Southern Historical Society Papers, Volume 22.
Reverend J. William Jones, Ed.

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[299] Early, Breckinridge, Gordon, Rodes and Ramseur, and it was resolved to storm the lines at daybreak, unless the revelations of the night should lead to a change of conclusion. Before dawn a message came from that enterprising officer, General Bradley T. Johnson, who had pushed on to the suburbs of Baltimore, that two corps of Grant's army had arrived at Washington, and, reluctantly, Early determined to withdraw. As he retreated, a portion of the Sixth Corps advanced to attack, while President Lincoln and some members of his Cabinet looked on from Fort Stevens. This affair lost to General Bidwell, the United States officer in command, 280 men, with a slight loss to Early, who now turned towards Virginia.

General A. L. Long, the chief of artillery of the expedition, the gallant officer, who, notwithstanding the loss of his eyesight, spent his declining years in writing a history of this operation, in which he took a worthy part, says in his memoir of General R. E. Lee: ‘This campaign of General Early's is remarkable for accomplishing more in proportion to the force employed and for having given less public satisfaction than any other campaign of the war. This is entirely due to the erroneous opinion that the city of Washington should have been taken, and this may be passed over as one of the absurdities of public sentiment on the conduct of the war.’

The popular impression that Early could have captured Washington is only a case in which the wish was father to the thought. The city was defended by 700 siege guns, abatis of trees had been placed before the earthworks, the high banks of Rock creek formed a natural fortification, and a series of forts mounted with heavy guns covered all the approaches, and were so arranged that if one were taken the others commanded it. There was a superabundance of field batteries, for Grant had sent back in the spring a hundred guns which encumbered his army. Early had but 8,000 muskets, while there were over 20,400 men in the defences of Washington—enough to defeat him before Wright's Corps and Emory's Division arrived. And here was the Sixth and part of the Nineteenth Corps on hand. If he had taken Washington with so small a force it would have been futile and short-lived success. On the 13th of July, carrying along with him all the prisoners of Monocacy, Early marched to the Potomac, and on the 14th, crossing near Leesburg, was again in old Virginia.