Pennsylvania avenue between the white house and the capitol. We will develop a vision for this iconic street which is home to so Many National treasures, including this building. I want to send a thanks to the National Parks service and recognize peter may. He is a fellow ncpc commissioner but his day job is associate director for lands, resources, and planning. Fort totten, fort reno, fort dupont. Locals may recognize these names as parks, neighborhoods, even metro stations but many are surprised to learn about their civil war history. The civil war was a milestone in the nations history. The role of famous battlefields like gettysburg and antietam are wellknown to all of us. Today we are going to learn about another important albeit less wellknown battle that took place not far from where we are today. Were it not for the defenses built to protect washington, d. C. The battle of fort stevens, the city of washington, d. C. Could be in a different place today. Today we will learn about
You can read faster than i can talk so i wont read the slides. I want you to see beautiful places i love. They are history and parks and recreation and National Resources and frankly the lungs of the city are largely these forts and the parks. So there we start. As frank said the city was unprotected down below. This is Fort Washington. If you havent been there, you should go. Its quite different from the forts that were built during the civil war. After bull run, lincoln knew the city was vulnerable. Thats when he ordered director Major General john g. Barnard to design forts around the city to protect it. Here they are. These are the ones available there. It was quite an amazing feat to build all those. It was just tremendous. Here they are there. Ive circled them here on this old map, the ones that are under government ownership today. The park service owns all the ones in washington, d. C. And one in maryland and one in virginia. The ones in virginia are owned by local governments.
Kind of oversaw the fortifications during most of the war, as they redid and reconstructed some of these forts, he decided new guns would go in and help cover this which it wasnt doing before. So your plans for the fortifications, the system of fortifications did change over the four years of the war. Coming back, i told you we would stop and i would show you what some of the 360degree angle guns look like. See, the carriage is a little bit different, but this shows you, and you notice the bottom, that gun could be turned 360 degrees so you can fire. Now, if the gun is mounted, basically youre probably only going to want about 180degree turn, but it could be fired the other way if needed. So that gives you a good idea. But you can see the abatee. Notice the abatee coming up, the pointed stakes that i mentioned on the outside. So its in the ditch on the outside to try to keep enemy from coming in. But you can see that it is clear field of fire in front. This is ft. Stevens which is one
Im 75 years of age folks. I remember things differently than when i was fighting or Something Like that at 20, 18, or what have you so the veterans may have been mistaken but they wanted to mark that spot and they got the stone out of the water reed area Cameron Creek and put that bar relief and thats their monument to the remembrance of lincoln on enemy fire. We dont know that the Justice Supreme Court really uttered one of those immortal words, get that damn fool down. The records suggest there are six or five other people, veterans who also shouted get that fool down of the get that man down including horatio down because he told him i cant protect you. Finally lincoln condesendedly getting down. Still washington forts are yet another of washingtons many monuments that have transitioned you purpose. They want recognition from all of us, appreciation. For commemoration for with a they did there an probably both sides lost thousands of people on both sides. So just what they have beco
Directed the American Heritage Rivers Initiative at the White House Council on environmental quality. Today miss newman will discuss the post war impact on the forts, on the surrounding neighborhoods in washington and their evolution into parks. And kim elder. Miss elder is the National Parks Services Program manager for civil war defenses of washington. She is responsible for the management, the Oversight Program development of 16 for 16 of the remaining forts and batteries opened and operated by the National Parks service. So today ms. Elder will highlight the parks today and provide us with a preview of this weekends activities at fort stevens. So let me begin now with dr. Cooling. [ applause ] good afternoon, folks. Pleasure to be back in this lovely facility even if every time i come here i go in the wrong entrance to the National Archives. As a researcher, i became very accustomed over 30 years or more of going in the other side. Well, you dont want to hear about that today. Ill