DC Heritage Trails: Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail:
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- TRB2C_140712_04.JPG: "Get Down You Fool"
Battleground to Community
-- Brightwood Heritage Trail --
Hearing those words, President Abraham Lincoln ducked down from the Fort Stevens parapet during the Civil War battle that stopped the Confederates from taking Washington.
On July 9, 1864, some 15,000 Rebels led by General Jubal A. Early defeated Union forces at the Battle of Monocacy near Frederick, Maryland. Early's troops, suffering from the battle and the summer heat, then turned south to march on the lightly defended capital city. But the Monocacy encounter and skirmishes along the Rockville Turnpike gave the Union time to regroup. On the 12th, the Union's fresh troops challenged the Rebels in a fierce but brief fight. Early's forces retreated to Virginia. The only Civil War battle fought in the District of Columbia was over.
President and Mrs. Lincoln both witnessed the afternoon battle. Eyewitness Captain Elijah Hunt Rhodes of Rhode Island recorded the scene: "....[O]n the parapet I saw President Lincoln standing looking at the troops. Mrs. Lincoln and other ladies were sitting in a carriage behind the earthworks. We marched...into a peach orchard in front of Fort Stevens and here the fight began. For a short time it was a warm work, but as the President and many ladies were looking at us, every man tried to do his best....the rebels broke and fled....A surgeon standing on the fort beside President Lincoln was wounded."
"Early should have attacked early in the morning."
Abraham Lincoln is the only serving U.S. president to have come under enemy fire.
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Brightwood Heritage Trail
Welcome to Brightwood, one of Washington, DC's early communities and the site of the only Civil War battle to take place within the District of Columbia. Along with nearby Battleground National Cemetery, Fort Stevens is a daily reminder that the Civil War greatly affected the citizens of Washington. This crossroads community developed from the Seventh Street Turnpike, today's Georgia Avenue, and Military Road. Its earliest days included a pre-Civil War settlement of free African Americans (one of whom, Elizabeth Proctor Thomas, appears on each Heritage Trail sign). Eventually Brightwood boasted a popular race track, country estates, and sturdy suburban housing. In 1861 the area was known as Brighton, but once it was large enough to merit a U.S. Post Office, the name was changed to Brightwood to distinguish it from Brighton, Maryland. With a stock of solid, attractive houses and apartments, the recreational attractions of nearby Rock Creek Park, and longstanding houses of worship, Brightwood has welcomed generations of families whose aspirations have shaped its life and character.
Follow the 18 signs of Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail to discover the personalities and forces that created this remarkable community.
Battleground to Community: Brightwood Heritage Trail, a free booklet capturing the trail's highlights, is available in both English and Spanish language editions at local businesses along the way. To learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CulturalTourismDC.org.
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Brightwood Heritage Trail
13 Battleground National Cemetery
After the rebels were turned back as the Battle of Fort Stevens ended in 1864, scores of Union Soldiers lay cold and silent. Forty-one of them are buried here in this tiny plot dedicated to their sacrifice. President Abraham Lincoln, who observed the battle, spoke at the dedication. At barely one acre, Battleground National Cemetery is one of the nation's smallest.
Memorial Day once drew hundreds to this hallowed place. The holiday was established by veterans in 1868 to honor the Civil War dead. John I. Whites grandfather, Lewis Cass White, was a veteran of the battle of Fort Stevens. John later recalled Memorial Day ceremonies here during the early 1900s that attracted veterans from both sides. A military band would play, and crowds listened to patriotic speeches and poems. Students from the Brightwood School placed flowers and American flags on the graves, and artillery men would fire a salute. "Following the ceremonies," White wrote, "the surviving comrades of the Grand Army of the Republic, who traded shots with the Confederates before Fort Stevens, converged ... for a light lunch" on his grandfather's porch "and fought the battle all over again."
Memorials to units that fought in the battle are located at the cemetery's entrance, where two six-pound, smoothbore guns stand guard. The small, rough-hewn sandstone house was built for the cemetery's superintendent and family. General Montgomery Meigs, engineer architect of the Pension Building (now the National Building Museum), and veteran of the Battle of Fort Stevens, created its design.
- TRB2C_140712_27.JPG: Just North of here is the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. This 1940s photo shows the main building.
A stone marks the spot on Walter Reed's campus where Confederates climbed a tree to signal sharpshooters during the attack on Fort Stevens.
- TRB2C_140712_33.JPG: General Montgomery Meigs, architect of the cemetery lodge photographed by Mathew Brady studio.
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