Gradually, landowners reclaimed the ground and cut the timber that buttressed walls and structures in the forts. The military collected cannons, tools and equipment inside the forts, sending them back to depots downtown. Engineers wrote reports seeking to prevent the disbanding of all the forts and the recurrence of an unprotected national capital. Yet, the re-united nation wanted to forget war and erase military expenditures for any large standing army or navy. The books closed formally on the vast wartime endeavor on June 14, 1866 and authorities never again considered extensive field fortifications to defend Washington. Later on in the century, however, new river batteries were constructed as protection against foreign naval intrusion. Then, they too receded into history as technology and changing dimensions of national security rendered them obsolete. In the 1860s, engineer Barnard considered his Civil War brainchild the equal of any European fortification system of its time.
Defending Washington had expended $1.4 million of the war effort and kept back an average of 20,000 men from the Army of the Potomac at any given time. Grant’s insensitivity to Lincoln’s paranoia about the city’s protection in the spring and summer of 1864, coupled with the president’s failure to sufficiently dent Grant’s focus on the offensive, as he had two years earlier with McClellan, carried the nation to the brink of disaster by July. The “what ifs” that subsequently accompanied Early’s appearance — possible death or capture of Lincoln, the capture of the capital, whether temporary or permanent, and the cause for Grant’s lifting the Richmond-Petersburg siege during the critical election campaign — all remain wondrous to contemplate today. Standing today where Lincoln stood in 1864 atop the Fort Stevens parapet (a spot well-marked by a stone marker and bas relief), one must marvel why posterity has never declared this singular event one of the pivotal episodes (or even Confederate “lost opportunities”) of the Civil War. If Lincoln had been killed or the capital lost, George B. McClellan might have been elected, possibly leading to a military Caesar taking charge during a horrendous of civil-military crises, determining the postwar course of the nation — or nations. We do well to ponder the effect since it took three critical civil rights amendments to render permanent Lincoln’s emancipation effort and victory over slavery. All that might have turned out for differently if the Defenses of Washington had not held on July 11 and 12, 1864 at Fort Stevens!
Years later, a Senate commission seeking parkland for a burgeoning city ensured that at least some of the forts and their undeveloped landscape would form the basis of a fort circle park system to benefit residents with fresh air and green space. More recently, Virginia jurisdictions have saved the last remaining vestiges of these sentinels of another era. Nonetheless, today’s Defenses of Washington remain high on preservationists “endangered species” lists. True, a Civilian Conservation Corps reconstructed Fort Stevens’s parapet and magazine. These, together with nearby Battleground National Cemetery, give posterity a sense of this forgotten field of strife despite niggardly interpretation and the complete absence of a visitor’s center for comprehending the magnitude of the people and events and people that took place there. The McMillan Commission efforts to use remaining forts as core elements for urban parkland provided an important precedent. The legacy of these efforts, however, is troubled. The survivors of the once-mighty Defenses of Washington are attended by overgrown earthworks, abandoned trash, poorly interpreted historical remains and plagued by questionable public safety.
Today’s tourism could profit from the McMillan and other preservation efforts concerning the Defenses of Washington. Key survivors provide something “beyond the National Mall” for visitor experience in the Nation’s Capital. Happily, they include Alexandria’s city-run Fort Ward Museum and Park, offering reconstructed earthworks and the only true visitor’s center devoted to the topic. Arlington County’s Fort C. F. Smith and the National Park Service owned Fort Marcy off the George Washington Parkway or Fort DeRussy in Rock Creek Park suggest prime un-restored but preserved examples of the forts. Other fragments remain scattered around the city, but some of the best languish east of the Anacostia River in neighborhoods of dubious access due to crime. The better maintained if under-interpreted Fort Stevens in northwest Washington and the fascinating river fortifications in southern Maryland — old Fort Washington and its state-of-the-art Civil War successor, Fort Foote — make ideal tourist destinations. In fact, visitors to the latter will be treated not just to the formidable earthen parapets and sophisticated design for withstanding heavy naval attack, but solid interpretive markers and two remounted seacoast Columbiad cannon add a uniqueness rarely found elsewhere. Battleground National Cemetery near Walter Reed Army Medical Center on Georgia Avenue, NW, and Fort Stevens have recently been joined by a new heritage walking trail in the adjacent Brightwood neighborhood, dealing heavily with the battle, make the area worth a special pilgrimage.
So today at the remaining defense sites, dog parks vie with picnic areas, overgrown earthworks and trash-littered parkland supplement wildlife and city life creatures. Biking and hiking trails plus urban streets afford access without much direction, and the only randomly interpreted forts all muster a full spectrum of challenges for stewards of the Civil War forts of Washington. In the end, we would do well to remember an American president was under fire an nearly lost his life at one of these sites, together with many of his boys in blue; a Medal of Honor was earned here; and the combined efforts of white and black, soldiers and civilians kept tenacious Confederate troops at bay. The forts and their modern green space are just as worthy of preservation as any battlefield. Because of them, Washington, D.C. — the symbol, sword and shield of one nation — emerged unscathed from the Civil War and stands today as the centerpiece of our heritage.
Dr. B. Franklin Cooling, a Washington native, is the author of a number of books in military and naval history, including The Day Lincoln Was Almost Shot; The Fort Stevens Story; Symbol, Sword and Shield,; Defending Washington During the Civil War; Jubal Early’s Raid on Washington, July 1864; Monocacy; The Battle that Saved Washington and co-authored with Walton Owen, Mr. Lincoln’s Forts; A Guide to the Civil War Defenses of Washington. He is currently writing a critical biographical analysis of Jubal Early.