A few weeks after Seward's promotion to colonel, his regiment was sent north to meet the threat to Washington, D.C. posed by Confederate Lieutenant General Jubal Early's Valley Campaigns of 1864. Seward was slightly wounded in his arm and suffered a broken leg when his horse fell on him after the horse was shot at the Battle of Monocacy on July 9, 1864. He was promoted to brigadier general on September 13, 1864, and in January 1865 was assigned to command a brigade in the Department of West Virginia, which he did until April 1865. He was thereafter known within his family as "The General". Seward commanded the 3rd Division for 6 days after Confederate partisan rangers captured Brigadier General George Crook on February 20, 1865.