From These Honored Dead: Historical Archaeology of the American Civil War

6. “The Sensation of This Week”: Archaeology and the Battle of Fort Stevens

6 “ThesensationofThisWeek” Archaeology and the Battle of Fort Stevens John Bedell and Stephen Potter On July 11 and 12, 1864, Washington came under attack. Guns boomed in the capital ’s northern suburbs as Confederate troops under Jubal Early probed the defenses, and a ragged line of refugees trudged in from the countryside. But the city had been hardenedbythreelongyearsofwar,andneitherthesoldiersdefendingthecapitalnor its inhabitants panicked. A makeshift force was thrown together to man the capital’s defenses, and this assemblage of wounded men recruited from hospitals, War Department clerks, elderly veterans, and heavy artillerymen held off the attackers until reinforcementsarrivedfromtheUnionarmyatPetersburg. After twodaysoffighting, the Confederates slipped back the way they had come. One hundred and forty-two years later, archaeologists exploring Rock Creek Park in the District of Columbia found Civil War–era bullets and shell fragments in wooded areas on both banks of the creek. These finds prompted an investigation of what we now call the Battle of Fort Stevens, carried out by metal detecting and archival research. The result was the documentation of an almost forgotten battlefield and the preservation of a small piece of America’s Civil War heritage. The Fortifications of Washington Washington was poorly defended when the Civil War began in 1861, and after Union forces had been routed at the First Battle of Manassas, concern grew about an attack on the capital. The new Union commander, Maj. Gen. George McClellan, decided that the city should be fortified. When completed, the city’s defenses totaled 68 forts and 93 batteries connected by over 20 miles of rifle trenches, making Washington the most heavily fortified city in the world. Among the defenses north of the city were Forts Stevens, DeRussy, and Slocum. Fort Stevens was adjacent to the Seventh Street Turnpike, now Georgia Avenue, the main road heading due north from the city. Fort Archaeology and the Battle of Fort Stevens 89 Slocum was to the east. Fort DeRussy was about a mile to the west of Fort Stevens, and between them Rock Creek flowed through a steep valley. A smaller fortification, the battery to the left of Rock Creek, was placed to help cover blind spots in the twisting valley. A chain of prepared rifle pits ran in front of the forts (figure 6.1). Fort DeRussy was a trapezoidal earthen construction with positions for large cannon at the corners. It measured about 250 by 150 feet. It faced toward the northwest, towardtheroadintothecity,ratherthannortheastwardtowardRockCreek.(Thisexplains why Union officers always described the fighting along Rock Creek as “on our right.”) Its armament consisted of three 32-pounder seacoast guns, one 100-pounder Parrott, five 30-pounder Parrotts, and one 10-inch and one 24-pounder Coehorn mortar (Cooling and Owen 1988: 151). The fort’s ammunition in March 1864 included 1,297 prepared “cartridges” for the large artillery, 960 pounds of case shot, 112 grapeshot, 190 canister shells, 1,011 hand grenades, and 17,842 ball cartridges for small arms (Cooling and Owen 1988: 152). It was a formidable obstacle to any advance on Washington Early’s Raid The defenses of Washington were built during the early part of the war, when a Union defeat seemed a real possibility, but they were not used until July 1864, when victory Figure 6.1. Fort Stevens, Fort DeRussy, and the Rock Creek valley in 1865. Courtesy of the National Park Service. John Bedell and Stephen Potter 90 seemed close at hand. Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant’s army had bogged down in front of Petersburg, and Gen. Robert E. Lee sought to take advantage of the situation by launching a bold raid on the North. Confederate Lt. Gen. Jubal Early, in command of 14,000 soldiers, marched down the Shenandoah Valley and forded the Potomac at Shepherdstown on July 5. On July 9 the Confederates defeated a small Union force along the Monocacy River at Frederick, Maryland, and then advanced toward Washington . At that time, few soldiers manned the defenses of Washington because Grant had stripped the garrison to reinforce his army in Virginia. Washington seemed to be at Early’s mercy, but the city had been at war for three years,andUnionveteranscoollysetaboutorganizinga defense.Amongthewounded soldiers recuperating in the city was a cavalryman named Maj. William Fry. Fry made the rounds of the city’s military hospitals and assembled nearly 500 troopers by commandeering every man well enough to ride. They requisitioned horses and set out on the road to...