Skirmish of Bethesda
A Civil War skirmish in downtown Bethesda 160 Years Ago This Month
In 1864, Bethesda was not much more than a stop on the way to somewhere else. But on July 11th of that year, what is now downtown Bethesda was the site of a skirmish between Union and Confederate forces that proved important in defending the nation’s capital from a Confederate assault.
On that morning, after quartering on the Bethesda Meeting House site just north of today’s National Institutes of Health, Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early and his 800 troops headed south on Rockville Pike intending to attack Fort Stevens in the District of Columbia.
Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early
Union Col. Charles Russell Lowell
But at the vicinity of the Old Stone Tavern, where today’s Pumphrey’s Funeral now sits in downtown Bethesda, they were stopped by 600 Union forces dispatched from Tenleytown under the command of 29-year old Colonel Charles Russell Lowell.
What followed was a skirmish with only slight casualties that lasted until mid-afternoon when the Union forces pulled back. However, the Confederate advance had been stalled long enough for Union reinforcements to reach Fort Stevens and fight off the Confederate assault the next day.
“The Battle of Bethesda: A daylong firefight in Jubal Early’s march into Washington” by John H. Walsh (Washington Post April 26, 2014)