BGuthrie Photos: DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail

DC Heritage Trails: Civil War to Civil Rights: Downtown Heritage Trail:

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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. TRCWCR_181016_04.JPG: The Civil War to Civil Rights Trail sign had been taken down during the construction of the new law enforcement museum. It was about to be reinstalled.
2. TRCWCR_181102_01.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail w.5 The United States Treasury Billions for the war, and a bunker for the president The grand, pillared United States Treasury building that stands before you, its first section designed by Robert Mills in 1836, was the financial command center for the Union. It was here between 1861 and 1865 that the Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase raised the unprecedented sum of $2.7 billion to finance the government and the war. Chase issued bonds, instituted internal revenue taxes, printed paper money called "greenbacks" and created the first personal income tax in the United States. He also developed the nation's first system of national banks to provide financial stability - a network that remained in place until our present Federal Reserve System was devised early in the 20th century. Activity swirled around this building throughout the war. The 5th Massachusetts camped out here, cooking in the courtyard, and the basement became a bunker for the president and his cabinet in case of Confederate attack. It was here, also, that the federal government, of necessity, hired large numbers of women for the first time. These "lady clerks," as they were called, trimmed by hand the huge sheets of paper greenbacks invented by Secretary Chase. In 1863, the Treasury Building provided the setting for an experiment devised by President Lincoln. Here all loyal slave owners in the District of Columbia were paid to free their slaves - a model never carried out anywhere else in the country.
3. TRCWCR_181102_08.JPG: Secretary Chase hired "lady clerks" to hand cut his new greenbacks
4. TRCWCR_181102_12.JPG: Secretary of the Treasury Salmon P. Chase's restored office.
5. TRCWCR_181102_15.JPG: This 1862 political cartoon pictures Treasury Secretary Chase as "bleeding" funds from a willing United States. At this time, a common method of treating illness was to drain some of the patient's blood.
6. TRCWCR_181102_20.JPG: Treasury's north front under construction, 1867
7. TRCWCR_181102_28.JPG: Blanche K. Bruce, a U.S. senator from Mississippi, later served President James A. Garfield as the first African American Register of the Treasury. Born a slave, Bruce exemplified the civil rights gains made by African Americans as a result of the war and Reconstruction.
8. TRCWCR_181102_36.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
9. TRCWCR_181102_43.JPG: A team of oxen lugs a Rodman gun across the intersection of 15th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue during the Civil War. Heavy wartime traffic like this played havoc with the city's mostly unpaved streets.
10. TRCWCR_181224_001.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglass, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
11. TRCWCR_181224_007.JPG: Returning Union soldiers assemble on a dusty F Street in 1865, preparing for a grand march down Pennsylvania Avenue.
12. TRCWCR_181224_013.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail w.1 The Church of the Epiphany "Carpets, cushions, and hymnbooks were packed away... ambulances began to stop... lastly come the surgeons...." -- Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington Church spires dominated the skyline of the city of Washington at the time of the Civil War, symbolizing the importance of houses of worship in the religious, social and political life of the nation's capital. While Washington still claims an extraordinary number of historic downtown churches, the Church of the Epiphany is the only original pre-Civil War downtown church building to survive. Its walls were witness to the suffering of the wounded soldiers for whom it was a temporary hospital. Here, as in other churches, planks were laid on top of the pews to make a platform for the beds. Episcopalians founded the Church of the Epiphany in 1842. By the time of the Civil War, it was located in a residential neighborhood of strong Southern sympathies. Washington, although the capital of the Union, was a Southern city, carved originally from the states of Maryland and Virginia. Many Washington residents had family and friends in the South, and brothers and sisters and husbands and wives and wives often held conflicting loyalties. Even First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln had three brothers fighting for the Confederacy. Northerners accused the city of being "Secesh," short for secessionist. At one time, Senator Jefferson Davis, who became the president of the Confederacy, lived nearby and was an Epiphany member. Senator Judah P. Benjamin, later Davis's attorney general, and Senator Robert Toombs, who became Davis's secretary of state, lived on then-fashionable F Street one block over from the church. The Reverend Charles Hall, Epiphany's rector, balanced his Southern sympathies with loyalty to the Union. He was so persuasive about his loyalty in a meeting with Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton that the latter began to attend worship services at Epiphany on a regular basis, using the former pew of Jefferson Davis. With Stanton as an example, many Union generals, too, began to attend Epiphany. President Lincoln himself came here for the funeral of General Frederick Lander of the Army of the Army of the Potomac.
13. TRCWCR_181224_018.JPG: The Reverend Charles H. Hall and The Church of the Epiphany about 1860. New York Avenue Presbyterian Church is in the background. (The Church of the Epiphany.)
14. TRCWCR_181224_021.JPG: The Reverend Charles H. Hall and The Church of the Epiphany about 1860. New York Avenue Presbyterian Church is in the background. (The Church of the Epiphany.)
15. TRCWCR_181224_026.JPG: "Carpets, cushions, and hymnbooks were packed away... ambulances began to stop... lastly come the surgeons...." -- Margaret Leech, Reveille in Washington
16. TRCWCR_181224_029.JPG: 1400 block of F Street, left, in the fashionable residential neighborhood near The Church of the Epiphany. In the background is the U.S. Treasury. Future Confederate officials who lived in the area included Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell, below, who attended the church, and Judah P. Benjamin, who later served as Davis's attorney general. (Library of Congress.)
17. TRCWCR_181224_032.JPG: Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina Howell
18. TRCWCR_181224_035.JPG: Judah P. Benjamin, who later served as Davis's attorney general
19. TRCWCR_181224_039.JPG: Southern sympathizers leave the capital for friendlier locations. (The Historical Society of Washington, D.C.)
20. TRCWCR_181224_048.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglas, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
21. TRCWCR_181224_052.JPG: John Wilkes Booth and others plotted the assassination of President Lincoln in the building seen here at the far left, at that time a hotel called the Herndon House. It once stood on the corner straight ahead. The camera is pointed west down F Street in this 1880s view.
22. TRCWCR_181224_055.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail .6 John Wilkes Booth's Escape "My brother saw Booth as he came down the alley and turned into F Street." -- Henry Davis, 1901 Twelve-year-old Henry Davis and his brother often looked out the back window of their Ninth Street home before they went to bed. They were fascinated by the comings and goings of actors and stagehands at the rear of Ford's Theatre, at the other end of the alley on 10th Street. On the evening of April 14, 1865, Henry went to bed early, but his brother stayed up and was a witness to history. He saw a man limp from the back door of the theater, struggle onto a horse being held for him, and dash down the alley toward F Street. It was the famous actor and Confederate supporter John Wilkes Booth, the matinee idol of his day. He had just shot President Lincoln as he sat in his box, watching Our American Cousin. Booth had been trying to capture the president for months. Now the plan was to murder Mr. Lincoln, but this plan had come together only hours before. At six p.m., Booth and his co-conspirators met at the Herndon House, which once stood just steps from this alley on the corner of Ninth and F, where the Courtyard by Marriott hotel is today. There it was agreed that Booth's fellow conspirator Lewis Powell would kill Secretary of State Seward, and George Azerodt would kill Vice President Johnson. Booth took Lincoln for himself. Azerodt's will apparently failed him. Powell severely wounded Seward. But Booth's bullet hit home. The full story is told at Ford's Theatre around the Corner on Tenth Street and in the Petersen House across the street where Lincoln died at 7:22 the next morning. Booth would be apprehended and killed in a Virginia tobacco shed 12 days later.
23. TRCWCR_181224_061.JPG: John Wilkes Booth escaped down the alley next to this sign after shooting President Lincoln at Ford's Theatre
24. TRCWCR_181224_066.JPG: "My brother saw Booth as he came down the alley and turned into F Street." -- Henry Davis, 1901
25. TRCWCR_181224_069.JPG: An artist's 1880s rendering of the alley stage entrance to Ford's Theatre.
26. TRCWCR_181224_073.JPG: Ford's Theatre looms over a muddy Tenth Street as it looked the day after Lincoln's assassination. The restored theater is just around the corner on Tenth near E Street.
27. TRCWCR_181224_085.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail The Civil War (1861 - 1865) transformed Washington, DC from a muddy backwater to a center of national power. Ever since, the city has been at the heart of the continuing struggle to realize fully the ideas for which the war was fought. The 25 signs that mark this trail follow the footsteps of Abraham Lincoln, Walt Whitman, Clara Barton, Frederick Douglas, and others, famous and humble, who shaped a nation and its capital city while living and working in historic downtown DC. Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail is an Official Washington, DC Walking Trail. The self-guided tour consists of three distinct loops: West, Center, and East. Each one-mile loop offers about an hour of gentle exercise. A free booklet capturing the trail's highlights is available at local businesses and institutions along the way. To download the free Civil War to Civil Rights Audio Tour, and learn about other DC neighborhoods, please visit www.CuturalTourismDC.org.
28. TRCWCR_181224_088.JPG: Broad awnings shade a busy F Street in the late 19th century, seen here looking west toward the U.S. Treasury building.
29. TRCWCR_181224_091.JPG: Civil War to Civil Rights Downtown Heritage Trail .5 Abraham Lincoln Walked Here "Tonight, beautiful women, perfumes, and the violins' sweetness... ... [contrast with the war-time] groan, and the glassy eye of the dying." -- Walt Whitman, March 1864 At 10:30 p.m. on March 4, 1865, a tired and gaunt President Lincoln arrived at this site, his wife Mary in white lace and silk with purple and white flowers in her hair. The ball celebrating his second inaugural was being held in the Grand Hall on the top floor of the Patent Office next to where you stand (today a Smithsonian Museum). It was a bittersweet affair. Union victory was in sight, but the ravages of war weighed heavily on the president, and were reflected in his weary, weathered face. He left before the midnight supper, never being one for social occasions. In six weeks he would be gone, felled by an assassin's bullet at Ford's Theatre just two blocks from here. Lincoln would have come this way often. The Patent Office and the General Post Office Building, facing it across F Street, were the two most important federal buildings to be built after the White House and the Capitol. Both buildings were designed in part by Robert Mills, the architect of the Washington Monument and the U.S. Treasury, and were partially complete by the time Lincoln came to Washington as a one-term congressman from Illinois in 1848. They towered over the little two- and three-story shops and homes around them. In one of these small buildings adjacent to the Post Office, Samuel B. Morse ran the nation's first telegraph office. During the Civil War, this street would have been the scene of intense activity. The Post Office doubled as a food commissary. The Patent Office, scene of Lincoln's second inaugural ball, had been a hospital. The poet Walt Whitman, who nurse the wounded there, witnessed it all and recorded the dramatic contrasts.
30. TRCWCR_181224_095.JPG: Lincoln's second inaugural ball was held in the Patent Office, now a Smithsonian museum.
31. TRCWCR_181224_101.JPG: "Bill of Fare of the Presidential Inauguration Ball ..."
32. TRCWCR_181224_103.JPG: Walt Whitman, about 1860
33. TRCWCR_181224_106.JPG: The Patent Office, seen in 1848, towered over the neighborhood
34. TRCWCR_181224_109.JPG: Samuel B. Morse ran the nation's first telegraph office on this block.
35. TRCWCR_181224_112.JPG: A drawing of the Old Post Office Building about 1843 when only the section facing F Street was complete. A corner of the Patent Office appears at the left.
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