A senator madam president . The presiding officer the senator from West Virginia. Mr. Manchin are we in a quorum call . The presiding officer the senate is not in a quorum call. Mr. Manchin id like to vitiate. The presiding officer were not in a quorum call. Mr. Manchin i ask to speak concerning we have a colloquy, speak on the protection act. The presiding officer without objection. Mr. Manchin madam president , as you know very well, weve been asking for immediate passage of the miners protection act not just for our state of West Virginia but for all the miners across america and basically the retired miners who have done everything thats been asked of them. We have some of our colleagues today and im going to go, at this time, if i can, and my other colleagues will allow me, i would defer right now to senator brown from ohio, since he has other commitments. Hell be coming back and forth, if he could go ahead and get started at this time. And ill come back and go to our other senato
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
Men took up their stand against the confederate troops, who came straight down that way from where the tracks are, and this is where they held them. This is the actual junction. It says frederick junction, but its known as the monacacy junction then. The old train station was right behind us over here. And, in fact, these are the tracks that the troops came down from baltimore. Anyway, after their vermonters finally couldnt take it anymore, they fled down the tracks, around the bentd, and the old railroad bridge over there, the ones they had to flee for their lives over while they were being shot at by the confederates. What you see in the back behind me, which has been restored by the National Park service to the way it looked the day of the battle in 1864, this was the portion of the battle of monacacy, and what youre hearing is interstate 270 in the background, but what was here then was cornfields and wheatfields and they were crisscrossed by farm fences. It was not an ideal place
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