Last Time 'Insurgents" Got This Close to the Capitol-- Part 4: Lincoln to the Front, 'Get Down, You Damn Fool!'

President Abraham Lincoln traveled to the front lines at Fort Stevens during Early's attack.  Although this was after Early had resigned himself to the failure of his attack.

Still, sharpshooter bullets whizzed and cannons boomed.

Generals and other officers pleaded for him to tale cover as bullets thudded into the  embankment.

Legend has it that one of these  officers was Captain  Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., the future U.S. Supreme Court justice, who, recognizing the lanky Lincoln as his commander-in-chief, barked at the President, "Get down, you damn fool!"

It marked the only time a sitting president ever came under fire in combat, according to the National Park Service.

--Old Secesh

The Last Time 'Insurgents' Got This Close to US Capitol-- Part 3: Too Late

General Early rode along the weakening Confederate formations, trying to rally them to take advantage of the big break, but to no avail.  They had a hard time even getting up a decent Rebel Yell.  Before long, the first of Grant's troops started arriving and launched a counter attack that stopped the advance.  

The Confederates stopped for the night.

The next morning, Early reconnoitered the Union defenses with field glasses  and instead of see the sharp, brand new uniforms worn by the clerks, he saw faded, war-torn blue uniforms.  Everywhere, he saw fluttering U.S. and Regimental battle flags fluttering in the breeze.

Jubal Early later wrote in his memoirs, "I had, therefore, reluctantly to give up all hopes  of capturing Washington, after I had arrived within sight of the dome of the Capitol."

--Old Sesh

The Last Time 'Insurgents' Got This Close to US Capitol-- Part 2: This Close to a Win Back in '64

 Confederate general Jubal Early commanded the 2nd Corps of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia which fought under a square flag of the rectangular one so often flown today (the Confederate Naval Ensign).

At the time of the attack, the chances of the Confederacy were greatly in decline and it was hoped this sudden feint might convince Union to send troops from the Petersburg, Virginia, front to defend the capital.

As soon as the target of this Confederate attack was known to Grant, he sent some 17,000 troops to the capital's defense.  In the meantime, back in D.C., Union officers started scrounging up as many troops as they could from the wounded soldiers recovering and government clerks, essentially anyone who could carry a weapon.  They were sent out to man the defenses.

Early ordered his leading division of troops to immediately begin an attack on Fort Stevens.  At one point, Confederates did find a gap in the Union defenses that could have been a huge turnaround in the battle.  Had they been able to exploit it  they would have had a direct route to the Washington Navy Yard, the U.S. Treasury as well as a myriad of  warehouses with food, medicine and ordnance.

However, Early's troops had been on the march for quite awhile and were too exhausted to make good on the break.

--Old Secesh

The Last Time 'Insurgents' Carrying Rebel Flags Got That Close to U.S. Capitol-- Part 1

From the Jan. 7, 2021, CNN "Before Wednesday, insurgents waving Confederate flags hadn't been within six miles of the US Capitol" by Eliott C. McClaughlin.

During the Civil War, no Confederate flag ever came to the U.S. capitol building, but then, Wednesday was another thing altogether.  Not only did one come close to the structure, one was brought inside it, and not in a friendly manner either.

Versions of the Confederate flag had appeared in the building as parts of  legitimate exhibits before, but until January 6, 2021, the closest any rebel carrying that flag had come to the Capitol was about six miles, during the Battle of Fort Stevens on July 11 and 12, 1864.

The Battle of Fort Stephens was the closest  the Confederacy ever came to conquering Washington, D.C., and pulling off what the British had done in 1814.  By 1864, the South was battered, but still had enough so that on July 11, Confederate Lt. General Jubal  Early, could sit on his horse by Fort Stephens and view the dome of the Capitol some six miles away.

He determined the defense of D.C. as being "feebly manned."  And, he wasn't completely wrong in the assessment.

--Old Secesh

Soldiers Also Occupied U.S. Capitol in 1861-- Part 5: 'Voted Down On Constitutional Grounds'

Troops also used senators' desks and stationery to write letters home and conducted mock debates in their spare time.

"Our life in the Capitol  was most dramatic and sensational,"  Theodore Winthrop of the 7th  New York Regiment wrote to the Atlantic Monthly magazine,  "We joked, we shouted, we sang, we mounted the Speaker's desk and  made speeches."

In one faux Senate session, the troops debated asking the president to send booze, one correspondent wrote.

"The presiding officer was just putting the question on a resolution directing the sergeant-at-arms to proceed immediately to the White House and to request the President, if, in his opinion, not incompatible with the public interest, to send  down a gallon of his best brandy," the reporter wrote.

"A motion to strike out the word 'Brandy' and substitute 'Old Rye' was voted down, on Constitutional grounds because  the 'Hon. Senator from South Carolina' who offered it had both legs on the desk, while the rules permitted only one," he continued.

When the Senate convened for an emergency session in July 1861 and returned to regular session in  December, the soldiers quartered at the Capitol moved out.

In 1964, the plaque commemorating their stay was placed  on the wall by Lincoln's bust, recalling the earlier instance of soldiers being quartered there.

--Old Secesh

Soldiers Also Occupied the Capitol in 1861-- Part 3: About Jefferson Davis' Senate Desk

The soldiers bivouacked at the Capitol in 1861 were from the states of New York, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania and the District of Columbia.  Emotions were high and at one point the soldiers discovered that one of the desks in the Senate chamber had belonged to Jefferson Davis, who was now the president of the enemy, the Confederate States of America.

They went after the desk with their bayonets but were stopped by  the Senate doorkeeper, Isaac Bennett who ran among them and told them it was not his (Davis') desk, that it belonged to the government.  "You were put here to protect, and not to destroy!" he shouted.    "They stopped immediately and said  I was right, they thought it belonged to Jefferson Davis."

Some of the men had already encountered battle before arriving at the Capitol.  The Sixth Massachusetts  had run into an angry Confederate mob when they had arrived at nearby Baltimore.

When they arrived at the Capitol, the doorkeeper described them as "a tired, bedraggled lot of men, showing every evidence of  the struggle they had so recently passed through."

--Old Secesh

Soldiers Also Occupied U.S. Capitol in 1861-- Part 4: 'The Odor of Cooking and Pipe Smoke Filled the Air'

When the Massachusetts men entered the Capitol building, Isaac Bennett, the Senate doorkeeper said they: "rushed to the Senate  Chamber, the galleries, committee rooms, marble room, wherever they could find accommodations."

He continued:  "Everything that was possible was done to make them comfortable as the circumstances permitted.  But it almost broke my heart  to see the soldiers bring armfuls of bacon and  hams and throw them down on the floor of the marble room.  Almost with tears in my eyes, I begged them not to grease up the  walls and the furniture."

Pennsylvania volunteers stayed in the House Chamber, and the Massachusetts group in the Senate Chamber.

As 4,000 troops occupied the building, the raucous scene was a far cry from the civility of lawmaking.  Soldiers defecated in the hallways, rigged ropes to swing from the unfinished dome  and unwittingly spread lice among each other.

The odor of cooking and pipe smoke permeated the air and soot from baking bread in the basement damaged books in the Library of Congress.

"The smell is awful," wrote the architect of the Capitol, Thomas U. Walter in a letter to his wife.  "The building is like one  grand water closet -- every hole and corner defiled."

--Old Secesh

Troops Came to U.S. Capitol in 1861 and Wrecked It-- Part 2: Different From 160 Years Ago

The most recent chapter in the history of the U.S. Capitol took place 160 years later.

On Wednesday, Jan. 13, photos showed  the halls of the building filled with thousands of rifle-toting National Guard troops tasked with securing the nation's capital city.  They rested on floors that just a week earlier rioters had overrun.  And some even carried Confederate flags.

But, this time they will not be staying in the Capitol, but put up in local hotels.

Troops also stayed overnight in the Capitol building during World War II and after the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr in 1968 during black riots.  According to U.S. senate history, they had also been called on to maintain order on at least three other times.

The scene this past Wednesday was also remarkably different than 160 years ago.  A bust of Lincoln and a plaque commemorating the earlier quartered regiments were located above napping guard members.  A group of black guardsmen took photos with a statue of Civil Rights icon Rosa Parks.

Most wore face masks, and many observed social distancing amid the virus epidemic.

--Old Secesh

Troops Came to U.S. Capitol in 1861 and Left It In a Total Mess-- Part 1

From the Jan. 14, 2021, Washington Post "Troops lodged in the Capitol in 1861.  It was a wreck when they left" by Meryl Sonmez.

What with that huge turnout of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C. for President Biden's inauguration this Wednesday, I thought this article I found was appropriate.

At the beginning of the Civil War, President Lincoln, fearing for the safety of Washington, D.C., called out for thousands of soldiers to come to town on April 15, three days after Fort Sumter was attacked.  Three days later, they began arriving. 

Ohio Senator John Sherman, younger brother of Gen. William Tecumseh Sherman, recalled in his memoirs, "The response of the loyal states to the call of Lincoln was perhaps the most remarkable  uprising of a great people in the history of mankind."

But, he noted that they were not trained soldiers and had no discipline.  Some were housed in the Capitol building and they  wrecked it, getting bacon grease on the walls, swinging from ropes hanging from the ceiling of the dome and debating if they should ask for more booze

This greatly frightened the people who had to work in its hallowed halls and rooms.

--Old Secesh

January Civil War Dates: Fall of Fort Fisher

From the American Battlefield Trust 2021 calendar.

JANUARY 1, 1863

President Lincoln signs the Emancipation Proclamation.

JANUARY 15, 1865

Fall of Fort Fisher, North Carolina.   (How could I have forgotten this date yesterday?  Duh!)

JANUARY 19, 1862

Battle of Mill Springs, Kentucky.

JANAUARY 28, 1864

Operations around New Bern, North Carolina.

JANUARY 30, 1862

USS Monitor launched at Greenpoint, Long Island, New York.

JANAUARY 31, 1865

Robert E. Lee assumes command of all Confederate armies.

JANUARY 31, 1865

The U.S. House of Representatives passes the 13th Amendment.

--Old Secesh

December Civil War Dates: 13th Amendment and Stones River

From the American Battlefield Trust 2021 calendar.

December

DECEMBER 6, 1865

The 13th Amendment ratified, officially abolishing slavery.

DECEMBER 7 1862

Battle of Prairie Grove, Arkansas.

DECEMBER 11, 1862

Battle of Fredericksburg, Va. begins.

DECEMBER 12, 1862

USS Cairo sinks in the Yazoo River, Miss.  Hit a torpedo (mine).

DECEMBER 15, 1864

Battle of Nashville, Tn. begins.

DECEMBER 18, 1865

The 13th Amendment abolishing slavery becomes a part of the U.S. Constitution.

DECEMBER 31, 1862

Battle of Stones River(Murfreesboro), Tenn. begins.

--Old Secesh

American Battlefield Trust, Williamsburg, Va.-- Part 2: The 'Bloody Ravine'

WILLIAMSBURG, VIRGINIA

69 acres saved

In the first pitched battle of the Peninsula Campaign, nearly 41,000 Federals and 32,000 Confederates clashed in the mud and poring rain at Williamsburg on May 5, 1862.

The Trust is working to save an additional 29 acres of this largely unprotected battlefield, including action around the famous "Bloody Ravine."  Of course, with the current Confederate hatred going on in the state, preserving these acres for posterity looms even more important.

Full page photo by Robert James.

Thanks, Trust.  --Old Secesh

American Battlefield Trust, December 2020: Battle of Williamsburg-- Part 1

As a member of the American Battlefield Trust, I receive the  calendars.  This is from the 2021 calendar which had a preliminary page for December 2020.

Since the organization works to save American battlefields from the American Revolution, War of 1812 and Civil War, each month they feature a different battlefield with a full page current photo as well as information.  There is also writing on specific days telling what happened.

I didn't know they had December 2020 in it until I opened it up.

December featured  a picture of part of the Williamsburg, Virginia, battlefield by Robert James.

There was also a smaller picture of Prospect Hill at the Fredericksburg & Spotsylvania NMP, in Virginia by Chris Landon.

--Old Secesh

Fort Wool Today-- Part 8

The fort was decommissioned in 1953 as a military installation.  Of course, since it was named for U.S. general John Ellis Wool, its name would not have to be changed now since the passage of the 2020 Defense Bill.

It was turned over to Virginia.  In the 1950s, the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel (HRBT) was constructed right next to the fort, with its southern island connected to the fort  by an earthen causeway.  The HRBT opened for traffic in 1957.  In 1967 and again in 1970, the City of Hampton developed the fort into a park which could be accessed by the passenger ferry Miss Hampton II.

The fort can also be seen by  westbound vehicles on approach to the HRBT  southern tunnel, which carries Interstate I-64 across the mouth of Hampton Roads.

The island the fort sits on is now called  Rip Raps and it continues to settle.  Occasionally the casemates of the original fort are put off limits for safety reasons.

On 28 April 2007, a garrison flag was raised over the fort for the first time to salute a Parade of Tall Ships passing by it as part of the 400th anniversary of the settlement of nearby Jamestown.

What caused me to become more aware of the fort and write about it in my Not So Forgotten: War of 1812 blog (it was built as a result of the British occupying the Chesapeake Bay during that war and, of course the attacks on Washington, D.C., and Baltimore), was that the fort has now been turned into a bird sanctuary and is off limits to people.

There Needs To be Some Sort of Compromise Between Nature and People Here.  --Old Secesh

Fort Wool During World War II-- Part 7

Again, anti-submarine nets were stretched across the harbor between Fort Wool and Fort Monroe.

Battery 229 with two 6-inch shielded guns on long range  carriages was constructed on a rebuilt Battery Horatio Gates from March 1943 to January 1944.  The work was completed and the shielded  carriages were installed; however, the gun tubes were not installed.

On 30 September 1943, the installation was  completed on an SCR-296A radar to provide fire control for Battery 229, which of course, was never needed.

The previous six-inch guns were scrapped in 1942-1943.  Battery Lee's  four 3-inch guns were transferred to Fort Story (across the bay by Virginia Beach), two each in 1942 and 1943.

In 1946, Battery Hindman's pair of three-inch guns were transferred to Fort Monroe as a saluting battery.

--Old Secesh

Fort Wool's Endicott Batteries and World War I-- Part 6

ENDICOTT BATTERIES

In 1885, the Endicott board met and determined that the coastal defenses of the U.S. needed to be updated.  As a result, all but a small part of Fort Wool's  western end of the fort were demolished to make room for what eventually became five batteries.  

As funding became available they were constructed starting in 1905  Fort Wool's armament was of relatively smaller-caliber, rapid-firing guns because Fort Monroe  had the bigger guns.  The three-inch guns were primarily emplaced to protect underwater mine fields from minesweepers.  Some of the mines, still called torpedoes at the time were stored at Fort Wool.

WORLD WAR I

In 1917 and 1918, all but two of the six-inch guns at Fort Wool  were removed to potentially be sent to the Western front in Europe.  The remaining guns were shifted to Battery Gates.

During both wars, submarine nets  were stretched across the harbor from Fort Monroe to Fort Wool.

--Old Secesh

Fort Wool in Chesapeake Bay-- Part 5: The Sawyer Gun

The range of the Sawyer gun, with extended elevation, extended all the way to Confederate-held Sewell's Point in Virginia, 3 miles away (where Norfolk Naval Base is now located).  The Confederates had built an impressive fort there complete with  bastions, a redan and three artillery batteries mounting 45 guns.

The Sawyer gun was rifled and could fire a shot further and with more accuracy than the usual smoothbore cannons in use.  It was one of several rifled artillery pieces developed by Sylvanus Sawyer. Sadly for him, none of his designs were widely adopted by Union forces.

A weapon of  the type at Fort Wool was tested at nearby Fort Monroe in 1859.  Two different Sawyer weapons, a 24-pounder rifle and a 3.67-inch were used at the Siege of Richmond in 1864-1865.  The 24-pounder burst on the tenth fire and the 3.67 was rarely used.

Fort Wool had a ringside seat for the Battle of Hampton Roads between the CSS Virginia and USS Monitor during what is referred to as the Battle of the Ironclads on March 9, 1862.  The Sawyer gun fired on the Virginia, but no damage was done to the ship because of her armor.

--Old Secesh

Fort Wool in Chesapeake Bay-- Part 4: Name Change and the Sawyer Gun

The fort was originally named after John C. Calhoun, President Monroe's Secretary of War, who was a southern secessionist.  That wouldn't do once the Civil War started and the North renamed it Fort Wool in 1862, after Major General John  Ellis Wool, a War of 1812 , Mexican War hero and now Civil War officer as commander of Fort Monroe.

The fort received its first guns now.  Initially there were 10 guns mounted.  These guns were fired at Confederate positions across Chesapeake Bay and at Confederate ships.

A long-range experimental  cannon, the Sawyer gun, was installed at Fort Calhoun in mid-1861.  The weapon was rifled and had much longer range and accuracy.  An illustration in an August 1861 newspaper  shows it mounted on a high-angle carriage.

--Old B-Runner

Fort Wool in Chesapeake Bay-- Part 3: An Association With U.S. Presidents

Continued from December 30, 2020.

Fort Wool has a little-known association with U.S. presidents.

President Andrew Jackson, broken-hearted after the death of his wife and in ill-health, came to Fort Wool in the late 1820s and 1830s and, in effect, made the fort into his "White House."  He built a hut on the island and spent time watching ships pass by.

He even made key policy decisions from there.  Ironically, his Secretary of War, John C. Calhoun, had become the president's arch rival at this time, by threatening to pull South Carolina out of the Union.  This was a move that Jackson effectively squelched, at least for the time being.

In the mid-1840s, President  John Tyler took sanctuary on the island after the death of his first wife.

President Abraham Lincoln also visited the island.

--Old Secesh

15 Years and 5545 Posts Later, Still Here

Most people will tell you that having one blog is one too many.  Well, I have considerably more than  that.  Unfortunately, I am interested in way too many things.  That is why I have eight blogs.  Having just one blog would be a walk in the park.

My first post in this Civil War blog was November 1, 2007.  This grew out of my Cooter's History Thing blog which covers all things history.  So many of my posts to it were about the Civil War, I figured to spin this one off.  In 2012, I spun my Running the Blockade: Civil War Navy blog off this, again because so many posts were about that aspect of the war.

My main emphasis on the war is navy and Fort Fisher, anyway.

My signoff name of Old Secesh comes from the northern putdown of Confederates, calling them "Secesh" or "Sesh".  The Confederacy seceded from the Union.  I adopted that as my name.

So, 5545 posts as of this one and we still haven't won the war and I believe we are definitely going to lose the Second Civil War going on right now.

I am, however, interested in all aspects of the war, not just Confederate.  Of course, I am interested in all aspects of anything to do with history.

Spending Way Too Much Time on These Doggone Blogs.  --Old Seceh