Washington, D.C., in the American Civil War
During the American Civil War (1861–1865), Washington, D.C., the capital city of the United States, was the center of the Union war effort, which rapidly turned it from a small city into a major capital with full civic infrastructure and strong defenses.[1]
The shock of the Union defeat at the
When Lincoln was assassinated in Ford's Theater in April 1865,[2] thousands flocked into Washington to view the coffin, further raising the profile of the city. The new president, Andrew Johnson, wanted to dispel the funereal atmosphere and organized a program of victory parades, which revived public hopes for the future.
Early stages of war
Despite being the nation's
At first, it looked as if neighboring Virginia would remain in the Union. When it unexpectedly voted for secession, there was a serious danger that the divided state of Maryland would do the same, which would totally surround the capital with enemy states. President Abraham Lincoln’s act in jailing Maryland's pro-slavery leaders without trial saved the capital from that fate.[3]
Faced with an open rebellion that had turned hostile, Lincoln began organizing a military force to protect Washington. Only 300 to 400 marines at the
Thousands of raw volunteers and many professional soldiers came to the area to fight for the Union. By mid-summer, Washington teemed with volunteer regiments and artillery batteries from throughout the North, all of which serviced by what was little more than a country town that in 1860 had only 75,800 people.[b] George Templeton Strong's observation of Washington life led him to declare:
Of all the detestable places Washington is first. Crowd, heat, bad quarters, bad fair [fare], bad smells, mosquitos, and a plague of flies transcending everything within my experience.. . Beelzebub surely reigns here, and Willard's Hotel is his temple.
The city became the staging area for what became known as the Manassas campaign. When Brigadier General Irvin McDowell's beaten and demoralized army staggered back into Washington after the stunning Confederate victory at the First Battle of Bull Run. The realization came that the war might be prolonged caused the beginning of efforts to fortify the city to protect it from a Confederate assault. Lincoln knew that he had to have a professional and trained army to protect the capital area and so began by organizing the Department on the Potomac on August 4, 1861,[5] and the Army of the Potomac 16 days later.[6]
Most residents embraced the arriving troops, despite pockets of apathy and Confederate sympathizers. Upon hearing a Union regiment singing "John Brown's Body" as the soldiers marched beneath her window, the resident Julia Ward Howe wrote the patriotic "Battle Hymn of the Republic" to the same tune.[7]
The significant expansion of the federal government to administer the ever-expanding war effort and its legacies, such as veterans' pensions, led to notable growth in the city's population, especially in 1862 and 1863, as the military forces and the supporting infrastructure dramatically expanded from early war days. The
Slavery was abolished throughout the district on April 16, 1862, eight months before Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, with the passage of the Compensated Emancipation Act.[8] Washington became a popular place for formerly enslaved people to congregate, and many were employed in constructing the ring of fortresses that eventually surrounded the city.
Defense
At the beginning of the war, Washington's only defense was one old fort,
The capital's defenses, for the most part, deterred the
By 1865, the defenses of Washington were most stout and amply covered both land and sea approaches. When the war ended, 37 miles (60 km) of line included at least 68 forts and over 20 miles (32 km) of rifle pits and were supported by 32 miles (51 km) of military-only roads and four individual picket stations. Also, 93 separate batteries of artillery had been placed on this line, comprising over 1,500 guns, both field and siege varieties, as well as mortars.[9]
Military formations
- Owens Company, District of Columbia cavalry {3 months unit-1861}
- 8 Battalions, District of Columbia Infantry {3 months unit-1861}
- 1st Regiment, District of Columbia Infantry
- 2nd Regiment, District of Columbia Infantry
- Unassigned District of Columbia Colored
- Unassigned District of Columbia Volunteers
Hospitals
Hospitals in the Washington area became significant providers of medical services to wounded soldiers needing long-term care after they had been transported to the city from the front lines over the Long Bridge or by steamboat at the Wharf.
The following hospitals were located in the District of Columbia:
- Armory Square General Hospital,
- Carver General Hospital
- Campbell General Hospital
- Columbia General Hospital
- Columbian General Hospital
- Douglas General Hospital
- Emory General Hospital
- Finley General Hospital
- Freedman General Hospital
- Harewood General Hospital
- Judiciary Square General Hospital
- Kalorama General Hospital
- Lincoln General Hospital
- Mount Pleasant General Hospital
- Ricord General Hospital
- Stanton General Hospital
- Seminary General Hospital
- Stone General Hospital[14]
More than 20,000 injured or ill soldiers received treatment in an array of permanent and temporary hospitals in the capital, including the U.S. Patent Office and for a time the Capitol itself. Among the notables who served in nursing were the
Later stages of war
As the war progressed, the overcrowding severely strained the city's water supply. The Army Corps of Engineers constructed a new aqueduct that brought 10,000 US gallons (38,000 L; 8,300 imp gal) of fresh water to the city each day.[clarification needed] Police and fire protection was increased, and work resumed to complete the unfinished dome of the Capitol Building. However, for most of the war, Washington suffered from unpaved streets, poor sanitation and garbage collection, swarms of mosquitos facilitated by the dank canals and sewers, and poor ventilation in most public and private buildings.[17] That would change in the decade to follow under the leadership of District Governor Alexander "Boss" Shepherd.
Important political and military prisoners were often housed in the
Lincoln's assassination
On April 14, 1865, just days after the end of the war, Lincoln was shot in
Also attacked was
Lincoln's body was displayed in the Capitol rotunda,[25] and thousands of Washington residents and as throngs of visitors stood in long queues for hours to glimpse the fallen president. Hotels and restaurants were filled to capacity, bringing an unexpected windfall to their owners. Following the identification and eventual arrest of the actual conspirators, the city was the site of the trial and execution of several of the assassins, and Washington was again the center of the nation's media attention.
Grand Review of the Armies
On May 9, 1865, the new president, Andrew Johnson, declared that the rebellion had virtually ended, and he planned with government authorities a formal review to honor the victorious troops. One of his side goals was to change the mood of the capital, which was still in mourning since the assassination.[26] Three of the leading Union armies were close enough to travel to Washington to participate in the procession: the Army of the Potomac, the Army of the Tennessee, and the Army of Georgia. Officers in the three armies who had not seen one another for some time communed and renewed acquaintances, and at times, infantrymen engaged in verbal sparring and some fisticuffs in the town's taverns and bars over the army that was superior.
The Army of the Potomac, led by General
On the following day,
Notable leaders
The District of Columbia and adjoining
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Maj. Gen.Manning Force
USA -
-
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Maj. Gen.William Montrose Graham, Jr.
USA -
-
Other important personalities of the Civil War born in the immediate Washington area included Confederate Senator Thomas Jenkins Semmes, Union general John Milton Brannan, John Rodgers Meigs (whose death sparked a significant controversy throughout the North), and Confederate brigade commander Richard Hanson Weightman.
See also
- History of Washington, D.C.
- Civil War Defenses of Washington
- Bibliography of the American Civil War
- Bibliography of Abraham Lincoln
- Bibliography of Ulysses S. Grant
- Harewood General Hospital
Footnotes
- ^ a b c "Washington, D.C. during the Civil War". American Battlefield Trust. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
- ^ "President Lincoln's Funeral Procession on Pennsylvania Ave". Enclyopedia Virginia. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
- ^ "Lincoln's Suspension of Habeas Corpus". The Cleveland Civil War Round Table. Retrieved 6 January 2024.
- ^ Cooling, Benjamin Franklin. “Defending Washington during the Civil War.” Records of the Columbia Historical Society, Washington, D.C., vol. 71/72, 1971, pp. 314–37. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/40067779. Retrieved 17 Feb. 2024.
- ^ a b Eicher, p. 843.
- ^ Eicher, p.856.
- The Kennedy Center. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ "History of D.C. Emancipation", District of Columbia Office of the Secretary
- ^ a b c NPS description of defenses
- ^ a b Catton, p. 61.
- ^ Wert, p. 80.
- ^ "Fort Stevens". American Battlefield Trust. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ "President Lincoln Under Fire at Fort Stevens". National Park Service. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ Civil War Washington - Hospitals
- ISBN 978-1626199736.
- ^ Whitman's Drum Taps and Washington's Civil War hospitals
- ^ WETA-TV, Explore DC: Civil War Washington website
- ^ Old Capitol Prison
- ^ Pitch, Anthony, S. "The White House and Lincoln's Assassination". The White House Historical Association. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
{{cite web}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Ward, Davis. ""Now he belongs to the ages": The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln". National Portrait Gallery. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ "'STOUT MEN CRIED AND TREMBLED' – A NATION REACTS TO LINCOLN'S ASSASSINATION". Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ Elving, Ron (8 August 2017). "New Biography Of Lincoln's Secretary Of War Reveals A Resilient Man, Haunted By Grief". NPR. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ "The Assassin's Escape: Following John Wilkes Booth". National Park Service. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ "Assassination of President Abraham Lincoln". Library of Congress. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ "Lincoln Catafalque". Architect of the Capitol. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ "Grand Review". Army War College. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
- ^ a b "The Final March: Grand Review of the Armies". National Park Service. Retrieved 27 January 2024.
Notes
^[b] Data provided by "District of Columbia - Race and Hispanic Origin: 1800 to 1990" (PDF). United States Census Bureau. 2002-09-13. Retrieved 2008-07-29. Until 1890, the U.S. Census Bureau counted the City of Washington, Georgetown, and unincorporated Washington County as three separate areas. The data provided in this article from before 1890 is calculated as if the District of Columbia were a single municipality as it is today. To view the population data for each specific area prior to 1890 see: Gibson, Campbell (June 1998). "Population of the 100 Largest Cities and Other Urban Places in the United States: 1790 to 1990". United States Census Bureau. Retrieved 2008-07-29.
References
- Catton, Bruce, Army of the Potomac: Mr. Lincoln's Army, Doubleday and Company, 1961
- Cooling III, Benjamin Franklin; Owen II, Walton H. (2010). Mr. Lincoln's Forts: A Guide to the Civil War Defenses of Washington (New ed.). Scarecrow Press. pp. 85–90. .
- Eicher, John H., and ISBN 0-8047-3641-3.
- Furgurson, Ernest B., Freedom Rising : Washington In The Civil War, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004. ISBN 978-0-375-40454-2.
- NPS description of defenses
- ISBN 0-671-70921-6.
- Winkle, Kenneth J. (2013). Lincoln's Citadel: The Civil War in Washington, DC. New York: .
External links
- Washington, D.C. defenses, National Park Service
- Civil War Washington
- C-SPAN American History TV Tour of Civil War Defenses of Washington, D.C.
Further reading
- Laas, Virginia Jeans, ed., Wartime Washington: The Civil War Letters of Elizabeth Blair Lee, University of Illinois Press, 1999. ISBN 978-0-252-06859-1.
- ISBN 978-1-931313-23-0
- Leepson, Marc, Desperate Engagement: How a Little-Known Civil War Battle Saved Washington, D.C., and Changed The Course Of American History, Thomas Dunne Books, 2007. ISBN 978-0-312-36364-2.