USA > Washington > Standard history of the city of Washington from a study of the original sources > Part 33
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The tide was flooding so strongly that it carried them to Nanjemoy Creek, several miles up the river on the same side from which they started. Here they remained all day Saturday, visiting the house of Colonel J. J. Hughes, who fed them and told them how to reach Mrs. Quesenberry's, near Machodoc Creek on the Virginia Shore, to whom Jones had given them a letter of introduction. Saturday night they crossed the river to Gambo Creek, near the mouth of Machodoc Creek. On Monday they were carried to Port Conway on the Rappahannock River, which they crossed at noon of that day to Port Royal, accompan- ied by three officers of the former Confederate Army, to whom they caused great concern by telling their names and their crimes. It is of interest respecting the disputes as to Booth's identity that one of these officers named W. S. Jett, testified at the trial that he noticed the initials "J. W. B." on Booth's hand.
Booth and Herold then went to the house of Mr. Richard H. Garrett, about three miles south of Port Royal where they slept Monday night. On Tuesday night they slept in the barn, which was surrounded about one o'clock of that night by Federal cavalry, commanded by Lieutenant E. P. Doherty. Booth re- fused to surrender but offered to come out if the troops were withdrawn so as to give him a chance. The barn was set on fire and Herold came out and surrendered. Booth, who could easily be seen by the light of the fire through the cracks in the barn was shot with a revolver through one of the cracks, by a soldier named Boston Corbett. The ball entered the right side of his neck a little back of his ear and came out a little higher on the other side. He was taken to Garrett's house and laid on the porch where he died about seven o'clock in the morning. His last words were: "Tell mother I die for my country."
The body of Booth was brought to the city of Washington, and buried in the old penitentiary enclosure at Arsenal Point where the War College buildings are now located, and four years afterwards was exhumed and identified by his dentist in
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Washington and then removed to the Greenmont cemetery in Baltimore city where it was reinterred and remains.
About the same time that the President was shot, Lewis Payne, whose real name was Lewis Thornton Powell, and who was the son of a Baptist minister in North Carolina, entered the room where Secretary of State, William H. Seward, who resided on Madison Place, where the Belasco Theatre now stands, was lying ill in bed, and stabbed him in the right cheek and in both sides of his neck. In gaining access to the room he met both of the sons of Secretary Seward and assaulted them, fracturing the skull of Frederick, and cutting Sergeant George F. Robin- son, the Secretary's attendant, on the forehead with a knife, but none of the wounds which he inflicted resulted fatally.
On April 19, funeral services for the President were held in the East Room of the White House. The body was then con- ducted at the head of a funeral procession three miles in length, to the Capitol where it lay in state two days before being taken to Springfield, Illinois, for burial.
According to a statement made by Samuel Arnold in 1869 and a remark in a lecture by John H. Suratt in December 1870, a party of seven including Booth, Herold, Atzerott, Payne, Sur- ratt and two others, went in the early afternoon of March 16, 1865, to the Soldiers' Home to abduct the President, who was to attend a play there, but who sent a member of his cabinet in his place. It was their intention to capture him in his carri- age and drive it to the Potomac River in southern Maryland, and carry him across into Virginia.
David E. Herold, George A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Mi- chael O'Laughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt and Dr. Samuel A. Mudd were tried for conspiracy to assassinate the President and other officers of the Federal Government at Washington. The "Military Commission" by which they were tried was composed of Major-General David Hunter, Major-General Lewis Wallace, Brevet Major-General August V. Kautz, Brigadier-General Albion P. Howe, Brigadier- General Robert S. Foster, Brevet Brigadier-General Cyrus B.
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Comstoek, Brigadier-General T. M. Harris, Brevet Colonel Hor- ace Porter, Lieutenant-Colonel David R. Clendenin, and Briga- dier-General Joseph Holt, Judge Advocate and Recorder of the Commission, and held its sessions from May 19th until June 30th 1865, in a room in the northeast corner of the old penitentiary which was located at Greenleaf Point.
Mrs. Surratt, Atzerodt, Herold and Payne were condemned to death, and were hanged on the 7th of July 1865 in the walled yard of the penitentiary.
Dr. Mudd, O'Laughlin and Arnold were sentenced to life imprisonment at hard labor, and Spangler to imprisonment at hard labor for six years, and were committed to the Military Prison at Dry Tortugas Island, on the Gulf Coast of Florida. They were pardoned a few years later.
The state of popular feeling at this time, was largly res- ponsible for the execution of Mrs. Surratt, which in the calmer judgment of after years is generally regarded as an act of undue severity. The evidence is convincing, that under the magnetic influence of the melo dramatic Booth she was involved in a plot to abduct the President ; but her remarks just before the assassination and previously, and her expression of aston- ishment when she first heard of it, imply a reasonable doubt that she had any complicity in Booth's murderous purpose. The memorandum found on his person, when dead, indicates that his determination to kill the President was a sudden im- pulse of a few hours inception. The fact that Booth called upon her at her residence a few hours before the murder imports little in view of her statement on the afternoon of the tragedy, to Louis J. Weichman, the principal witness against her at the trial, "Yes, and Booth is crazy on one subject, and I am going to give him a good scolding the next time I see him." Certainly that evidence would have had weight in mitigating her sentence, if given at her trial.
On May 23 and 24, 1865, occurred the grand review of the Union Armies by President Johnson and General Grant. On the first day from 9 in the morning to 3 in the afternoon the
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troops of the Army of the Potomac, lead by General Meade, marched up the Avenue and past the reviewing stand. The fol- lowing day the Army of the Tennessee lead by General Sher- man, travel worn from the march through Georgia and the Caro- linas, followed the same route as their comrades of the Army of the Potomac had taken the day before.
During the Civil war the District of Columbia furnished 16,534 volunteers to the Union Army. Captain J. R. Smead's company of National Rifles, which crossed the Long Bridge on the night of May 23, 1861, and marched toward Alexandria, was the first body of Union troops to invade the State of Virginia. A con- siderable number of young men of the District also entered the Confederate Army and rendered meritorious service in its cam- paigns.
Two results of the Civil War having an important bearing on the property rights of numerous residents of Washington were the Acts of Congress providing for the liberation of slaves and for the confiscation of the property of those who had assist- ed the Rebellion.
The liberation of slaves in the District of Columbia was brought about by the Act of April 16, 1862, and provided for a commission of three members who should assess the value of all slaves whose owners could prove their loyalty to the Union. This Act was entirely independent of the President's Emanci- pation Proclamation. Under its provisions the sum of $914,942 was awarded for 2,989 slaves, in addition to which one hundred and eleven slaves were liberated for whom no compensation was paid, though later, on proof of loyalty being made by owners, twenty-eight more were paid for.
Colored persons were made liable to the same penalties for offenses as white persons by Act of Congress of May 21, 1862.
Under the so-called confiscation act, proceedings were
brought against a number of residents of the District who had rendered aid to the South during the conflict. In a decision handed down July 24, 1863, Judge Wylie of the Supreme Court of the District, held that the property of Southern sympathizers
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was liable to confiscation under the Act on the theory that the owners were alien enemies. A considerable amount of property was confiscated under these proceedings-personal property ab- solutely, but real property, in view of a resolution of Congress only for the life time of the owner.
Vice-President Johnson was inaugurated on the morning of April 15, 1865, being sworn into office at the Kirkwood House.
During Johnson's administration his daughter, Mrs. David T. Patterson, a woman of fine mind, culture and amiability, was mistress of the White House, her mother being an invalid. Mrs. Patterson was a woman of great tact, and although feeling keenly the unpopularity of her father, she filled the difficult position assigned to her in a creditable manner that made for her true and lasting friends and admirers.
The most popular society center in Washington during those years was General Grant's residence. The General and Mrs. Grant gave weekly receptions and these were attended by the elite of the city, as well as by old-time friends of the Grants, known in humbler days.
The inauguration of Grant took place March 4, 1869, and the day was one of the most enthusiastic the Capital City had ever known.
Owing to unfriendliness between Grant and Johnson, the latter did not accompany his successor to the Capitol, his place being taken by General John A. Rawlins.
After the oath was administered to Vice-President Colfax, Chief Justice Chase administered the oath to General Grant on the East portico.
President Grant's second inaugural, which occurred on March 4, 1873, was memorable by reason of the bitter cold ac- companied by a violent northwest gale, the thermometer regis- tering two degrees below zero. Extreme suffering was experien- ced by both the spectators and participants in the parade, which was elaborate and largely military in character. As on the first occasion, General Grant was sworn in by Chief Justice Chase. As on many former occasions the inaugural ball was held in a
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specially constructed building north of the City Hall. It was an enormous frame structure erected by private contributions at an expense of thirty thousand dollars.
The popularity which General and Mrs. Grant had won during their residence in Washington prior to his election con- tinued throughout both of President Grant's terms of office. During his second term occurred the first White House wedding in thirty-two years; that of the President's daughter, Nellie, to Mr. Algernon C. F. Sartoris on May 21, 1874.
The census of 1870 showed the city of Washington begin- ning to assume metropolitan proportions with a population of 109,199 ; a gain of over 48,000 in ten years. Georgetown for the first time since 1820, showed a material gain, with a population for 1870 of 11,384; about 2,500 more than in 1860.
The period immediately following the close of the Civil War was not notable for any extensive public works until the com- mencement of the operations of the Board of Public Works un- der the Territorial Government, from 1871 to 1874, as related in a former chapter. The only especially notable improvements during this interim were the introduction of bituminous side- walk and carriageway pavements and the street parking system during 1868 and 1869, by Mayor Bowen, and the paving of Pennsylvania Avenue from First to Fifteenth Streets northwest with wood blocks under Mayor Emery in 1870.
One important semi-public improvement of a local character, which was the pioneer of the era of modern private enterprise in the District of Columbia, and is yet one of the indispensable market accommodations to the residents of Washington, was the erection of the new Center Market by the Washington Market Company in 1872 on Reservation number 7 on Pennsylvania Avenue between 7th and 9th Streets, northwest. This company was chartered by Congress in 1870 as a result of the insufferable conditions existing in and about the old market which had been maintained by the municipality to that time at the same place. While the new company was making preparations to commence building, the old sheds were destroyed by fire on the night of
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December 17, 1870. Temporary structures were at once erected and the construction of the present building commenced in the spring of 1871 and completed in the summer of the following year.
As a result of a quarrel between the market company and its stallholders, a number of the latter procured the erection of the Northern Liberty Market, the upper story of which is com- monly known as Convention Hall, at 5th and L Streets, north- west. This market took the name which had been for many years held by the old market at 7th and K Streets, and which Governor Shepherd had unceremoniously torn down on Sep- tember 3, 1872.
By acts passed by the Legislative Assembly in August 1871, and subsequent acts, the sites of the present Western Market at 21st and K Streets, northwest, and Eastern Market on 7th Street between C Street and North Carolina Avenue, southeast, were acquired and the buildings erected; the former at a cost of about $100,000 for site and building and the latter at a cost of $80,000.
In 1874 the old Jail at the northeast corner of Judiciary Square was torn down by authority of Congress, and its materials sold and the proceeds devoted to the improvement of Judiciary Square. The present Jail on Reservation No. 17, near the Eastern Branch, was authorized by Act of June 1, 1872, and completed about 1876. Of the appropriation of $300,000 for this building, $125,000 was contributed from the revenues of the District.
The decade from 1860 to 1870 is notable for the increase which it witnessed in the transportation facilities of the Nation- al Capital.
Through transportation to the south by means of railroad tracks across the Long Bridge was first effected as a result of the military necessities arising out of the Civil War. The Even- ing Star of January 16, 1862, contains the statement: "Not- withstanding the snow and sleet, five hundred men were at work yesterday, preliminary to the construction of a railroad from Washington to Alexandria, over the Long Bridge. There
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will be a single track with sufficient turnouts to accommodate the camps in Virginia. It is supposed that the road will be in operation in about three weeks." The same paper on February 8, 1862, says: "The track over the Long Bridge has been laid, and everything is in readiness to open full connection by rail through this city to our camps in Virginia. A double track is being rapidly laid from the Washington depot to the Long Bridge, and when completed trains can run each way the same time."
The tracks across the Long Bridge connected with those which had been laid in 1855 from the Baltimore and Ohio depot via 1st Street and Maryland Avenue to the north end of the bridge. A passenger station was established at 9th Street and Maryland Avenue. In 1865 the "Great Pennsylvania Route" advertised two through trains to the north and west each day with sleeping cars on all night trains and offered to take dis- charged and furloughed soldiers home at government rates. The following year the Baltimore and Ohio, which had suffered severely by the military operations of the Civil War, announced that it had re-opened for traffic with its cars and machinery repaired and its bridges and track again in substantial condi- tion; and the Orange and Alexandria Railroad announced two trains daily for the south, leaving the corner of Ist and C Streets. In 1870 the Orange, Alexandria and Manassas adver- tised "new and elegant sleeping cars from Baltimore to Rich- mond, its trains leaving from opposite the Baltimore and Ohio depot and from the Maryland Avenue station, from which the Washington and Alexandria was also operating trains to the south.
It was the line of track on 1st Street and connecting the Baltimore and Ohio depot at New Jersey Avenue and C Street with the Long Bridge which Governor Shepherd caused to be torn up in 1871, as related in a former chapter. Shortly after this incident Congress, by Act approved June 21, 1870, ratified the action of the City Councils giving to the Baltimore and Po- tomac Railroad a right of way into the city by means of a
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bridge across the Eastern Branch, a tunnel under Virginia Ave- nue from 11th to 8th Street, southeast, and tracks on Virginia Avenue to 6th Street west, with a location for its station on the Mall at 6th and B Streets, northwest. The tunnel was con- structed in 1870.
The Metropolitan Railroad, giving the city direct communi- cation with the west by way of Point of Rocks, was completed in 1870 and entered the city from the north by way of 1st Street, west, with its terminus at the Baltimore and Ohio sta- tion at New Jersey Avenue and C Street. It connected with the Baltimore and Ohio by a Y at 1st and I Streets, northwest. This road had its inception in 1853 as a project to connect Point of Rocks with Georgetown and the latter corporation had voted to take $250,000 of its stock. The movement was de- feated by Mayor Addison of Georgetown, who in 1856 vetoed an ordinance for the payment of the second installment of $25,000 on the subscription, and who, when the ordinance was passed over his veto, refused to sign the bonds to raise the necessary money for paying the installment. The project was revived by President Lincoln in January, 1863, when he sent a message to Congress calling attention to it as a military meas- ure, with the result that a new charter was granted by Con- gress, by Act of July 1, 1864.
With the close of the Civil War steamship transportation facilities received an impetus similar to that which attended the railroads. In 1865 the New York and Washington Steamship Company put the steamers Baltimore, Rebecca Clyde and Em- pire on the run between New York and Washington with two boats each week leaving the company's wharf at the foot of High Street in Georgetown; and the Atlantic Steamship Com- pany placed the screw boats John Gibson, E. C. Knight and Fairfax on the same run with two boats each week from George- town. The latter company in 1870 became the New York, Alex- andria, Washington and Georgetown Steamship Company. In 1867 a "new express line" advertised a weekly service be- tween Philadelphia, Washington and Georgetown; and the Bal-
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timore, Alexandria, Washington and Georgetown Steam Navi- gation Company opened a service twice each week between the cities named in its title.
Between Washington and Norfolk the Lady of the Lake and Jane Mosely were operated by the Plant Line from about 1869 to 1873, about which time the Lady of the Lake burned at her dock in Norfolk. She was rebuilt and the two boats taken over in 1873 by the Inland and Seaboard Coasting Company, a reorganization of the New York, Alexandria, Washington and Georgetown Steamship Company.
On August 8, 1873, the Steamer Wawaset, which operated to the lower river landings, caught fire just above Maryland Point and was beached near Chatterton's Landing. In the neighbor- hood of eighty-five persons lost their lives either in the flames or by drowning.
The period from 1860 to 1875 witnessed not only the inau- guration but the extensive development of the street railway system of Washington.
Although the company organized in 1858 for the construc- tion of a line from the foot of the Capitol to Georgetown had been unsuccessful in carrying the project to completion, a new company, the Washington and Georgetown Railroad Company, was organized under a charter obtained from Congress under date of May 17, 1862, with authority to construct a line from the Navy Yard to Georgetown with cross lines on 7th Street from the Boundary to the water front and on 14th Street from the Boundary to a connection with the main line at 15th and New York Avenue. This line was completed by the close of 1862. It had a branch line running north of the Capitol on A Street, which then existed as a thoroughfare and passing north and south through the Capitol grounds immediately in front of the east front of the Capitol building.
Two years later the Metropolitan Railroad Company was chartered by Act of Congress approved July 1, 1864, and con- structed its line from 11th and East Capitol Streets by way of New Jersey Avenue, D, 5th, F, 14th and H Streets, Connecticut
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Avenue and P Street, to Georgetown, with a north and south line on 9th and 4} Streets which terminated at Rhode Island Avenue and 9th Street, and which in 1873 was continued to 7th and Florida Avenue, where it connected with the line which ran on 7th Street to the Rock Creek Church Road, and which the Metropolitan Company acquired.
The Columbia Railway Company was chartered by Act of Congress of May 24, 1870, to operate from New York Avenue and 15th Street, by way of New York and Massachusetts Ave- nues and H Street, to the Columbia turnpike gate. The Capi- tol, North O Street and South Washington Railway Company was chartered by Act of March 3, 1875. This was generally known as the "Belt Line" by reason of the fact that its tracks constituted a loop. It started at the foot of the Capitol and ran north and west on 1st, G, 4th and O Streets and south on 14th, and returned by way of Ohio, Virginia and Maryland Avenues to the starting point.
The Anacostia and Potomac River railroad was authorized by Act of February 18, 1875, to run its line from the north end of the Navy Yard Bridge by way of east 11th Street, south M and N Streets, Water Street, 12th and 14th Streets to 14th and Pennsylvania Avenue.
The period of fifteen years from 1860 to 1875 saw a num- ber of important developments in the matter of public educa- tion, not only in the city of Washington, but throughout the entire District of Columbia.
Notable in this connection was the inauguration of a system of colored public schools in the cities of Washington and Georgetown under an Act of Congress approved May 21, 1862, which placed them under the existing boards of public school trustees, and provided that ten per cent of the taxes collected from the negroes of Washington and Georgetown be set apart for their creation and maintenance. On June 11 of the same year Congress created a separate Board of Trustees of Colored Schools for Washington and Georgetown. In 1864 Congress provided that such proportion of all school funds raised in
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Washington and Georgetown should be set apart for colored schools as the number of colored children between the ages of six and seventeen bore to the whole number of children in those cities. The first colored school under this system was opened in that year. In 1867 five colored schools had been established with four hundred and fifty pupils. By 1875 the reports showed an attendance in the colored schools of nearly five thousand five hundred pupils.
The subject of providing public school education for the children of the County of Washington had been dealt with by Congress in an Act approved August 11, 1856, which submitted the question to a vote of the men and women of that section. The proposition was defeated by a large majority, as property holders were unwilling to be taxed to educate poor children. In - 1862, Congress, by Act of May 20 of that year provided for a Board of Commissioners of Primary Schools to consist of seven persons to be appointed by the Levy Court, and authorized a tax of one-eighth of one per cent upon the property of white persons for the support of the white schools, and, in the discre- tion of the Board, a like tax upon the property of colored per- sons for the support of colored schools.
In 1871, the Territorial Government, by act of August 21, of that year, created separate boards of trustees of white schools for the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the County of Washington, respectively ; and by an Act approved March 3, 1873, Congress provided for a board of nine trustees for the colored schools of Washington and Georgetown to be appointed by the Governor of the District of Columbia. These two boards were consolidated by the temporary Commissioners on August 8, 1874, under authority of an Act of Congress of June 20 of that year, the consolidated board consisting of three members from the cities of Washington and Georgetown and the County of Washington, respectively. By Act of September 9, 1874, Con- gress increased the number of trustees to nineteen, of whom eleven were to be appointed from the city of Washington, three from Georgetown, and five from the County of Washington.
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