 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
| |
 |
My great-great-great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Thomas, more affectionately know as "Aunt Betty," has been honored with a chapter in Dr. John E. Washington's book, "They Knew Lincoln." To learn more of her association with President Abraham Lincoln and to learn of her participation in the battle of Fort Stevens, please continue your reading. |
| They Knew Lincoln By Dr. John E. Washington (1880 - 1964) (Only a few copies of this book remain in print. Our family is fortunate to own a copy; today valued at $500.00. It will never be sold, as it has become a family heirloom.) Uncommon book capturing impressions of Abraham Lincoln by African Americans who personally knew and interacted with him. Dr. John Washington, an African American dentist who grew up in the shadow of Ford's Theatre in the late 19th century, gathered these amazing stories through personal interviews with Lincoln's African American acquaintances or their children. Here are the testimonies of Lincoln's barbers in Illinois and Washington, white house servants, waiters, door-keepers and others, all meticulously researched and verified while retaining their original vigor and color. There is a large section devoted to Mary Lincoln's seamstress and confidant Elizabeth Keckley, who was rendered much less enigmatic by Dr. Washington's ground-breaking research published here. The book includes previously unpublished photographs and Lincoln letters, including the first full transcript of an 1855 letter to Hon. George Robertson of Kentucky in which Lincoln speaks at length about his feelings on the issue of slavery. |
| Fort Stevens was built in 1861 on land partially owned by Elizabeth Thomas, a free woman of color and a farmer. In 1862 soldiers tore down Thomas' house to expand the fort. During a visit to Fort Stevens, President Abraham Lincoln consoled Thomas with a promise of compensation for her property. There is no record, however, that she was ever paid. On July 11, 1864, Fort Stevens was the site of the city's only Civil War battle, when General Jubal A. Early's Confederate troops advanced from Silver Spring down Seventh Street Turnpike (now Georgia Avenue) and attacked. President Lincoln was on the ramparts during the second day of fighting. Union forces were able to repel the enemy, but nearly 900 soldiers were killed or wounded on both sides. Thomas, born in 1821, continued to live at Fort Stevens until her death in 1917. Fort Stevens was built to defend the approaches to Washington from the Seventh Street Pike (now Georgia Avenue), which was then the main thoroughfare from the north into Washington. Originally called Fort Massachusetts by the soldiers from that state who constructed the fort, it was later named after Brigadier General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who was killed at the Battle of Chantilly, Virginia, September 1, 1862. |
The 2nd Pennsylvania Heavy Artillery's expansion of Fort Massachusetts (into Fort Stevens) may have contributed another vignette to Lincoln-mania and the history of Fort Stevens. One of the fort's magazines (that in the original portion) had been constructed from the cellar of the old brick Emory Methodist chapel on the site. When the Pennsylvanians expanded the fort westward, they tore into the house of a free black woman, Mrs. Elizabeth "Aunt Betty" Thomas to build a second magazine. Aunt Betty recalled after the war that she could not understand the German speech of the officers and men until they threw her furniture out of the house and demolished the structure. That evening, as she sat under a nearby sycamore tree..her only shelter..with her six month-old baby in her arms, "a tall slender man, dressed in black, came up and said to me; 'it is hard, but you shall reap a great reward.' It was President Lincoln!" |