I n the summer of 1864, General Jubal Anderson Early and 20,000 men were ready to raid Washington, D.C., in hopes of making off with the president to Richmond.

Early's men marched towards Rockville on a scorching July 11, 1864, taking Viers Mill Road, named for Samuel Viers's grist mill. They passed W. H. Farquehar's "Lonesome Hollow" farm near Sandy Spring.
Jubal Early
 
The Blair House of the Silver Spring
 The Unionist Blair family's two farms housed the Confederate focal point: the Montgomery estate and that named for its famous silver spring. Mr. Blair, in his days in another famous house in Washington, and his daughter Elizabeth, had been riding when one of their horses threw its cargo to the ground, right in front of a spring thriving in bright sunlight. Blair bought the land containing the spring in 1842, and built a handsome estate their by 1845. Their summerhouse, better known as the acorn gazebo, is now west of Georgia Avenue on East-West Highway on the "Silver Spring Farm."
 
Jubal Early's troops came to and set up camp near the Sligo Post Office (now Silver Spring). That night, Union soldiers from Fort Stevens in Washington lay siege on Early's troops. Several houses along Brookville Pike caught fire during the battle. Aproximately 400 Union men and 600 Confederates died that night. About a day later, the Union dead were buried in the new Battleground National Cemetary in the capital. Seventeen of Early's dead were buried at the Grace Episcopal Church, curiously the Blair family's parish church. Early's men retreated through Rockville to the Potomac, defeating the Union soldiers in a skirmish as they came. But Early had still lost the battle at Fort Steven's.  
The Rubble Left Behind by the Battle of Fort Stevens