BGuthrie Photos: DC -- Lincoln Cottage -- Visitor Center

DC -- Lincoln Cottage -- Visitor Center:

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Copyrights: All pictures were taken by amateur photographer Bruce Guthrie (me!) who retains copyright on them. Free for non-commercial use with attribution. See the [Creative Commons] definition of what this means. "Photos (c) Bruce Guthrie" is fine for attribution. (Commercial use folks including AI scrapers can of course contact me.) Feel free to use in publications and pages with attribution but you don't have permission to sell the photos themselves. A free copy of any printed publication using any photographs is requested. Descriptive text, if any, is from a mixture of sources, quite frequently from signs at the location or from official web sites; copyrights, if any, are retained by their original owners.

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Specific picture descriptions: Photos above with "i" icons next to the bracketed sequence numbers (e.g. "[1] ") are described as follows:
1. LINCOV_080211_001.JPG: 1861: Limiting the Expansion of Slavery: Because he believed that the Constitution did not give the president the power to abolish slavery, Lincoln vowed in his inaugural address on March 4, 1861, to uphold the Constitution: "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so." For decades before 1861, debate raged over whether to protect slavery, to allow it in new territories, or to abolish it. While Congress argued, many slaves chose to emancipate themselves, sometimes with the help of abolitionists -- to escape slavery's brutality or the fear of being sold into the Deep South, or to reunite their family. (Document) Letter from Lincoln to the governor of California, transmitting a proposed constitutional amendment to protect slavery, never adopted. March 16, 1861. Trying to forestall war, President James Buchanan encouraged and signed a joint congressional resolution to protect slavery; "No Amendment shall be made to the Constitution which will authorize or give to Congress the power to abolish or interfere, within any state, with the domestic institutions thereof, including that of persons held to labor or service by the laws of said State." After taking office, Lincoln forwarded it, without comment, to the states to consider for ratification.
2. LINCOV_080211_008.JPG: 1862: Executing a Slave Trader: Early in the war, Lincoln approached the issue of slavery with caution. He focused on his stated purpose, to maintain the Union, and on not losing the support of the "border" states in which slavery was legal. He did, however, become the only president to approve the execution of a slave trader. (Document) Abraham Lincoln's respite of execution for the slaver Nathaniel Gordon, countersigned by Secretary of State William H. Seward, February 2, 1862. In this document, Lincoln refuses to commute the sentence of Nathaniel Gordon, convinced of engaging in the international slave trade (which the Constitution prohibited after 1808), but grants him a brief period of leave to prepare for his execution on February 21, 1862.
3. LINCOV_080211_023.JPG: Richard Moe, head of the National Trust, doing a last-minute inspection
4. LINCOV_080211_028.JPG: A National Monument: July 7, 2000: In the years since the Lincolns resided on the grounds, the cottage served for a time as a dormitory for the Soldiers' Home band, an infirmary, a guest house, the first women's dorm, a bar and lounge for residents, and most recently the AFRH public affairs office. In 1974, the cottage and six other pre-Civil War buildings, along with six surrounding acres, became a National Historic Landmark. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the staff and residents of the Soldiers' Home lobbied for more ambitious preservation in order to more widely share the Lincoln legacy. Their efforts drew the attention of the National Trust for Historic Preservation, whose president, Richard Moe, secured the support of First Lady Hillary Rodman Clinton. In July 2000, President William J. Clinton declared the Anderson Cottage -- now known as the Lincoln Cottage -- a national monument, and the National Trust moved ahead with preserving it and opening it to the public. During Lincoln's time, the cottage was referred to by several names, including Rigg's Mansion, the Governor's Residence, and simply the Soldiers' Home. In 1889, the cottage was officially named for General Robert Anderson, one of the founders of the Soldiers' Home. The exterior of the cottage has been restored to the period of the Lincoln's occupancy, with stucco mixed to match surviving examples of the original stucco. The veranda has been reconfigured to the design shown in historic images, including one in Mary Todd Lincoln's family album.
5. LINCOV_080211_029.JPG: A Presidential Retreat, 1850s - 1880s: Beginning in 1857, in order to build political support for the Soldiers' Home, the commissioners began inviting the president and secretary of war to occupy officers' cottages during the summer. James Buchanan, the first president to accept, wrote from the White House in October 1858, "I sleep much better now, but not near so well as at the Soldiers' Home." He may have recommended the Soldiers' Home to Lincoln, who lived here for thirteen months between 1862 and 1864. Presidents Andrew Johnson and Ulysses Grant did not stay here, but Rutherford Hayes renewed the tradition in the late 1870s. James Garfield intended to stay here but was assassinated in 1881. Chester Arthur used this summer retreat and also spent the winter 1882-1883 here while the White House was renovated. The traditional probably ended because of the Soldiers' Home growing resident population.
6. LINCOV_080211_032.JPG: A Popular Destination: 1880 - 1920: "It was the summer home of the martyr President Lincoln during the stirring times of the civil war, and for this reason allow should be carefully preserved and revered by all, though other Presidents of the United States, like Buchanan, Hayes, Garfield, and Arthur were wont to spend a portion of their summers here." -- Inspector General J.C. Breckenridge, USSH 1901 Annual Report "The Soldiers' Home drive is the most popular, as it is the most accessible, and it bears repeated visiting without tiring the visitor... As the carriages turn into a shaded lane where the roadway is bowered by the trees at each side, the visitor sees that the city he has left is spread out before him far to the east and west." -- Harper's Weekly, June 1886.
7. LINCOV_080211_035.JPG: A Military Asylum: 1851 - Civil War: The Soldiers' Home came into being only after decades of frustrated urging by the military, countered by congressional reluctance to fund services for disabled veterans. It reflected the efforts -- remarkable in retrospect -- of three men. Kentucky-born Robert Anderson, a veteran of the Black Hawk War, the son of a Revolutionary War veteran, and later commander of Fort Sumter at the outbreak of the Civil War, passionately called for a "soldiers' retreat" throughout the 1840s. General Winfield Scott, hero of the Mexican War of 1846-1848, challenged the War Department and Congress by depositing $100,000 of the tribute he had exacted from Mexico City into an account "to the credit of the Army Asylum." But it was the Democratic senator from Mississippi, Jefferson Davis -- later the president of the Confederacy -- who introduced the bill that established the long-awaited "Military Asylum" on March 3, 1851. Originally intended as a final resting place for residents of the Soldiers' Home, the cemetery became a temporary graveyard for Civil War soldiers fallen in nearby battles. More than 5,000 men were interred between 1861 and 1864, when Robert E. Lee's Arlington farm was established as a new, larger national cemetery. The earliest inmates, as residents were known until 1859, when the "asylum" officially became the Soldiers' Home, were required to wear uniforms and work for their keep -- which prompted some to drink or run away. Despite calls to close the home in 1864, it grew dramatically after the Civil War. For $58,111, Congress purchased some 200 acres and a country cottage from the banker George W. Riggs Jr. A larger main hall, later known as the Scott Hall and now as the Sherman Building, was built to house 250 enlisted veterans, along with several other residences to house officers who ran the home.
8. LINCOV_080211_047.JPG: "He was the first great man I talked with in the United States freely, who in no single instance reminded me of the difference between himself and myself, of the difference of color, and I thought that all the more remarkable because he came from a State where there were black laws." -- Frederick Douglass, remembering Abraham Lincoln, 1885.
9. LINCOV_080211_048.JPG: The Pragmatic Emancipator: Lincoln was a lifelong opponent of slavery -- but he felt he lacked not only the constitutional authority to abolish it but also a national mandate, since he had been elected president with only 40 percent of the popular vote. Instead, he first promoted gradual emancipation, with monetary compensation for slaveholders.
10. LINCOV_080211_053.JPG: "I have always thought that all men should be free; but if any should be slaves it should be first those who desire it for themselves, and secondly those who desire it for others. Whenever [I] hear anyone arguing for slavery, I feel a strong impulse to see it tried on him personally." -- Abraham Lincoln, speech to the 140th Indiana regiment, March 17, 1865.
11. LINCOV_080211_054.JPG: "The Tycoon is in fine whack. I have rarely seen him more serene & busy." -- Letter from John Hay to John Nicolay, August 7, 1863. Lincoln's principal aides enjoyed close relationships with him. Nicolay acted as gatekeeper to the president's office, while Hay read and answered his mail. In this letter, Hay continues, his admiration for his boss the Tycoon, "There is no man in the country, so wise, so gentle and so firm."
12. LINCOV_080211_067.JPG: Wartime Washington with the half-completed Capitol dome. It was finished December 3, 1863.
13. LINCOV_080211_070.JPG: Before D.C. Emancipation: Prior to the Civil War, there was a large free black population in the District, more than 9,000 in 1860. A black middle class of restaurateurs, seamstresses, barbers, government messengers, and shopkeepers mingled with whites during the daytime but retreated to mostly segregated neighborhoods at night. At the same time, nearly 2,000 enslaved servants and laborers were living in the District. During his term in Congress between 1846 and 1848, Abraham Lincoln had been appalled by slave traders doing business even near the steps of the Capitol. The Compromise of 1850 had ended the sale of slaves within the District of Columbia, but long-held customs and municipal regulations called the "Black Codes" continued to restrict the lives of Washington's free and enslaved black residents. One of the largest attempted escapes of slaves took place in Washington in 1848 when 76 men and women boarded the Pearl and sailed north into the night. The winds were not strong enough to carry them to freedom, and they were captured the next day. Many were sold into the Deep South as punishment.
14. LINCOV_080211_075.JPG: After D.C. Emancipation: In 1862, President Lincoln pressed for and signed a congressional act emancipating slaves in the District on April 16 of that year, and compensating owners loyal to the Union up to $300 per slave. The prospect of freedom almost immediately led thousands of rural slaves to leave farms and plantations. One year after D.C. emancipation, approximately 10,000 former slaves, mostly from Maryland and Virginia, were living here. By 1865 when the war ended, 40,000 freed men, women, and children had come to the capital. Annual celebrations of D.C. emancipation took place in Washington from 1866 to 1901 and were revived in 2002. In 2005, Emancipation Day became an official holiday in the District of Columbia. Congress created the Freedman's Bureau in March 1865 to assist in protecting, aiding and educating free black Americans. General Oliver Otis Howard, appointed by Lincoln to head the bureau, allocated $500,000 to purchase land and construct buildings for a liberal arts college. Howard University, named in his honor, was established by congressional charter in 1867.
15. LINCOV_080211_080.JPG: A wartime map of Washington DC. The arrow-looking things on the upper right are magnets which you can move to indicate various items on the map -- such as bridges, Alexandria, the road to the Soldiers' Home, etc. The magnifying glasses are there to examine the map more closely. I'm hoping these items don't disappear after opening day.
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- 2021_DC_Lincoln_CottageVC: DC -- Lincoln Cottage -- Visitor Center (4 photos from 2021)
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Same Subject: Click on this link to see coverage of items having the same subject: [Civil War] [Lincoln Cottage (Everything)] [Lincoln Cottage (Non-Events)] [Display ALL Lincoln Cottage (Non-Events) photos] [National Trust for Historic Preservation]
Featured Folk: Some of the people here can also be seen on other pages on this site.
- Moe, Richard appears on:
  - 2019_DC_Moe_190321 DC Env Film Festival (2019) -- Eric Moe Sustainability Film Award Finalists and Winner "Lost World" (w/Kalyanee Mam) and "Treeline" (w/Darrell Hartman and Annie Bush) @ Natl Geographic Society
  - 2018_DC_EFF_Benefit_180205 DC Env Film Festival (2018) -- Benefit Gala honoring Dr. Sylvia Earle @ Embassy of France in the US
  - 2017_DC_Dallek_171108 Politics & Prose -- Robert Dallek ("Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Political Life")
  - 2017_DC_Moe_170320 DC Env Film Festival (2017) -- Eric Moe Sustainability Film Award Finalists and Winner @ Natl Geographic Society
  - 2017_DC_MoeR_170320 DC Env Film Festival (2017) -- Eric Moe Sustainability Film Award Finalists and Winner -- Pre-Event Reception @ Natl Geographic Society
  - 2016_DC_Moe_160317 DC Env Film Festival (2016) -- "Bluebird Man" w/Matthew Podolsky, Emily Bender, and Ted Wood @ Carnegie Inst
  - 2016_DC_EFF_Benefit_160210 DC Env Film Festival (2016) -- 10th Annual Benefit Reception @ Japanese Ambassador's Residence
  - 2015_DC_Moe_150319 DC Env Film Festival (2015) -- Eric Moe Sustainability Film Award Finalists and Winner ("Silent River") w/Steve Fisher and Jason Jaacks @ Natl Geographic Society
  - 2015_DC_MoeR_150319 DC Env Film Festival (2015) -- Eric Moe Sustainability Film Award Finalists and Winner -- Reception @ Natl Geographic Society
  - 2014_DC_NBF_Misc_140830 Natl Book Festival 2014 -- Miscellaneous
  - ...More (List all 20 pages with this person)...
2008 photos: Trips this year: (1) Civil War Preservation Trust annual conference in Springfield, Missouri , (2) a week in New York, (3) a week in San Diego for the Comic-Con, (4) a driving trip to St. Louis, and (5) a visit to dad and Dixie's in Asheville, North Carolina. Ego strokes: A picture I'd taken last year during a Friends of the Homeless event was published in USA Today with a photo credit and everything! I became a volunteer photographer with the AFI/Silver theater. Equipment this year: I was using three cameras -- the Fuji S9000 and the Canon Rebel Xti from last year, and a new camera, the Fuji S100fs. The first two cameras had their pluses and minuses and I really didn't have a single camera that I thought I could use for just about everything. But I loved the S100fs and used it almost exclusively this year. Number of photos taken this year: 330,000.
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