Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, July 3, 1994 TAG: 9407060019
SECTION: TRAVEL PAGE: F-6 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By ERIC JOHNSON
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And echoes of this Civil War city still linger in and around Washington, D.C.
These traces are especially tangible in the lives of two unblinking foes in that clash - Abraham Lincoln and Robert E. Lee.
From the White House, Lincoln gazed out at Army beef cattle grazing next to the half-finished hulk of the Washington Monument. Construction continued on the Capitol dome. Army camps sprang up and supply warehouses multiplied. The grounds of Lee's beloved home Arlington, across the Potomac River in Virginia, became a graveyard.
On a hill in the middle of Arlington National Cemetery is Arlington House. Its Greek temple portico overlooks Washington in the distance. The estate came from the family of Lee's wife, Mary Custis, great-granddaughter of Martha Washington. When not away on military duty, the Lees made their home there for 30 years.
After U.S. Army Col. Robert E. Lee resigned his commission in 1861 to avoid fighting against his native Virginia, he left Arlington forever.
Occupied by Union soldiers, Arlington turned into an Army outpost, and burials began in 1864. This was the beginning of the famous cemetery. The mansion is a memorial to Lee and is open to the public. Take the self-guided tour of the whitewashed rooms with tall ceilings, large windows and period furnishings.
Enjoy the smell of old wood and the sound of birds singing outside.
Don't miss the small museum devoted to Lee in an outbuilding. Memorabilia include a lock of his hair and some uniform decorations. Stroll through the restored garden in which Mary Lee took great interest.
After the Lincoln Memorial, the tragedy of the 16th president seems most powerful at Ford's Theater. On Good Friday, April 14,1865, the deranged John Wilkes Booth shot the president in the head and jumped to the stage below. Breaking his leg in the leap, Booth escaped but was killed in Virginia 12 days later. Today you can stand in the restored theater, looking from behind into Lincoln's balcony box with the same view that his assassin had.
The wounded Lincoln was borne to the Petersen House across the street, where he died the next morning in the back bedroom.
As you walk through the house, imagine Mary Todd Lincoln's vigil in the front parlor. Stand in the sloped-ceiling bedroom and picture the dying leader in a bed too small for him.
The theater is both a Lincoln shrine and a stage for active productions. In the basement, a museum dedicated to the assassination holds a macabre collection. Featured are pieces of towel soaked with Lincoln's blood, the suit of clothes he was wearing and blood on the trimming of Mary Todd Lincoln's dress.
Booth's left boot is there, slit by a doctor while setting the leg. Examine the single-shot pistol that fired the fatal shot.
You can see that lethal lead bullet at the National Museum of Health and Medicine. This is far north of downtown on the grounds of the Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Just inside the museum entrance is an exhibit on Lincoln as a patient. Bony bits of skull removed from his wound and locks of his hair are grim souvenirs.
A bloodstained shirt cuff worn by the autopsy surgeon and a probe used to locate the bullet in the president's brain suggest the limitations of medicine then. Even a section of Booth's vertebrae and spinal cord are on display showing the path of a bullet.
An adjacent museum section on Civil War medicine is also worth a look. Glass cases hold skeletal specimens with gunshot wounds, photographs of facial wounds and case histories of miraculous recoveries from battlefield injuries. These make for gruesome, but riveting, study.
Most interesting is the case of Union Gen. Daniel Sickles. A cannonball splintered his right leg at Gettysburg. Sickles survived the amputation and sent his leg to the museum in a box with his visiting card. For many years, he visited the museum on the anniversary of the surgery to see his leg. The bones are still on display.
Wounded soldiers returning to the capital came mostly by railway or wagons. But some came by the tranquil Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, running south from Maryland along the Potomac.
Railroads made this commercial waterway obsolete, but a national historic park preserves this landmark passage.
Ending within the District of Columbia at Georgetown, the canal offers mule-drawn boat rides run by the National Park Service. Hiking or biking on the quiet towpath along the C&O canal also makes for a peaceful break from city traffic.
Fort McNair, where the Anacostia River meets the Potomac, was the old U.S. Arsenal. The Lincoln assassination conspirators were tried here and some were executed. The three-story trial building is still in use as officers' quarters. John Wilkes Booth's body was secretly buried on Arsenal land.
In July 1864, Gen. Jubal Early and his 15,000 troops made the only Confederate threat on Washington during the war. At the end of a two-day fight, Union reinforcements repulsed the advance at Fort Stevens within the District of Columbia.
Curious to observe the battle, Lincoln rushed to the fort.
Atop the ramparts, he exposed himself to enemy fire until a general insisted the president get down. All that remains of the fort is a grassy park with restored cannon emplacements.
The guns are now trained on a quiet residential area, however, instead of the farmland of old.
The Smithsonian museums contain assorted Civil War artifacts. In the National Air and Space Museum section called "Looking at Earth," you'll learn about Thaddeus Lowe. He was a pioneer in balloon reconnaissance for the Union Army, whose efforts were personally supported by Lincoln. Lowe peered at troop movements through long field glasses on exhibit.
Go next to the third floor of the National Museum of American History, also part of the Smithsonian. See Ulysses S. Grant's famous letter to the commander of Fort Donelson. "No terms except a unconditional and immediate surrender can be accepted," he demanded. These words made Grant famous. Look for a cannonball shot at the Confederates from Fort Sumter, the fight that started the war. Swords and firearms, a field medical kit and a Union bugle are nearby. On the second floor, you'll find Lincoln's gold cane head and gold pocket watch and chain.
Other sites touching on the Civil War include the brooding statue of Grant on the Mall, just behind the Capitol. The transition line of different colored stone on the Washington Monument shows where work had halted at the time of the war. And Mrs. Surratt's boarding house at 604 H Street, where the Lincoln conspirators met, is now a Chinese restaurant.
IF YOU GO
Information:
Arlington House, c/o George Washington Memorial Parkway, Turkey Run Park, McLean, Va. 22101. (703) 557-0613.
Ford's Theatre National Historic Site, 511 10th St. NW, Washington, D.C. 20004. (202) 426-6924. The Petersen House is across the street at No. 516.
National Museum of and Health and Medicine, (202) 576-2348.
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal National Historic Park, P.O. Box 4, Sharpsburg, Md. 21782.. (301) 739-4200. For Georgetown unit information, call (202) 653-5190.
Smithsonian museums, (202) 357-2700.
How to get there:
Arlington House: Drive across the Arlington Memorial Bridge behind the Lincoln Memorial and follow the signs to pay parking. Or take the Metro Blue Line to the Arlington Cemetery stop.
Ford's Theater and Petersen House: The nearest Metro stops are Metro Center and Gallery Place-Chinatown.
National Museum of Health and Medicine: On weekdays, enter the grounds of Walter Reed Army Medical Center through the north entrance at 14th Street and Alaska Avenue. Drive to the south end of the first large building on your left (AFIP, Bldg. 54). Park in the semicircular driveway in front of the museum and check at the information desk inside for a visitor parking pass. The museum is open on weekends, but only the gate at Georgia Avenue and Elder Street is open then.
Chesapeake & Ohio Canal: Mule-drawn canal boat rides start from the ranger station at 1057 Thomas Jefferson St. (just south of M Street in Georgetown). The rides run Wednesday through Sunday from April to early November.
Fort McNair: This is a little over a mile south of the Mall. Stop at the main gate at 4th and P streets and ask the MP for permission to drive on the post. The site of the Lincoln conspirators trial, Quarters #20, is in the large, rectangular, central area of the post next to the tennis courts.
Fort Stevens: Drive to the north part of the District on Georgia Avenue. Two blocks past Missouri Avenue, turn left on Fort Stevens Drive and the fort area is on the right. This is a convenient stop on your way to the Health and Medicine museum.
Further reading: "Mr. Lincoln's City: An Illustrated Guide to the Civil War Sites of Washington" by Richard M. Lee, published by EPM Publications.
Eric and Sue Johnson are a free-lance travel writer and photographer team living in Aurora, Colo.
by CNB