A Year of Anniversaries in Washington
A number of notable Washington, D.C., historic anniversaries fall this year, and I’ll be trying to write about some of them throughout the rest of 2024. From the earthshaking to the simply interesting, here are a few that shaped the National Capital:
The 210th anniversary of the Burning of Washington, by British troops led by Major-General Robert Ross, on August 24, 1814. The only successful military invasion of American soil and attack on the National Capital by foreign armed forces. Two years into the War of 1812, the rout of American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg, in Prince George’s County, Maryland, left the Capital defenseless, which was attacked the same day. Among the buildings torched were the Capitol, the Executive Mansion, and the offices of the Treasury and War Departments. The ultimate victory for the Americans later that year led the conflict to be known as the “Second War of Independence,” but the shock of the attack on Washington was long-lasting. British commander Ross was killed the following month by American sharpshooters during the Battle of Baltimore, and was interred in the Old Burying Ground, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The best-known vignette from the burning of Washington remains First Lady Dolley Madison saving Gilbert Stuart’s portrait of George Washington as she fled (though there is dispute exactly how that came about). Less-known is that when the sandstone Executive Mansion was restored after the burning, its exterior was painted white, thus eventually giving rise to the name by which the house has been known since.
(Executive Mansion after the British burning; image from American Battlefield Trust)
(Tombstone of Major-General Robert Ross, who burned Washington, D.C., in August 1814, in Halifax, Nova Scotia; photo by the author)
The Washington Aqueduct went into full operation 160 years ago, in July 1864, and still carries all of Washington’s water for daily use.
The 160th anniversary of the attack on Fort Stevens, on July 12, 1864, which was the closest the Confederates came to invading Washington during the Civil War. In a bid to ease Union pressure on Petersburg, Virginia, Robert E. Lee ordered Confederate General Jubal Early and 20,000 troops to move on the Capital. They were stopped just in time by Union reinforcements sent back north by Ulysses S. Grant, after the Confederates had been delayed, though victorious, at the Battle of Monocacy, near Frederick, Maryland. The clash at Fort Stevens may best be known for being the only time a U.S. President has come under direct enemy fire, when Abraham Lincoln went to see the fighting firsthand. Supposedly standing atop the fort’s parapet, Lincoln was admonished, in the best version of the story, by future Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., then a young Union officer, who yelled at the President, "Get down, you damn fool!" Fort Stevens was one of sixty-eight forts, ninety-three batteries, and over 800 cannon that defended Washington during the war, one of the most extensive defense networks ever created for a national capital. The partially-restored fort and National Park Service site is just off of Georgia Avenue in Northwest D.C., at Quackenbos and 13th Sts. The Battleground National Cemetery, holding the remains of forty-one Union casualties of the battle, is a few hundred yards north, in the 6600 block of Georgia Ave. Seventeen Confederate soldiers who died in the attack were re-interred in 1874 at Grace Episcopal Church, several miles north, on Georgia Ave. in Silver Spring, Maryland. An 1897 granite monument marking their graves was toppled in the summer of 2020 and later replaced by a smaller marker (though no longer identifying the remains as those of Confederate soldiers).
(Fort Stevens during the Civil War; image from Library of Congress)
On May 13, 1864, the first military burial took place on the occupied estate of Gen. Robert E. Lee. Buried on the grounds at the order of Brigadier General Montgomery Meigs, Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army, Pvt. William Christman’s interment marks the founding of what became Arlington National Cemetery. A month later, Secretary of War Edwin Stanton formally designated 200 acres on the estate as a cemetery. According to the Cemetery, there are now around 400,000 veterans and eligible family members buried on the grounds. A fascinating page on notable graves at Arlington can be found here.
The Old Post Office was completed 125 years ago, in 1899, becoming the second-tallest structure in the District of Columbia, after the Washington Monument. The Romanesque Revival building has been at the center of multiple attempts to revive Pennsylvania Avenue, and though scheduled to be torn down for the construction of the Federal Triangle in the 1930s, became instead its anchor. It since has had multiple afterlives as the Trump International and now Waldorf Astoria hotels. The nine-story inner court, covered by a huge skylight, is particularly impressive. The clock tower holds a set of ten change ringing bells presented by the Ditchley Foundation of Great Britain on the occasion of America’s bicentennial; the Washington Ringing Society, which operates the bells at the National Cathedral, practices weekly at the Old Post Office and rings the “Ditchley Bells” for the annual Opening of Congress, Federal holidays, and other special occasions.
(Image of Old Post Office from National Park Service)
(View of Federal Triangle (r) and Capitol, looking down Pennsylvania Avenue, from the top of the Old Post Office clocktower; photo by the author)
The National Capital Planning Commission was founded 100 years ago, in 1924, as the National Capital Parks Commission. Carrying on the legacy of the 1902 McMillan Plan, it remains one of the most influential and important government bodies shaping the urban development of Washington in line with the principles first developed by Washington’s designer, Pierre Charles L’Enfant.
Washingtonians were allowed to vote in presidential elections for the first time in 1964, sixty years ago.
The “District of Columbia Home Rule Act of 1973” went into effect 50 years ago, in the fall of 1974, when Washingtonians elected their first mayor and city council members, ending the U.S. Government’s direct rule over Washington and sparking the ongoing debate over statehood for the District.
The 50th anniversary of the resignation of President Richard Nixon also occurred in 1974, on August 9, the culmination of the Watergate scandal that transfixed Washington and the nation, created the modern adversarial relationship between the press and government, turned the Washington Post into a national media powerhouse, and profoundly deepened the public mistrust of Washington that had emerged during the Vietnam War.
(Richard Nixon leaves the White House after his resignation as president, August 9, 1974; image from ABC News)
Readers who know of other significant D.C. anniversaries, please write in! And if you enjoy The Patowmack Packet, please recommend it to others.
Next up: A look at the life-giving waters of the Potomac.