When Flag Was Really Under Fire, It Was Lincoln Who Stood Tall

Our nation’s capital swelters in unforgiving damp heat this time of year, with no ocean breeze or low humidity to temper the weather. Even to someone wearing shorts and a T-shirt, Washington can be unbearable in mid-July. Which makes the thought of fighting a war in this heat, dressed in full wool uniform and carrying heavy equipment, overwhelming.

But that is exactly what happened 125 years ago this month at the battle of Ft. Stevens, when a nearly defenseless capital city came close to a Confederate takeover. At the height of that battle, a President would do what no other has ever done--stand beside his troops as the enemy fired and tried to move in.

It was a muggy Saturday. Jubal T. Early, the crafty Southern general who had long frustrated Union troops with his guile, had decided to take a big gamble: Attack Washington from the north, push into the heart of the city and rout Abraham Lincoln from the White House. As Lincoln biographer Carl Sandburg would later note, Gen. Early had “marched his men on the Seventh Street Road that would lead him straight to the offices, arsenals, gold and silver of the United States government.”

Virtually all able-bodied Union soldiers had been sent south, to join Ulysses S. Grant’s campaign on Richmond. Raw recruits, older men and wounded just out of the hospital had been assigned to the capital’s defenses. Unbeknownst to Lincoln, his Navy secretary had a steamer on the Potomac waiting to evacuate him from Washington. Telegraph lines had been cut and Washington was isolated. Washingtonians were fleeing the city by the wagonload--ironically, heading north into Early’s territory.

The attack on Ft. Stevens began after sunrise and the fighting was fierce. By afternoon the Union commander-in-chief was there in person to rally his troops and watch the swaying skirmish lines of blue and gray. Standing on a parapet facing the onslaught, the tall onlooker in stovepipe hat must have been an inviting target to the Confederates. An officer three feet away from Lincoln was shot down. Another was hit. But the President stood placidly, “with grave and passive countenance” according to his aides.

Lincoln was eventually persuaded by the commanding general to get down below, but only after the President had ascertained that his troops would prevail and the capital would stay in Union hands. It had been a stunning moment of courage and compassion by a chief executive.

Ft. Stevens today sits in a quiet, run-down neighborhood six miles north of the White House. The raised wall of earth that Lincoln walked across to reach his vantage point is still intact. A mounted rider patrols the grassy area, lending an almost timeless air to the battleground. A few blocks past Ft. Stevens, wedged between two aging structures, is a diminutive national cemetery holding the remains of men who fell in defense of Ft. Stevens. A little farther up the road, in a suburban churchyard, lie Confederates who were stopped at Ft. Stevens.

Few of the countless visitors to Washington each year stop by these sites. But those who do experience something special. For it is here that the nation came close to changing direction. And it is here that a leader set an example for generations to follow.

Today, as passions are unleashed over the burning of one flag, it is important to remember someone who stood tall when the flag was truly under fire.