Lincoln's Citadel: The Civil War in Washington, DC

by Kenneth J. Winkle

Overview

The stirring history of a president and a capital city on the front lines of war and freedom.

In the late 1840s, Representative Abraham Lincoln resided at Mrs. Sprigg’s boardinghouse on Capitol Hill. Known as Abolition House, Mrs. Sprigg’s hosted lively dinner-table debates of antislavery politics by the congressional boarders. The unusually rapid turnover in the enslaved staff suggested that there were frequent escapes north to freedom from Abolition House, likely a cog in the underground railroad. These early years in Washington proved formative for Lincoln.

In 1861, now in the White House, Lincoln could gaze out his office window and see the Confederate flag flying across the Potomac. Washington, DC, sat on the front lines of the Civil War. Vulnerable and insecure, the capital was rife with Confederate sympathizers. On the crossroads of slavery and freedom, the city was a refuge for thousands of contraband and fugitive slaves. The Lincoln administration took strict measures to tighten security and established camps to provide food, shelter, and medical care for contrabands. In 1863, a Freedman’s Village rose on the grounds of the Lee estate, where the Confederate flag once flew.

The president and Mrs. Lincoln personally comforted the wounded troops who flooded wartime Washington. In 1862, Lincoln spent July 4 riding in a train of ambulances carrying casualties from the Peninsula Campaign to Washington hospitals. He saluted the “One-Legged Brigade” assembled outside the White House as “orators,” their wounds eloquent expressions of sacrifice and dedication. The administration built more than one hundred military hospitals to care for Union casualties.

These are among the unforgettable scenes in Lincoln’s Citadel, a fresh, absorbing narrative history of Lincoln’s leadership in Civil War Washington. Here is the vivid story of how the Lincoln administration met the immense challenges the war posed to the city, transforming a vulnerable capital into a bastion for the Union.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780393240573
Publisher:	Norton, W. W. & Company, Inc.
Publication date:	08/12/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	528
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Kenneth J. Winkle, acclaimed Lincoln biographer and Civil War historian, is Thomas C. Sorensen Professor of American History at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. The Young Eagle, his volume on Lincoln’s rise, is the standard account.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Maps xvii

Part I "Abolition House"

1 "Getting the Hang of the House": Congressman Abraham Lincoln 3

2 "At War with Washington": The Abolitionists 14

3 "A Western Free State Man": Lincoln and Slavery 28

4 "Is the Center Nothing?": Lincoln's Middle Ground 46

Part II "Cleaning the Devil Out of Washington"

5 "A Wide Spread and Powerful Conspiracy": Warnings and Threats from Washington 71

6 "The Way We Skulked into This City": Claiming the Presidency 91

7 "This Big White House": The Lincoln Family 111

8 "White and Black, All Mixed Up Together": The African American Community 127

9 "A Swift and Terrible Retribution": Striking the First Blows 142

10 "Order out of Confusion": Preparing for War 165

11 "I Was Slow to Adopt the Strong Measures": Loyalty and Disloyalty 186

12 "If I Were Only a Boy I'd March Off Tomorrow": The Tide of Sick and Wounded 213

Part III "An Unknown Something Called Freedom"

13 "Tinkering Experiments": Toward Emancipation 231

14 "Freedom Triumphant in War and Peace": Emancipation in Washington 250

15 "We Must Use What Tools We Have": Toward Total War 280

16 "On the Soil Where They Were Born": The Former Slaves 301

17 "The Step Which, at Once, Shortens the War": The Emancipation Proclamation 318

18 "Defend What Is Our Own": The Limits of Freedom 342

19 "Never Forget What They Did Here": Honoring the Fallen 356

20 "Worth More than a Victory in the Field": The End in sight 382

Epilogue: "The Country Was Ready to Say Amen" 403

Acknowledgments 415

Notes 417

Index 465

Editorial Reviews

Though one might assume the man atop the eponymous citadel would get the most attention, the newest from Lincoln biographer Winkle (The Young Eagle) is really about the nation’s capital—how it weathered and changed during the Civil War—and the citizens, slaves, and soldiers who lived in and moved through it. He describes his account as an “interior history” of Washington, D.C.—a phrase borrowed from Walt Whitman, from when the poet was in the city to find his brother George, who had been wounded at the Battle of Fredericksburg—and that description is right on the money. Beginning with a portrait of the city before the war, Winkle examines the capital’s conflicted relationship with slavery, as well as the political implications of its unique geographical location—it’s not quite the North, and it’s not quite the South. When the Civil War finally starts, Winkle hits his stride, describing a community far more divided and dangerous than most people today can appreciate. Far from being a unified bastion of antislavery pols, the capital was plagued with interior troubles and threatened by encroaching Rebel forces. Well-researched and thoroughly engaging, Winkle’s history is a welcome addition to a body of Civil War literature that too often privileges men and massacres. (Aug.)

Publishers Weekly

"A revealing work…Winkle’s volume concentrates upon the ‘interior history’ of America’s capital and how it transformed during this contentious period as the nation itself transformed."

Tampa Bay Times - Chris Patsilelis

"Winkle brings an extraordinary depth of knowledge and an uncanny eye for detail to this gripping portrait of a city on the rise…[T]here’s been no shortage of Lincoln scholarship…[but] Lincoln’s Citadel demonstrates that there’s always room at the top of the pile."

Washington Independent Review of Books - Daniel Stashower

"Winkle’s book [ties] together several disparate elements—Lincoln’s life story, the complex evolution of abolitionism, and the changing physical, social and political fabric of the city itself—into an exemplary, illuminating whole…This is the book’s most important service: It shows how Lincoln and the city he came to love moved together toward freedom, a history here firmly grounded in all its towering tragedy and glory."

Scott W. Berg

"A fine portrait of a remarkable population of all sorts, all in their own way…living under the threat of disaster and the promise of triumph simultaneously…Any reader familiar with the vibrant capital of today will recognize the origins of its personality in Winkle’s portrayal."

History Book Club - William C. Davis

"A marvelous book—and a must-read!"

Jay Winik

"Lincoln’s Citadel sets a new standard for research and insight into wartime Washington. Kenneth Winkle conveys the political intrigue of the nation’s besieged capital and the remarkable human stories about the ordinary men and women who rallied to help Lincoln save the Union."

Matthew Pinsker

"Kenneth Winkle eloquently chronicles the transformation of the capital wrought by the Civil War, when Washington became the nerve center of a huge war effort that in turn transformed the nation, freed four million slaves, and launched America on its course toward modernity."

James M. McPherson James M. McPherson

"[Winkle’s] talent for crafting narrative history [enables] him to paint a rich portrait of wartime Washington that will engage and edify…Those wishing for a glimpse of the real war will find it in Lincoln’s Citadel. Thorough, well-researched, and engagingly written."

Civil War Book Review - Matthew Norman

"Kenneth Winkle has earned a reputation for original research, expert interpretation, and crackerjack storytelling, and all these attributes are on full display in Lincoln’s Citadel. This is an invaluable addition to the Lincoln bookshelf."

Harold Holzer

"Kenneth Winkle eloquently chronicles the transformation of the capital wrought by the Civil War, when Washington became the nerve center of a huge war effort that in turn transformed the nation, freed four million slaves, and launched America on its course toward modernity."

James M. McPherson

A fine portrait of a remarkable population of all sorts, all in their own way…living under the threat of disaster and the promise of triumph simultaneously…Any reader familiar with the vibrant capital of today will recognize the origins of its personality in Winkle’s portrayal.

William C. Davis - History Book Club

[Winkle’s] talent for crafting narrative history [enables] him to paint a rich portrait of wartime Washington that will engage and edify…Those wishing for a glimpse of the real war will find it in Lincoln’s Citadel. Thorough, well-researched, and engagingly written.”

Matthew Norman - Civil War Book Review

Winkle brings an extraordinary depth of knowledge and an uncanny eye for detail to this gripping portrait of a city on the rise…[T]here’s been no shortage of Lincoln scholarship…[but] Lincoln’s Citadel demonstrates that there’s always room at the top of the pile.”

Daniel Stashower - Washington Independent Review of Books

A revealing work…Winkle’s volume concentrates upon the ‘interior history’ of America’s capital and how it transformed during this contentious period as the nation itself transformed.

Chris Patsilelis - Tampa Bay Times

Winkle’s book [ties] together several disparate elements—Lincoln’s life story, the complex evolution of abolitionism, and the changing physical, social and political fabric of the city itself—into an exemplary, illuminating whole…This is the book’s most important service: It shows how Lincoln and the city he came to love moved together toward freedom, a history here firmly grounded in all its towering tragedy and glory.

Scott W. Berg - Washington Post

09/01/2013
Winkle (history, Univ. of Nebraska; The Young Eagle), a noted Lincoln biographer, keeps Lincoln and his administration center stage here. This is not a brick-and-mortar study of Civil War Washington, DC, as experienced by its average citizens but rather a description of political and military life in the U.S. capital from Lincoln's term in the House of Representatives (1847–49) to the end of the Civil War. Winkle's discussion of the future president's life in Washington during the 1840s makes for an engaging introduction. Moving forward, he offers plenty of details and statistics—on everything from the size of herds of horses in the capital to wages for contraband slaves—demonstrating his impressive research; the results may be overwhelming for anyone with only a passing interest in the Civil War. Still, with his absorbing narrative style, Winkle makes an extraordinary amount of information reasonably accessible, and Lincoln and the city's political context prove the backbone of this book. The extensive notes section will aid serious readers. (Index not seen.) VERDICT This well-written volume, with its distinctive perspective on America's Civil War president, will appeal to anyone with a background in Civil War history.—Sara Miller, Atlanta

Library Journal

2013-08-15
A skillful portrait of the nation's capital as microcosm of a nation divided. When newly elected President Abraham Lincoln arrived in Washington, D.C., writes Winkle (History/Univ. of Nebraska; Abraham and Mary Lincoln, 2011, etc.), he came to a city that had a strong reputation as what one British abolitionist called "the chief seat of the American slave-trade." Indeed, slavery persisted there even when Lincoln took office, and when, in December 1861, a Massachusetts congressman proposed its abolition, the debate dragged on for months as "opponents raised a sweep of objections." The Confederacy, well aware that slave owners and sympathizers were abundant in the capital, longed to seize Washington; by the end of the war, under Lincoln's orders, it was probably the most heavily fortified city in the world, ringed by dozens of forts and artillery emplacements--and even so, the target of Rebel forays. Lincoln's experiment in siege craft did not have to be applied to other cities, but he tested other innovations there, including the suspension of habeas corpus and the use of federal troops to maintain order. Moreover, Winkle notes in a particularly timely passage, concerns for Lincoln's safety were so pressing that federal officials embarked on a secret, not strictly legal program of spying on presumed opponents, potential assassins and other conspirators. Lincoln's years in the city coincided, necessarily, with the establishment of the great national cemetery at Arlington and other hallowed sites in the capital, while he himself established certain protocols, such as visiting wounded soldiers in hospitals, in which he might have laid eyes on Louisa May Alcott and Walt Whitman. By the end of the war, Lincoln and his lieutenants had converted Washington from a sleepy Southern town into one that was "increasingly northern in outlook and character." A deep-reaching study of a city in wartime, which Washingtonians and visitors, to say nothing of students of the Civil War, will find to be of great interest.

Kirkus Reviews