Crosshairs on the Capital by Bruns James H.;

Author:Bruns, James H.;
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 6683090
Publisher: Casemate Publishers & Book Distributors, LLC
Published: 2021-01-15T00:00:00+00:00

Detail of the bronze tablet in the Lincoln monument at Fort Stevens. (Library of Congress)

In one version of this story, the president was ordered to “Get down, you damn fool,” by Captain Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr., who later served as an associate justice of the Supreme Court. Another variation has Major General Alexander M. McCook, who was the overall commanding officer of Washington’s defenses, as the one who ordered Lincoln to get down. According to this version, the president curtly reminded McCook that he was the commander in chief and McCook was a mere general, but it is said that he climbed down anyway. Others said it was Major General Wright who ordered him to get down.

Lucius Chittenden claimed he was the one who advised a young artillery officer to tell the president to get off the rifle step he was on because he was creating a target of himself. According to Chittenden’s telling the young office did as instructed. “He walked to where the President was looking over the parapet. ‘Mr. President,’ he said, ‘you are standing within range of five hundred rebel rifles. Please come down to a safer place. If you do not, it will be my duty to call a file of men, and make you,’” wrote Chittenden years later.7

Over the years some writers claim Lincoln exposed himself on 11 July. Other say it was on 12 July. And some say he did it on both dates.

One book of Early’s attack on Fort Stevens recounts the version where Holmes ordered Lincoln off the wall on 12 July. The author states that Lincoln made himself a target on both 11 July and again on 12 July, explaining that he was standing pretty much in the exact same place behind the forward parapet on both days. This author doesn’t put the president on top of the wall, but at 6 feet, 4 inches tall and wearing a stovetop hat, Lincoln was a tempting target even if standing on the fort’s banquettes (a firing step behind a parapet).

Lincoln did indeed visit the Fort on both dates, so the “get down” command could have come either day. According to the reminisces of a soldier who was at Fort Stevens on 11 July,

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