About this item
The Battle of Monocacy, which took place on the blisteringly hot day of July 9, 1864, is one of the Civil War's most significant yet little-known battles. What played out that day in the corn and wheat fields four miles south of Frederick, Maryland., was a full-field engagement between some 12,000 battle-hardened Confederate troops led by the controversial Jubal Anderson Early, and some 5,800 Union troops, many of them untested in battle, under the mercurial Lew Wallace, the future author of Ben-Hur. When the fighting ended, some 1,300 Union troops were dead, wounded or missing or had been taken prisoner, and Early---who suffered some 800 casualties---had routed Wallace in the northernmost Confederate victory of the war.Two days later, on another brutally hot afternoon, Monday, July 11, 1864, the foul-mouthed, hard-drinking Early sat astride his horse outside the gates of Fort Stevens in the upper northwestern fringe of Washington, D.
About the Author
I am a journalist and historian and the author of eight books. The most recent is What So Proudly We Hailed: Francis Scott Key, A Life (June 2014) , the first biography of the author of "The Star Spangled Banner" in more than seventy-five years.
My other books include Lafayette: Idealist General (2011) , a concise biography of the Marquis de Lafayette; Desperate Engagement (2007) , a history of the Civil War Battle of Monocacy; Flag: An American Biography (2005) , a history of the Stars and Stripes from the beginnings to the 21st century; and Saving Monticello (2001) , a history of Thomas Jefferson's house that concentrates at what happened after Jefferson died. I also edited The Webster's New World Dictionary of the Vietnam War.
I am a former staff writer for Congressional Quarterly, and have been a full-time free-lance writer since 1986. I have written for many publications, including the Washington Post, New York Times, New York Times Book Review, the Wall Street Journal, USA Today, the Chicago Tribune, Baltimore Sun, Smithsonian, Military History, Civil War Times, and Preservation Magazines, the Encyclopedia Americana, and the Dictionary of Virginia Biography.
I am senior writer, arts editor and columnist for The Veteran, the magazine published by Vietnam Veterans of America.
I have been a guest on many television and radio news programs, including All Things Considered, Morning Edition, On the Media, Talk of the Nation, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, The History Detectives (PBS) , The History Channel, Discovery Channel, CBC (Canada) , The BBC NewsHour, RTV-1 (Russian television) and Irish Radio.
I have given talks at many colleges and universities, including the University of Maryland, the University of Notre Dame, the University of Miami, Mary Washington University, Sweet Brian College, Longwood University, Appalachian State University, the College of Southern Maryland and Georgetown University.
I tought U.S. history at Lord Fairfax Community College in Warrenton, Virginia, from 2007-2015.
After graduating from George Washington University in 1967, I was then drafted into the U.S. Army and served for two years, including a year in the Vietnam War. After my military service, I earned an MA in history from GWU in 1971.
If you would like to know more about my writing career, I invite you to go to my website: www.marcleepson.com
