The Real Fort Stevens - "Get DownYou Fool!"

It is only six miles away from where we live. Fort Stevens is located just off Georgia Avenue in NW DC. Yesterday we visited Fort Ward in Alexandria, Virginia to watch a reenactment of the Battle of Fort Stevens - complete with muskets and cannon fire. Today I wanted to see the real location. There are no actual remains of the Fort, it is reconstructed. But it gives you an idea how close all this action was just outside the Capitol. And it is the only time a sitting president was directly in the line of enemy fire while standing on a parapet. Luckily someone told him to duck. Because it is the 150th anniversary of this particular event and the Civil War in general, there have been a lot of activities centered around the Civil War over the last few years, including a Library of Congress exhibit and many major battlefield reenactments. We have visited most of the battlefields over the years up and down the eastern seaboard starting as a child with my family until now, but at a much slower pace. Since we moved to DC from Wisconsin, we have only driven to Bull Run a couple times, and we visited a high school friend who lives in Gettysburg. I belonged to the Milwaukee Civil War Round Table for many years, went to many dress balls, and thought about finding one here to join but never did. It's funny that when you live away from all if this you want to visit the historic sites.  But when you live in the same place, it doesn't seem as interesting. We made a couple exceptions this weekend, and it was worth the trip.