“A Region Which Will at the Same Time Delight and Disgust You”: Landscape Transformation and Changing Environmental Relationships in Civil War Washington, DC

Abstract

“A Region Which Will at the Same Time Delight and Disgust You”Landscape Transformation and Changing Environmental Relationships in Civil War Washington, DC Nathan A. Marzoli (bio) Dragged away from his home in Tompkins County, New York, by war, Capt. Andrew Jackson Grover found himself frustrated by the nation’s capital. Stationed with his regiment at Fort DeRussy, high above the picturesque Rock Creek Valley, Grover penned an eloquent letter to his hometown newspaper about the striking contrasts he saw in the region’s landscape. On one hand, he was struck by the rural beauty of the area, telling his readers, “The road to the city is one of the most romantic I ever traveled. It leads through nearly three miles of woods, compels us to ford streams several times, and continually delights the eye by a panorama of beauty which shows a new scene at every turn.” The officer found beauty in the seemingly well-placed cedar trees that crowded the ravines, “dignified oaks and chestnuts” that crowned the hills, and the magnolias that “range themselves along the roadside like lines of spectators, promising to drop their flowers upon our heads if we came that way next summer.” Yet on the other hand, he also chastised the local farmers, whom he thought had not properly maintained this landscape. He called Washington a “region which will at the same time delight and disgust you.” Grover concluded that the city was almost “designed to give us a perfect contrast,” because in spite of the great rural beauty, “we see only dilapidated dwellings, prostrate fences, meet seldom with any but ignorant bears, and cannot pass a house without being barked at by dogs.”1 Many contemporaries probably would have agreed with Captain Grover in his assessment of Washington as a rural, frustratingly incomplete city. Pierre L’Enfant had ambitiously planned out the new capital city over a large area extending [End Page 125] from the Potomac River and the Eastern Branch (now the Anacostia River) as far as Rock Creek to the west and Boundary Street (present-day Florida Avenue) to the north.2 Even by 1861, the government buildings surrounding the White House and Capitol were still the only substantial structures in Washington City. But even these were widely spaced and often incomplete, leading some of the sixty thousand inhabitants to refer to it as a “city of magnificent distances.” The landscape of the District beyond Boundary Street and into Maryland and Virginia was mostly rural. If travelers followed one of the many dirt tracks (generously called roads) that led them toward the outskirts of the District and eventually into Maryland, they might alternately pass through “lonely tracts of woodlands” that sometimes almost resembled “uncivilized territory”; scattered small farms, as well as farm fields, orchards, and fences; and the occasional stately plantation, many of which were owned by Virginia’s and Maryland’s most influential families. In an era when other American cities were rapidly urbanizing, Washington stayed closely tied to the rural landscape. In fact, its relationship with nature seemed to have remained mostly static since its founding on the Potomac River over half a century before. This connection would change permanently, however, with the outbreak of Civil War.3 When Virginia seceded from the Union in April 1861, Washington’s antebellum relationship with nature—one that kept the city closely tied to the rural landscape—actually posed a threat. Officials worried that Confederate forces might march on the capital, using the heights across the Potomac River to lob shells in among the government buildings. The lack of developed roads, as well as the large tracts of forests and agricultural lands, would also make it difficult for Federal troops to mount an effective defense of the city. Not only would it be challenging to shuffle troops and supplies around a defense system, but the many woodlots and rugged hills would also prevent mounted artillery from maintaining proper fields of fire. Because many in the Federal government realized the key to defending the nation was the strength of the capital city itself, Union forces would need to alter the area’s landscape—and, therefore, rewrite the city’s existing environmental relationships...