Northern Maryland
General Giuseppe Garibaldi was getting tired of Americans. The Frenchman (he would always think of himself as an "Italian" despite the fact that no nation named "Italy" existed and, if it did, it would be ruled by the odious Bonapartes) had been run out of his home town of Nice when his ill-fated attempt at revolution failed dismally in the Piedmont region of France (northern "Italy").
General Winfield Scott gave Garibaldi, whom had been in America for years, a Corps command. Due to his morbid obesity, Scott could not ride a horse and had been forced to delegate most battlefield decisions to his corps commanders: Garibaldi, McDowell and Patterson.
The Union Army resembled nothing more than a mob of 60,000 men. More had volunteered but weapons were in short supply and no one knew how to provision an army of this size anyway.
Garibaldi would be the first to engage the enemy just north of Maryland. The Irish-born Patterson had been ordered to advance along the eastern flank while McDowell marched southwest to cut off the enemy reinforcements in Washington.
Nothing could describe the chaos of the army in those vital first few weeks of the war. With the government uprooted from Washington, it took weeks to set up a new Treasury office and War Department. Indeed, Garibaldi was astonished things came together as quickly as they did. It helped that the volunteers weren't actually being paid yet. They signed on for the summer with a discharge bonus promised in August. Even so, simply allocating food and tenths had been a herculean task.
With forty thousand men, Garibaldi and McDowell descended upon the outer ring of Baltimore. While Washington DC's fortifications were reportedly strengthening by the hour, the futility of defending Baltimore by siege resulted in the enemy choosing to fight a battle of maneuver.
The farce that occurred over the next twenty-four hours could hardly be referred to as a "Battle", merely a mob of men running into one another. Artillery was left exposed to enemy infantry (and just as often ignored by enemy infantry). Regiments advanced piecemeal. Less than half the forces gathered were even utilized in the confusion.
Garibaldi's great contribution, he would later recall, was to cut down on the complexity of the battle plan accounting for this amateurish display. In hindsight, it was a wise move.
As "Corps" and "Divisions" wandered aimlessly about, a southern Colonel misunderstood an order and shifted position, leaving a key hill in the center of the Federalist Line exposed to a Union attack. Seeing the danger, Joseph Johnston ordered forward reserves, as did the Union. For hours, the hill was taken and retaken, with the darkness came a Union victory. This sort of confusion permeated the battlefield as entire Regiments were sent scurrying though no individual clash matter more than this central battle.
Both sides had expected an easy victory, perhaps some sort of political compromise reached before the first shot could be fired. Instead, the Federalists spent the next day attempting to regain lost territory. Sometimes they succeeded, other times failed.
On day three, the Union attacked with 10,000 fresh soldiers and broke the Federalist left and flanked their right. Johnston was forced to make a decision. Knowing he could not retreat to Baltimore without being cut off, he ordered his forces back to Washington, leaving the most vital city in Maryland to the Union, dooming the Peninsula as well over the next few months. Infuriated, President Bonham relieved Johnston of command and put Francis Dade (whom commanded the Washington garrison) in command of the Federal "Army of the Potomac", named for their new front line.
Maryland had fallen but the Union would not make swift capital of this victory. The army, even in victory, had descended into confusion it would take weeks to clean up. By the end of July, many of the Union troops were reaching the end of their 3 month enlistments and they were only then seeing the expansive defensive ramparts around Washington DC.
Many proclaimed the war over.
It was not.