Early was placed in command of the Second Corps of the Army of Northern Virginia after Cold Harbor. In July, 1864 he marched 14,000 men up the Shenandoah Valley until he encountered a smaller force of Union troops numbering 5,800, commanded by Lew Wallace at Monocacy Junction (about four miles from where I am right now). The larger bulk of the Army of the Potomac was a day or two's march away. Early defeated the smaller force at the cost of some 900 men and a day's march. The next day he marched within the borders of the District of Columbia, but did not believe he had the force to take Fort Stevens. He exchanged artillery fire with the fort, did some light skirmishing, then fell back to White Ferry and crossed the Potomac back into Virginia. The raid accomplished relatively little but did some psychological damage because Early actually managed to get within the borders of DC.

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"When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation... We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness...."
- The Declaration of Independence