On September 3, 1862, Confederate General Robert E. Lee, lacking the military strength to attack Washington, D.C., directly, yet embolden from what can only be characterized as a series of brilliant military victories culminating in the the September 1, 1862, Confederate victory at the Battle of Chantilly that brought an end to Union Maj. Gen. John Pope's Northern Virginia Campaign (which included the August 28 - 30, 1862, Union defeat during the Battle of Second Manassas) coupled with the Union defeat the previous month during Union Maj. Gen. McClellan's Peninsula Campaign (March through July 1862 – who could possibly forget McClellan and his famously bad case of "the slows"?), wrote to Confederate President Jefferson Davis how:
The present seems to be the most propitious time, since the commencement of the war, for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland. The two grand armies of the U. S. that have been operating in Virginia, though now united, are much weakened and demoralized. Their new levees, of which, I understand, sixty thousand men have already been posted in Washington, are not yet organized, and will take some time to prepare for the field. If it is ever desired to give material aid to Maryland, and afford her an opportunity of throwing off the oppression to which she is now subject, this would seem the most favorable. After the enemy had disappeared from the vicinity of Fairfax C. H. and taken the road to Alexandri[a] & Washington, I did not think it would be advantageous to follow him further. I had no intention of attacking him in his fortifications, and am not prepared to invest them. If I possessed the necessary munitions, I should be unable to supply provisions for the troops. I therefore determined while threatening the approaches to Washington to draw the troops into Loudon, where forage and some provisions can be obtained, menace their possession of the Shenandoah Valley, and if found practicable, to cross into Maryland.
Original unknown: http://jeffersondavis.rice.edu/Content.aspx?id=111
The present seems to be the most propitious time, since the commencement of the war, for the Confederate Army to enter Maryland. The two grand armies of the U. S. that have been operating in Virginia, though now united, are much weakened and demoralized. Their new levees, of which, I understand, sixty thousand men have already been posted in Washington, are not yet organized, and will take some time to prepare for the field. If it is ever desired to give material aid to Maryland, and afford her an opportunity of throwing off the oppression to which she is now subject, this would seem the most favorable. After the enemy had disappeared from the vicinity of Fairfax C. H. and taken the road to Alexandri[a] & Washington, I did not think it would be advantageous to follow him further. I had no intention of attacking him in his fortifications, and am not prepared to invest them. If I possessed the necessary munitions, I should be unable to supply provisions for the troops. I therefore determined while threatening the approaches to Washington to draw the troops into Loudon, where forage and some provisions can be obtained, menace their possession of the Shenandoah Valley, and if found practicable, to cross into Maryland.
Lee ordered his 55,000 man Army of Northern Virginia north through the Shenandoah Valley for the purpose of invading the north into Maryland; thus beginning the first of three separate Confederate invasions of the North (in the eastern theater). Lee’s purposes were varied: to resupply his army in an area untouched by the war that was destroying the Virginia countryside; to increase his troop count by the thousands of Marylanders he just knew were chomping at the bit to rise up and fight their Northern oppressors; to severe the Baltimore & Ohio railroad supplying Washington; and most importantly, to draw the Union Army into the open for a decisive victory that would pressure Lincoln into negotiating an end of the war.
150 years ago today, advance elements from Lee's Army crossed from Leesburg, Virginia through White’s Ford, across the Potomac River and into Maryland through Point of Rocks and headed north toward Frederick, Maryland…
Wonder how that whole thing turns out?
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