The Stone Sentinel of Monocacy

A battle-hardened veteran stands as a statue over the Monocacy battlefield in Frederick, Maryland, a monument to the volunteers that kept it from Confederate hands. The 14th New Jersey Monument, made of granite, sports a soldier sculpture on top, boasts a Greek cross, and sports two bronze tablets. It's solid as a rock, but it's got a quiet vigilance to it that's hard to miss. After all, this silent sentinel was in the thick of things, holding its ground against a 24,000-strong Confederate force in the bloodiest battle in Maryland during the American Civil War, all while seeing a quarter of its 180-strong regiment fall.

The 14th New Jersey Monument was the first to rise along this battlefield, erected in 1907 on hallowed ground where its namesakes saved the North. It was restored in 2007, standing tall among four other monuments, each built to echo the struggles of the battlefield they guard just a few feet away. But an old soldier who fought in the Monocacy battle at 19 claimed there was one monument that outshone the rest – one that glows in the dark and hushes the others when it 'speaks'.

The soldiers forged a kinship across regiments in that war-torn era, and their palpable fear and bravery linger to this day. So perhaps it's no surprise that an inanimate relic now watches over the battlefield with a protective gaze, its silent solidarity echoing the bonds of blood and ready weaponry that held back the Confederate army.

Sources: Wikipedia, OpenStreetMap, Wikidata, Wikimedia Commons