Frederick, Maryland and Monocacy National Battleground

Donna and I are fortunate to live so close to so many interesting, varied and fun places. From our home, half a tank of gas is more than enough for a day trip to Annapolis, Baltimore, or Washington, D.C. and back. Or you can visit Civil War battlefields, pre-Revolutionary towns, hiking trails, museums, parks, lakes and mountains.  A full tank

of gas gets you to the beach and back, or to Philadelphia or New York.

Donna at Carroll Creek, Frederick

Frederick, Maryland is a beautiful 45-minute drive out I-70 from us. I grew up in Rockville, and Frederick was considered just a little farm town. Inhabitants were called “Frednecks.” I don’t think I ever went there until Donna and I decided recently to explore it.

Painting on an outside building wall

Market Street in downtown is an attractive collection of restaurants and eclectic shops and boutiques where you can buy everything from faux retro lunchboxes and signs (“If life gives you a lemon, you just tell that lemon to go screw itself”) to expensive wine, to pawned jewelry and musical instruments.

We ate lunch at Firestone’s Culinary Tavern, a handsome restaurant with a gorgeous bar, good food and a fine selection of local craft beers.

From there we headed out to Monocacy National Battlefield. The battle fought there on July 9, 1864, between forces led by the Union’s Gen. Lew Wallace and the Confederates’ Gen. Jubal Early, wasn’t the bloodiest or biggest of the war. But it was important because the Union’s stand there probably saved Washington from capture by the Confederates. The Rebel army had marched from Richmond, Va., up through the Blue Ridge Mountains and into Maryland, and from there would travel southeast to attack Washington. The battle slowed the Rebels long enough for Gen. Ulysses S. Grant to fortify Washington’s defenses with two additional divisions, enough to repel Wallace’s subsequent attack.

The battleground covers a wide area of farmland on Frederick’s outskirts. There are five stops on a self-guided auto tour of the various stages of the fight that left 1,300 Rebel soldiers killed, wounded, missing or captured. After you park at each stop, you’re free to roam around the houses and barns that had key roles in the battle and still stand, as well as the Monocacy River and the still-operational railroad bridge that spans it.

After our tour, we returned to the battlefield’s visitor center, changed from our jeans and hiking shoes into dinner clothes we had packed, and headed to dinner back in town at celebrity chef Bryan Voltaggio’s Volt restaurant, an expensive, pretentious place. The dishes are tiny, artistic creations that serve the chef’s sense of creative expression more than the diner’s sense of gastronomic satisfaction.

Here are some pictures from the battlefield:

Road to Best Farm, where Confederate troops set up artillery and the battle began

Best Farm buildings: the house...

... corn crib...

...and barn

Railroad tracks behind the farm, used by the Union army to bring reinforcements

At a memorial for Union troops from New Jersey 

Ditto. Blue Ridge Mountains in the background

Monocacy Junction, where Union troops destroyed a bridge across the Monocacy River to prevent the advance of Confederate troops, even though the bridge represented the Union's best chance of escape.

The house at Worthington Farm. The family had moved from Baltimore three years ealier to escape the war, and wound up in the middle of the Battle of Monocacy.

A cannon at Worthington Farm

Donna and me at Worthington Farm

The railroad bridge that still stands, 150 years after the battle