July 11-12, 1864 - Lincoln fired upon at Fort Stevens

July 11 and 12, 1864

The Battle of Fort Stevens

Washington, D.C.

Horatio G. Wright VI Army Corps

vs.

That desperate bastard Jubal Early

With everyone pulled into the fighting around Richmond and Petersburg, Washington, DC was left virtually defenseless against the Confederate forces that had broken through at Monocacy (eventually). Literally, only sick and old guys were left in the forts around the capital. When Early got to the outskirts of DC there were really just these few irregulars left to defend the city, and they fought badly on the first day. Citizens of DC were in a panic. Some, like those working in the quartermaster's office, were quickly armed and organized. However, the Union had bought itself time at Monocacy, and as a result Fort Stevens was fully reinforced with people who knew what they were doing on the second day of battle. Grant was able to spare a few from Virginia; the Confederates were hoping he would do that, but he didn't take enough to make much of a difference to Virginia. Some of the other reinforcements came by ship all the way from New Orleans. Famously, Lincoln observed the  battle personally. Early's exhausted army was turned away from DC after some half-hearted attempts at taking the fort, and they also abandoned a plan to raid the Eastern Shore of Maryland for Confederate prisoners of war at Point Lookout, though those Confederate raiders (Johnson and the hated Gilmor) caused plenty of trouble in Maryland despite abandoning the rescue mission before rejoining the main Confederate retreat. 

It was originally called Fort Massachusetts, but renamed for General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, after he was killed on Sept. 2, 1862 after 2nd Manassas at the Battle of Chantilly - which is one of my favorites. 

 

Other than Hagerstown, this was the most urban battlefield I visited. In fact, the real Fort Steven was taken down right after the war, along with most of the 60+ other hastily constructed forts encircling the capital. Some of these were even on  quickly seized enemy territory in Virginia at the start of the war! This fort essentially took over a block in a neighborhood of freed blacks. Specifically, they emptied Aunt Bettie's house and tore it down; and after razing an AME church, they used the space for am ammunition depot and the extant basement as a military prison!  ( https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=72830 ; https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=147739 ) After the war it was completely abandoned and become the neighborhood dump. The earthworks and cannon still visible today are fake: recreations installed by work corps in the 1930s. The cannons look down on DC from these heights, but the attackers must have come from behind those, and to the left. There were some historical markers but no visitors center, so I couldn't ask anyone and had to figure it out myself- with the help of my trusty lookout.

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=901

Lincoln mostly lived in the U.S. Soldier's and Airmen's Home in NW DC, and Fort Steven is only 2 miles away. So he, and Mrs. Lincoln, traveled to the fort on the second day of the battle- after the reinforcements had arrived. You would think this battle would be more famous. It was the only time a sitting U.S. President came under enemy fire. One story has it that Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. saw someone standing up on the parapets and screamed something like, "Tell that damned fool to get down!"; Lincoln heard this directed at himself and was tickled by it. He may have later told Holmes, "I see you know how to talk to civilians" or something like that. The battle was five or six miles from the White House.   

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=165667

Battlefield National Cemetery is one of the smallest in the country. (The one at Balls Bluff is another of the other smallest: I've been to the 2nd and 3rd smallest, but not the smallest; that would be in Hampton, VA, which I missed when I was so close!) Located just up the road from Fort Stevens in urban DC, it holds the bodies of the 40 men who died defending their nation's capital. Lincoln himself dedicated the cemetery. The Confederates probably lost several hundred men that day. The sandstone building on the right there was designed by an architect who was himself a veteran of the Fort Stevens battle and he also went on to design the Pension Building, which is now the National Building Museum: General Montgomery Meigs.  

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=165667

Monument to the 25th NY Cavalry 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=76117

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A little further up the road sits the Walter Reed Medical Center. Some rebel climbed some tree on this campus to act as a sharpshooter against Fort Stevens. I read a bunch of fascinating historical markers about the evolution of the Walter Reed facility, but nothing about that particular tree. It's there though. I need to go back and look harder. That's fine. I've been through Middletown, MD like three times at this point.

 A moment of Zen in Rock Creek Park, DC, which contained several of the other fortifications guarding the city to the North, including a couple sites that were engaged during the Fort Steven action.  

Sources:

Spaulding, Brett. Last Chance For Victory: Jubal Early's 1864 Maryland Invasion. 

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=76116

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=188836

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=72829

https://www.hmdb.org/m.asp?m=49526

https://www.battlefields.org/learn/civil-war/battles/fort-stevens