A Guide to Civil War Washington, D.C.: The Capital of the Union (Civil War Series)

Read the history of the CIvil War from the perspective of the Washington DC capital.

When the first shots of the Civil War were fired in 1861, Washington, D.C., was a small, essentially Southern city. The capital rapidly transformed as it prepared for invasion--army camps sprung up in Foggy Bottom, the Navy Yard on Anacostia was a beehive of activity and even the Capitol was pressed into service as a barracks. Local citizens and government officials struggled to accommodate the fugitive slaves and troops that crowded into the city. From the story of one of the first African American army surgeons, Dr. Alexander Augusta, to the tireless efforts of Clara Barton, historian Lucinda Prout Janke renders an intimate portrait of a community on the front lines of war. Join Janke as she guides readers through the changing landscape of a capital besieged.

Lucinda Prout Janke is a long-time resident of the Capitol Hill Historic District in Washington, D.C. She holds a Master of Arts degree in Museum Studies from The George Washington University. Now an independent historian, she was Curator of the Kiplinger Washington Collection and Collections Manager at the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. Gary Scott is a National Park Service researcher, lecturer, and architectural historian in Washington, D.C. He received his BA from Southwestern University and MA from the University of North Carolina, and has taught extensively. He recently helped identify items that belonged to Clara Barton in a building that was scheduled for demolition in D.C.