In the summer of 1864, General Jubal A. Early led about 15, 000 Confederates on a daring sweep through Maryland. The savage battle proved to be one of the most decisive engagements of the Civil War. The hard-marching Confederate troops of General Early were embarked on a desperate gamble - an invasion of the North meant to take the pressure off Robert E. Lee's besieged forces at Petersburg. Early's goal was nothing less than the seat of the Federal Government, Washington, D.C. Glenn Worthington, a youthful witness at Monocacy, recounts in rich detail the see-saw fighting as lines of blue and gray swept across the rolling pasture land and wheat fields of central Maryland. Replete with official reports of the engagement, and the anecdotal recollections and memoirs of participants.