederate activity. Garrett wanted a firm promise from Wallace that his railroad bridge at Monocacy Junction near Frederick would be protected, should the Rebels succeed in getting that far.
