July 11, 1864---The Battle of Washington D.C.

JULY 11, 1864:
           

The Battle of Fort Stevens (The Battle of Washington D.C.) (Day One):

After raiding and burning Rockville, Maryland and Silver Spring, Maryland to the ground (including the country home of Montgomery Blair, the Postmaster-General of the United States), Jubal Early’s jubilant troops march southward (ironically enough) on Washington D.C. 

During the Civil War Washington was a very different place than it is today. Although L’Enfant’s elegant street grid plan was in place, away from central Washington most of the roads were unpaved dirt tracks. Everything on the far side of the Anacostia River was a shantytown. Georgetown was a separate city in the District of Columbia. Until 1847, the city of Alexandria had been part of the District as well (Alexandria County), but because of its remoteness from official Washington (Washington County), it was retroceded to Virginia. Today’s crammed Beltway was a bucolic land of farms and quiet villages a day’s carriage ride away. The “Summer White House” was Soldiers Home, a rural rest home for military personnel located off Georgia Avenue, miles (and a half-day’s ride) north of the official White House. Even when President Lincoln had to stay in the city, he liked to send Mary and Tad to Soldiers Home in the summer. A stay at Soldiers Home was considered a healthy change from hot, swampy, low-lying, and still malarial Washington City (as it was called unofficially).

On this July 11^th, the President is in the Executive Mansion (though white, it was not formally called the White House yet, not until President Theodore Roosevelt’s day), and is considering riding out to Soldiers Home. He receives word, however, that Confederate troops have appeared just north of the Washington defensive ring.

Washington, thanks to the engineering skill (if not the combat skill) of General George McClellan, is the most heavily fortified city in North America, perhaps even in the world. According to the report of the army’s official engineer, Washington’s defensive ring boasts 68 enclosed forts with 807 mounted cannon and 93 mortars, 93 unarmed batteries with 401 emplacements for field guns and 20 miles of rifle trenches plus three blockhouses. Moreover, miles of military roads, a telegraphic communication system and supporting infrastructure, including headquarters buildings, storehouses and construction camps, all ring the city in D.C., Maryland, and Union-held Virginia.

Thanks to General Grant (and not a little to General Lew Wallace as well), the entire Sixth Corps, a very well-blooded unit, is now manning what was until the day before an empty bastion.  And the numbers only increase. Elements of the Nineteenth Corps join them. Several retired Generals come to the forts carrying their own guns. The lightly wounded in Washington’s military hospitals are given leave to man the forts. It is a hobbling and hopping line of men --- even amputees --- who reach the forts and are assigned duties, freeing up more soldiers of the Sixth to man the defenses. The defensive ring is meant to accommodate 25,000 men. There are more than 40,000 angry men facing Jubal Early’s troopers this morning.

 

The Battle of Fort Stevens is really anticlimactic, but for two elements: By chance or design, Early approaches Washington via 7^th Street --- Georgia Avenue --- the selfsame road that runs past Soldiers Home. The battlefield itself is now occupied by the old Walter Reed Army Hospital campus near Quackenbos Street.  Georgia Avenue passes into the heart of Washington itself (near the current-day National Archives), closest to, and just a brief march away from the White House. Guarded by Fort Stevens, it is not the weakest point in the ring, but perhaps the most vulnerable. If Early can force a breach here he can visit “Old Abe” in his office in a matter of minutes. 

Instead, “Old Abe” visits him. Versions of the story vary (right down to the date, either July 11^th or July 12^th), and the names of those involved vary, but the basic facts are not in dispute. The ever-curious Lincoln decides, much against advice, to visit Fort Stevens as an observer. He stops at Soldiers Home along the way to pick up the First Lady.

When they arrive at the massive block-long fort, it is said by some sources that they are assigned a guide to show them around the fort. This guide, who is a Major and an Army surgeon, accedes to the President’s request to tour the outer parapets after Mary, upset at the smoke and racket, returns to the Presidential carriage. 

After the two men mount the parapet, the President decides to stand not behind the breastwork but atop it. From there, he has a perfect view of the battle, which consists of Confederate and Union pickets firing at each other, with cannonfire from the fort that trembles the walls and blasts the rebel positions. The Major courteously points out that the flashes the President can see are Confederates firing in the direction of the fort.

“Do you think they can hit us here?” Lincoln asks, more curious than concerned, to which the Major answers, “Oh no, they are too far off.”  In truth, the closest Confederates are only about 1,000 feet away. The 6’4” President in his trademark long coat and stovepipe hat, makes an unmistakable prize target.

Some versions of the story say that the two men chat for a few minutes more; others, that “the words were barely out of his mouth” when the Major is struck in the chest and killed by a bullet, thrown from the top of the parapet by the impact. Other accounts say the man is only wounded. 

Lincoln’s reaction also varies from account to account. Some say he turns to a young trooper standing on the other side of him, and aghast, says, “Did you see that? The Major has been shot!” Some leave this detail and the young trooper entirely out of the story.  In some, again, “the words were barely out of his mouth,” when the young trooper takes a bullet in the throat. 

The President does not have time to react when yet another young soldier (either a captain or a lieutenant depending on the source), realizing that someone has drawn a bead on the President and that the next shot might be fatal, body-slams the President to the deck with words that vary from, “Get down you fool!” to “You goddamned fool, get down!” Again, any of a dozen men are stated to have uttered these words, though the most frequently mentioned name is Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes, later an Associate Justice of the United States Supreme Court. 

Lincoln’s response is variable, according to the source quoted:  “As it seemed like wise advice, I did not demur,” a simple gasped “Thank you,” or a subsequent handwritten note of thanks.

In sum, Abraham Lincoln becomes and remains the only sitting President of the United States to come under direct enemy fire. The President gets down, stays down, and returns to the White House none the worse for wear.

For almost 150 years, historians doubt that any Civil War weapon could be so accurate as to hit a man at that range --- that this was a “lucky shot” and no more. Theories also abound that a Confederate sniper had crept into the Union lines and was hidden in a tree or a bush (or perhaps a grassy knoll?). 

Other theories claim that the shot(s) came from a disaffected Union soldier, or perhaps were misdirected friendly fire. However, more recently, it has been proven forensically that a very skilled Confederate sharpshooter using a Whitworth rifle could have taken the shot successfully from his own lines, and that it was only overcorrected or undercorrected windage that saved the President’s life that day.

But for the adventure on the parapet, Early’s men do not do well. Jubal Early later claims that by the time they reached Fort Stevens his men were “exhausted” from the summertime heat and from constant marching, but the truth is that the Washington defenses were just too strong, much more than he had bargained for. Early, an up-to-the-last-minute Unionist, might also have chosen not to press the battle against the Founders’ city. In any event, the battle became a Confederate “demonstration” that lasted all day. As night fell, Early’s troops withdrew and bivouacked just out of range of the fort. 



This post is for Sandi, Washintonian, Marylander, and Birthday Girl!