The first fatalities of the North and South in the American Civil War occurred in Alexandria. Within a month after the Battle of Fort Sumter, where there was no loss of life, Union troops occupied Alexandria landing troops at the base of King Street on the Potomac River on May 24, 1861. A few blocks up King Street from their landing site, the commander of the New York Fire Zouaves, Colonel Elmer E. Ellsworth, sortied with a small detachment to retrieve a large Confederate flag displayed on the roof of a local hotel that had been visible from the White House. While descending from the roof, Elsworth was killed by Captain James W. Jackson, the hotel proprietor. Colonel Ellsworth was from Illinois and was a frequent visitor to the White House where his death was much lamented. After Elsworth's death, he was publicized as a Union martyr. The incident generated great excitement in the North.[1].
Alexandria remained under military occupation until the end of the Civil War. One of the ring of forts built during the war by the Union army for the defense of Washington, DC, Fort Ward, is located within the boundaries of modern Alexandria.[2] After the establishment of the state of West Virginia in 1863 and until the close of the war, Alexandria was the seat of the Restored Government of Virginia also known as the "Alexandria Government."
During the Union occupation, a recurring point of contention between the Alexandria citizenry and the military occupiers was the military’s periodic insistence that church services include prayers for the President of the United States. Because the Episcopal Church used a written prayer book service that made distinct mention of both the executive and the legislative departments of the government, Episcopal clergy were exposed to particular embarrassment whenever any part of the territory of the Confederate States was occupied by Union forces.[3].
Alexandria's St. Paul's Episcopal Church was the site of an early and particularly notorious incident. The interim minister at St. Paul's Church, the Rev. Dr. K. J. Stewart, was arrested in the sanctuary on February 9, 1862, by Union troops who had attended with the stated purpose of provoking an incident.[4] During the Litany, Dr. Stewart was ordered by an attending Union officer to say the Prayer for the President of the United States that Dr. Stewart had omitted without saying any other prayer in its place. Dr. Stewart proceeded without paying any attention to the interruption; but a captain and six of his soldiers, who were present in the congregation to provoke an incident, drew their swords and pistols, strode into the chancel, seized the clergyman while he was still kneeling, held pistols to his head, and forced him out of the church, and through the streets, just as he was, in his surplice and stole, and committed him to the guard-house of the 8th Illinois Cavalry. Dr. Stewart was soon released, but was not allowed to continue to officiate at services.[5]
The day after the Alexandria Gazette reported the incident in detail, its offices were set afire.[6] The St. Paul's sanctuary was thereafter closed for the duration of the war and its vestry records also were destroyed by a fire. For the duration of the war, the St. Paul's sanctuary was used by the Union army as a hospital for the wounded.[7]
Buildings at Virginia Theological Seminary and at Episcopal High School also served as hospitals for union troops. Bullets, belt clips, and other artifacts from the Civil War have been found in those areas well into the 20th century. Christ Church, because of its association with George Washington, was not closed, but instead came under the control of army chaplains for the duration of the war.[8]
For African American escaped slaves, the military occupation of Alexandria created opportunity on an unprecedented scale. As Federal troops extended their occupation of the seceded states, escaped African American slaves flooded into Union-controlled areas. Safely behind Union lines, the cities of Alexandria and Washington offered not only comparative freedom, but employment. Over the course of the war, Alexandria was transformed by the Union occupiers into a major supply depot and transport and hospital center, all under army control.[9]
Because the escaped slaves were still legally property until the abolition of slavery, the escaped slaves were labeled as Contrabands to prevent their being returned to their masters. Contrabands took positions with the army as construction workers, nurses and hospital stewards, longshoremen, painters, wood cutters, teamsters, laundresses, cooks, gravediggers, personal servants, and ultimately as soldiers and sailors. According to one statistic, the population of Alexandria had exploded to 18,000 by the fall of 1863 – an increase of 10,000 people in 16 months.[10]
As of ratification of the the Fifteenth Amendment, Alexandria County’s black population was more than 8,700, or about half the total number of residents in the County. This newly enfranchised constituency provided the support necessary to elect the first black Alexandrians to the City Council and the Virginia Legislature.[11]
The population of Contrabands flooding into Alexandria during the Union occupation included many who were destitute, malnourished and in poor health. Once in Alexandria, the Contrabands were housed in barracks and hastily assembled shantytowns. In the close quarters with poor sanitation, smallpox and typhoid outbreaks were prevalent and death was common. In February 1864, after hundreds of Contrabands and Freedmen had perished, the commander of the Alexandria military district, General John P. Slough, seized a parcel of undeveloped land at the corner of South Washington and Church Streets from a pro-Confederate owner to be used as a cemetery specifically for burial of Contrabands. Burials started in March that year.[12]
The cemetery operated under General Slough's command. Its oversight was supervised by Alexandria’s Superintendent of Contrabands, the Rev. Albert Gladwin, who made arrangements for burials. Each grave was identified with a whitewashed, wooden grave marker.[13] In 1868, after Congress ended most functions of the Freedmen's Bureau, the cemetery was closed; and the property was returned to its original owners and, eventually, after the grave markers had rotted and ownership had transferred several times, the property was redeveloped for commercial use. During its 5 years of operation, about 1800 Contrabands and Freedmen were buried in the cemetery.[14]
Beginning in 1987, when memory of the cemetery was revived, the City of Alexandria began the process of saving the cemetery to create a memorial park. During 2008, submissions in a design competition for the memorial were received from 20 countries, and a design for the memorial was selected. As of late 2008, construction of the memorial was underway.[15].
References
edit- ^ ___, Death of Colonel Ellsworth, Harper’s Weekly (June 15, 1861)
- ^ title=Fort Ward Museum| publisher=City of Alexandria
- ^ Joseph Blount, The Church in the Confederate States, New York, NY: 1912 ch. 6.
- ^ Kaye, Ruth Lincoln, History of St. Paul's Episcopal Church, Alexandria, Virginia, Springfield, Va.: Goetz Printing Co, 1984 pp. 47, 53–54;Cheshire 1912 ch. 6
- ^ Cheshire 1912 ch. 6; Kaye 1984 pp. 46–52.
- ^ Kaye 1984 p. 52–53.
- ^ Kaye 1984 p. 52.
- ^ Dashiell, Thomas Grayson, A Digest of the Proceedings of the Conventions and Councils in the Dioces of Virginia, Richmond, Va.: William E. Jones 1883, pp. 289-90.
- ^ Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery: Historical Overview, April 2007, p. 2.
- ^ Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery: Historical Overview, April 2007, p. 2.
- ^ Freed People and Freedmen's Cemetery – Alexandria, Virginia.
- ^ Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery: Historical Overview, April 2007, p. 3.
- ^ Freed People and Freedmen's Cemetery – Alexandria, Virginia.
- ^ Office of Historic Alexandria, Alexandria Freedmen's Cemetery: Historical Overview, April 2007, p. 3.
- ^ Design Competition Winners.