An interesting historical note is that one of the properties that has become four circles parts. We will begin to study the near and long term needs for pennsylvania avenue between the white house and the capital. We will develop a new vision for this iconic street, which is home to so Many National treasures, including this bui building, the National Archives. I want to extend a special thanks to the National Park service which is the steward for four circle parks and especially peter may. He is a commissioner, but his day job is associate regional director for planning in the National Capital region. Locals may recognize these names as parks, neighborhoods and everyone metro stations. But many are surprised to learn about their civil war history. The civil war was a milestone in our nations history. Today, were going to learn about another important, al bee it lessknown battle. The city of washington, d. C. Could very well be a different place today. Today, well learn about their ens
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
President will say, mary would not make a very good soldier, as she swooned. So while the president has been under fire, a man has been shot near him, and by 4 00, the 6th corps is ready to take the offensive. And they will move out from in front of fort stevens, moving across the ground that slopes down to where walter reid is now, beyond battleground cemetery, where 40odd men of the Union Soldiers who were killed here are buried and the union troops and the confederates pulled back. Lincoln will not take his eye off the big picture. Tuesday is the 12th. On the 14th, he is back out at the taking care of business. So he is going to do, and i want you to play another little tune there, because hes going to sign a bill calling for 500,000 more men. And theres one of the tunes in that, we are coming father abraham, 500,000 more. So hes showing his commitment to continuing the war. Hes also curtailed negotiations carried out through on the same day with mr. Blair, through frank blair, and
Surviving forts with dale floyd from the National Park service. Right now were in the museum which has a variety of different artifacts. One of the nice things is we have a map of the fences of washington and gives you a good idea of where they are today. Fences of washington and gives you a good idea of where they are today. And today we are also going to go to fort foot which is down here. And all the way up to fort stephens which is up there. The reason that the forts were built was basically to protect the capital of the United States. It first started in may, may of 1861. Soon after virginia succeeded from the union. The troops moved over one night across the potomac over into arlington and alexandria and started building fortifications. After the first battle of manassas in july of 1861 in which the union was actually defeated, the men came streaming back into the city and the city literally the con fed rats could have walked in and taken the city. So after that with the fear, mo
Guns within the fort. They started building it very early and kept working on it and changing it to the place where it was eventually the fifth largest. You had basically during the war green guns and black guns with bronze and the iron. Usually the bronze was smooth ore and the black guns were rifled guns. And the rifled guns, of course, had a better range and actually fired better. But a gun like this was a good antipersonnel weapon. There were various types of ammunition you could use in this, plus even at times you could put chains and Everything Else in here and fire it at an enemy. And, of course, the chain, or whatever, would could mow town a number of men. So this became a very this type of gun became a good antipersonnel weapon. With this platforms, you can get up and take a look at the fort without actually walking on the walls. As we get up here, you can see the ditch and the embracers as they come out of the fort which is what the gun would have fired out. On the inside, th