{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/young-honors-hoosier-lew-wallaces-actions-that-saved-washington-160-years-ago/", "Young Honors Hoosier Lew Wallace\u2019s Actions that Saved Washington 160 Years Ago", "2024-07-09", "2024", "2024-07", "Republican", "Senate", "IN", "Todd Young", "Y000064", "www.young.senate.gov", "toddyoung", "https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/", "scraper", "**Click here or above to watch Senator Young\u2019s floor speech.**\n\nWASHINGTON \u2013 Today, U.S. Senator Todd Young (R-Ind.) spoke on the Senate floor about how Hoosier General Lew Wallace helped save Washington, D.C. on this date 160 years ago during the Battle of Monocacy.\n\nOn July 9, 1864, as Confederate troops were moving toward Washington, D.C., General Wallace gathered a few thousand Union soldiers to the Monocacy River in Maryland. There they battled over 15,000 Confederate troops en route to invade the nation\u2019s capital. Ultimately, Wallace\u2019s forces delayed the rebels long enough to prevent their attack of Washington.\n\n\u201cWhen it comes to words, Wallace will always be best known for Ben Hur. But the message he forwarded to Washington after the Battle of Monocacy, is timeless too,\u201d said Young. \u201cIt should inspire us still, a reminder that rising to our duty, no matter the odds or even outcome, can change history: \u2018I did as I promised. Held the bridge to the last.\u2019\u201d\n\nTo watch Senator Young\u2019s floor speech, click here.\n\nSenator Young\u2019s full remarks, as prepared for delivery:\n\nIn 1864, after three years of civil war, many citizens of the North were ready for peace.\n\nThe Thirteenth Amendment had passed in this chamber, but failed to do so in the House.\n\nAnd the fate of Abraham Lincoln\u2019s presidency, and perhaps the continuation of the war, was on the ballot.\n\nThat spring Lincoln placed his hand on a Hoosier general\u2019s shoulder and said:\n\n\u201cI believe it right to give you a chance\u2026.\u201d\n\nWhat he really meant was a second chance.\n\nI rise to mark a day 160 years ago, when that second chance, and a refusal to flinch from duty, even in a forlorn hope, saved our nation\u2019s capital.\n\nAnd possibly much more than that.\n\nNot long after his meeting with Lincoln, that same soldier was ushered into the office of Secretary of War Edwin Stanton.\n\n\u201cWhat do you know of the Middle Department?\u201d the Secretary asked.\n\n\u201cNothing\u201d his visitor replied.\n\n\u201cNothing? The secretary repeated.\n\n\u201cI am from the West,\u201d General Lew Wallace answered.\n\nBy the West, Wallace meant Crawfordsville, Indiana.\n\nAnd that is exactly where he was when the year began, an officer whose career appeared to be at an end.\n\nTwo years before, the division under his command arrived late to the Union lines during the first day of fighting at Shiloh.\n\nWallace was scapegoated after one of the deadliest battles in the war at that point.\n\nHe was removed from his command in the Army of the Tennessee and placed on reserve.\n\nRequests for reinstatement failed.\n\n\u201cI had cast my last throw. What next?\u201d Wallace wondered.\n\nThe answer came from President Lincoln:\n\nWallace was to report to Washington and take command of the Eighth Army Corps and the Middle Department \u2013 even though he did not even know where it was headquartered.\n\nThe answer, Stanton told him, was Baltimore.\n\nAnd that is where Wallace headed after buying a Rand McNally map of the U.S. for 15 cents.\n\nIn early July, Wallace sat at his desk studying that map closely.\n\nHe had just received word from the anxious president of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad that Confederate troops were advancing through the Shenandoah Valley.\n\nThe path from there to Washington was open. The city was poorly defended with Union soldiers away attacking Richmond at the time.\n\n\u201cWashington, seriously menaced, was incapable of self-defense \u2013 that much was clear,\u201d he wrote years later.\n\nStaring at the map, Wallace understood that the threat was real, and his responsibility was clear.\n\nWithout orders, he departed for Monocacy Junction, where the roads and railroad leading to Washington and Baltimore crossed a tributary of the Potomac.\n\nLater he stood on a bluff looking down at the Monocacy River and the green pastures and golden wheat fields beyond it.\n\nHe could see the steeples of Frederick not far off and the Catoctin Mountains on the horizon.\n\nThe peaceful summer day was interrupted with the echo of distant gunfire.\n\nSoon it was clear: Robert E. Lee had sent General Jubal Early north to take Washington.\n\nHe had crossed the Potomac and was on his way east, towards Monocacy Junction perhaps to Baltimore, more likely to Washington \u2013 40 miles away.\n\nWallace had already moved with urgency:\n\nHe messaged Washington to recall troops and prepare for an attack.\n\nHe called in what brigades or parts of them he could to augment his own men\u2026eventually rising a force of several thousands.\n\nThen he spread them thinly along the eastern bank of the river, determined to block its bridge and fords long enough for reinforcements to arrive in the capital.\n\nOn the night of July 8th, the eve of battle, Wallace laid down and placed his head on a folded coat. But anxiety made sleep impossible.\n\nCould he throw a hastily gathered and mostly green force in the way of a superior army, in an objective so hopeless?\n\nThen he reflected on the consequences of not doing so:\n\nThe Navy Yard up in flames; the Capitol menaced, the library inside it looted; the treasury emptied; foreign heads of state rushing to recognize the Confederacy.\n\nAnd then, most painfully, the image of Lincoln:\n\n\u201ccloaked and hooded stealing like a malefactor from the backdoor of the White House, just as some gray-garbed Confederate brigadier burst in the front door.\u201d\n\nThe next morning, July 9th, when the Confederate army of over 15,000 arrived at Monocacy River, it was met with fierce resistance from the outnumbered Federals.\n\nRebel charges were repeatedly turned back until late in the afternoon, when Wallace, after heavy losses \u2013 nearly 1,300 dead and wounded \u2013 ordered his men to retreat towards Baltimore.\n\nEarly\u2019s battered army paused for the night before it continued on to Washington.\n\nWhen he reached its gates on the 11th, Union reinforcements were waiting. A skirmish at Fort Stevens followed and the rebels departed empty handed.\n\nThe Union stand cost the Confederates a day and with it their chance at Washington.\n\nMonocacy is usually unmentioned among the list of consequential Civil War battles.\n\nBut today, on its 160th anniversary, we reflect on its importance.\n\nHad Early\u2019s men taken the capital, however briefly, the humiliation could have persuaded a war weary population to dismiss Lincoln.\n\nWhat then would be the fate of the 13th amendment or the eventual terms of peace?\n\nBecause of Wallace\u2019s resolve, and his men\u2019s bravery, the questions went unanswered.\n\nLincoln was reelected.\n\nThe following January, the 13th Amendment, to forever end slavery, passed Congress.\n\nThe war was over by April and the Union preserved.\n\nAnd General Lew Wallace, not unlike the hero of a novel he later wrote, was redeemed.\n\nWhen it comes to words, Wallace will always be best known for Ben Hur.\n\nBut the message he forwarded to Washington after the Battle of Monocacy, is timeless too.\n\nIt should inspire us still, a reminder that rising to our duty, no matter the odds or even outcome, can change history:\n\n\u201cI did as I promised. Held the bridge to the last.\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-07T21:24:45Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://www.young.senate.gov/newsroom/press-releases/young-honors-hoosier-lew-wallaces-actions-that-saved-washington-160-years-ago/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 2.0011779852211475, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}