Fort Duncan

Fort Duncan. Invasion Stalled. , In June 1864, Confederate Gen. Robert E. Lee sent Gen. Jubal A. Early's corps from the Richmond battlefields to the Shenandoah Valley to counter Union Gen. David Hunter's army. After driving Hunter into West Virginia, Early invaded Maryland to attack Washington, D.C., draw Union troops from Richmond, and release Confederate prisoners held at Point Lookout. On July 9, Early ordered Gen. Bradley T. Johnson's cavalry brigade eastward to free the prisoners. The next day, Johnson sent Maj. Henry Gilmer's regiment to raid the Baltimore area. Union Gen. Lew Wallace delayed Early at the Battle of Monocacy on July 9. Federal reinforcements soon strengthened the capital's defenses. Early attacked there near Fort Stevens on July 11-12 and then withdrew to the Shenandoah Valley with the Federals in pursuit. He stopped them at Cool Spring on July 17-18. Despite failing to take Washington or free prisoners, Early succeeded in diverting Federal resources., When Confederate Gen. Jubal A. Early approached the defenses of Harpers Ferry with his main force on July 4, 1864, the Federals greeted him with fireworks. They fired real artillery shells, however, from Fort Duncan, a quarter-mile in front of you on the high, rounded knoll, and the other fortifications of Maryland Heights. For four days, Union forces here delayed Early's advance, enabling reinforcements to reach the defensive lines around Washington, D.C., the principal Confederate objective., Harpers Ferry was a threat to the success of any Confederate invasion of the North. In September 1862, as Gen. Robert E. Lee invaded Maryland in the Antietam Campaign, Gen. Thomas J. "Stonewall" Jackson captured the place easily to protect the army's rear. The defensive lines were so rudimentary that he was able to occupy the high ground and threaten to shell the town to pieces. The result was the largest surrender of Union troops in the war. Soon after the Confederates retreated to Virginia, however, the Federals constructed works on the heights, including Fort Duncan, that were unlikely to be overcome. The engineers selected this point for Fort Duncan because of its elevation and the right-angle bend in the Potomac River that protected its flanks. When Lee invaded again in 1863, he bypassed Harpers Ferry altogether. In 1864, when Early invaded, he found the works too strong to capture and instead moved around them and relied on the speed of his march to stay ahead of any threat to his rear.