Tal Day, Editor Spring 2019

THE MURRAY-DICK-FAWCETT HOUSE: A FUTURE ALEXANDRIA MUSEUM

Sue Kovach Shuman*

Imagine Alexandria in the early 1770s: The town has expanded, the Potomac River trans-ports ships bringing goods such as rum from the Caribbean and linen from Ireland, and an air of possi-bility permeates life. But acquiring these goods carries a price, and colonists are growing increas-ingly vexed by the high taxes imposed on them by the Brit-ish.

Patrick Murray, a merchant in 1770 then resident in Perthshire, Scot-land,1 saw opportunity in Alexandria and im-migrated. In 1772, he began building a timber-frame house on Prince Street, at the edge of

* Sue Kovach Shuman is the Murray-Dick-Fawcett House project historian in the Office of Historic Alexandria.

She holds a B.A. degree in Journalism from The Pennsylvania State University and an M.A. in Journalism from the University of Maryland. In 2018, she earned a Public History and Historic Preservation certificate from Northern Virginia Community College and is currently pursuing a Virginia Association of Museums management certificate. Earlier in her career, she worked for several newspapers, including, for 20 years, The Washington Post.

the expanding town.2 Two years later, in 1774, he bought the lot upon which it stood from a descendant of John Alexander, who had been

one of the trustees for formation of the Town in 1749.3 Before the Revolutionary War and the sign-ing of our nation’s Declaration of In-dependence, the original beams with hand-cut nails, wide-plank floors, and walls of that two-room plus attic and cel-lar house were

standing and thereafter stood witness as Alex-andria was buffeted by wars, depressions, and occasional periods of prosperity and hope.

Figure 1. Murray-Dick-Fawcett House, 517 Prince Street. Credit: Google Street View

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Today, with subsequent early additions, Murray’s home is the most authentic, perhaps least altered, 18th-Century building in North-ern Virginia—a gem of vernacular architec-ture.4 Unlike Mount Vernon, the Carlyle House, the Lee-Fendall House, or some other historic houses still in private hands, it is not fancy or imposing. But unlike the house muse-ums mentioned, the house built by Murray on Prince Street was a residence occupied by de-scendants of one subsequent owner, John Douglass Brown, for nearly 200 years.5

Someday, the house will become a City of Alexandria museum with a focus on 18th and 19th Century do-mestic life.6 Most of the home’s residents were not famous, but they contributed to the rich fabric of growing Alex-andria. The house will tell the story of its resi-dents, mostly middle-class people who were educated locally, cre-ated local businesses, sometimes worked for the government, coped with momentous events, and generally led respectable lives, but outside the limelight of fame.

From 1816 until 2000, the house stayed in the family of John Douglass Brown and his descendants, almost 200 years, passing down through generations largely untouched. The house was not all that passed down. Memora-bilia, letters, financial records, and clothing worn by family members from the 18th to the 20th Centuries as contents of the house sur-vived as well. Pending development of the house as a City museum, these objects are be-ing catalogued and incorporated into antici-pated exhibitions at the Alexandria Lyceum.7

The Builder and Early Owners In 1784 Murray expanded the 1772 struc-

ture by adding two large rooms at the back.8 In 1785 he opened a livery stable there “to take in gentlemen’s horses”9 The stable was located at the back of the property, possibly with ac-cess from St. Asaph Street. Today part of the Alexandria courthouse sits on that land. Mur-ray’s businesses appear to have operated at least partially with slave labor. In 1784, Mur-ray placed a notice for a runaway slave named Jack who was a wagon driver.10 If Murray ran

a stable, he would have employed help, or owned slaves. There were as many free blacks as en-slaved blacks in Alexan-dria at the time.11

Between 1783 and 1791, Murray served as a juror or grand juror 16 times in Fairfax County court proceedings.12 He also speculated in western lands, including 806 acres in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania,13 and 640

acres on the Cacapon River in what is now West Virginia. That land, which was partially cultivated and about 20 miles west of Win-chester, may have produced farm products that Murray marketed in Alexandria.14 Murray also accumulated debts.15

Murray’s debts did not preclude his enjoy-ing a respectable standing in Alexandria. In 1786, Patrick Murray’s daughter, Mary, mar-ried Baron De La March (also spelled de la Marche and Delamarche). The groom’s family had ties to English royalty – King Henry III, who lived from 1207 to 1272 and ruled for al-most 50 years. There were family ties as well to the French House of Talleyrand and even a family castle in County Mayo, Ireland.16 Sadly, Murray’s daughter died three years later. The cause of death is not known, but

Figure 2. Front Parlor Woodwork with Coal Stove. Credit: Historic American Building Survey /Library of Congress {“HABS 1936”)

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newspaper death notices in the United States at this time cited many deaths from measles, epidemic typhus or influenza.17

By 1792, Murray had again expanded his house, to six rooms plus a kitchen annex and, under financial pressure, tried to sell it18 The architectural features dating from that period suggest that Murray or a later resident was op-erating a tavern. Among other things, the kitchen fireplace, 14.6 by 17 by 15 feet, was sufficiently large to hold massive pots; there was a commercial-scale smokehouse; and three separate brick closets with privies were built to “seat” eight.19

Murray did not avoid a mortgage de-fault. Following an auc-tion sale, the Alexan-dria physician Elisha Cullen Dick and his wife Hannah purchased the property in April 1794 as speculators.20

Dick sold the property in November 1794 to two merchants, John Thomas Ricketts and William Newton. 21

There are no records suggesting that Dick did anything to alter the house.

In 1796, Newton was living in the house with his family and four enslaved people as well. As the total number counted in a 1796 census was 13, it appears Newton also took in renters. In 1806, Newton sold the property for $4,000 to William Smith of Dumfries, who also rented it.22

John Douglass Brown and His Descend-ants: A Family Home for Two Centuries

John Douglass Brown. John Douglass Brown arrived in Alexandria in 1801 to begin an import-export business. From very early on, Brown appears to have integrated well into Alexandria society. At some time between 1805 and 1811, he commissioned a portrait of

himself by Cephas Thompson, an itinerant painter from New Eng-land who painted many other people prominent in the early Republican pe-riod, including Chief Jus-tice John Marshall and Commodore Stephen De-catur.23

In 1811, when Brown was 29, he married a sec-ond cousin, Mary Gould-ing Gretter, who had Brown and Douglass roots in Pennsylvania reaching back to the late 17th Century. Her grandfa-ther Samuel Brown, an immigrant from Belfast, owned land near Valley Forge.24

Brown’s business involved both selling and storing goods. Until 1823, he was in business with Thomas Janney & Co.25 During the War of 1812, their business continued to operate, but not without suffering losses when Alexan-dria’s waterfront was pillaged in 1814 during the British attack on Washington, D.C. The business may have suffered other losses from British looting; however, the family records that survive concern thousands of pounds of tobacco seized by the British for which Brown and Janney later sought compensation.26

Although Alexandria by then was recover-ing from the damages to its waterfront during the attack on Washington in 1814, Brown may

Figure 3. John Douglass Brown, Portrait by Cephas Thompson (c. 1801-11). Credit: family collection

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nevertheless have gotten a bargain when he bought the property in 1816 for $3,000—a 25 percent loss on Smith’s $4,000 investment. Was it because Smith knew the front door on Prince Street needed to be moved when Prince Street was widened?27 Did the house need other repairs? The house was large, about 40 years old, in a desirable location, and had a stable at the back — everything a young man like Brown could want to grow his business and raise a family.28

From fire insurance records we know that the front door was relocated from the sidewalk on Prince Street to the right side of the house sometime be-tween late 1815 and March 1823, after John Douglass Brown bought it. Since no record has been located for moving the door, we do not know whether Smith moved it, or whether he procras-tinated until he sold the property. It is more likely that Brown moved the entry be-cause the interior was reconfigured to replace a winder staircase with a straight staircase that enabled more direct access to the second floor in the original section and also created more usable space in the parlor.29

As of 1820, Brown was sufficiently promi-nent in Alexandria’s merchant community to be enlisted as one of the partners in The Co-lumbian Factory Company, a business venture formed that year that included as partners other leading businessmen of the day.30 Alt-hough the venture proved to be only a small part of Brown’s business, the papers relating to the venture were kept by Brown and have remained in the family since.

By 1825, Brown had leased a fireproof warehouse on Janney’s Wharf, where he stored and sold flour, grain, and other goods.31 He also continued to warehouse flour, grain, and other goods for other merchants. 32 In 1826, his own business expanded to include “Manchester coal, suitable for either grates, smiths, furnaces or sugar refiners.”33

John and his wife Mary had five children, four of whom were painted with their parents by John Esten Cooke around 1824, when Jen-nett Brown was still a baby. In 1830, John Brown died, leaving Mary with four children

under the age of 15. Mary and her chil-dren stayed in the house, and so, for successive genera-tions, did items of the household: early 19th Century Spode china from England, a spool-turned bedstead, a mahogany side-board, sets of crys-tal and silver, and family portraits.

After Mary died in 1853, the descendants of John Douglass Brown passed down the house and an abun-dance of its contents mostly through daugh-ters, some inheriting it by written will and oth-ers informally inheriting it by dint of their res-idency. Mary’s will left the property to her un-married daughter, Ellen, who remained in the house.34 Ellen’s younger sister, Jennett, the youngest of the children, also stayed in the house. In 1853, Jennett married James Wal-lace Hooff who later moved in.35

The Hooffs. James Wallace Hooff, called Wallace, was the son of Lewis Hooff and Eliza Maria Rapley. His great grandfather, Lo-renz (Anglicized to Lawrence) who was from a family of German coach builders, migrated

Figure 4. The John Douglass Brown Family (Jennett on her mother's lap), portrait by John Esten Cooke (c. 1824), Credit: family collection

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to Lancaster County in 1730, under a seven-year indenture. Between 1755 and 1760, he moved to Alexandria with his second wife, Margaret (Anna Margaretha Muschler). As early as 1783, their son, Lawrence Hooff, Sr., the father of Lewis Hooff, born in 1791, was a merchant in Alexandria.36 Their home was at 1016 Prince Street.

James Wallace Hooff was born in 1825 in Alexandria. He attended Benjamin Hallow-ell’s school.37 Ordinarily, it would not have been unusual for Wallace to marry his second cousin, Jennett Brown; but a sur-viving letter indi-cates that within the family there was controversy for some reason and a corre-sponding need for discretion.38

The burden this imposed on their courtship was ultimately a boon for the family. Their courtship entailed writing letters concluding with “burn after reading.” One letter, post-marked November 24, 1847, happily survived that fate. In 1911, Wallace and Jennett’s daughter Mary Goulding, then married to Ed-ward Stabler Fawcett and living in the house, discovered the letter in a sewing box in a room above the kitchen. While the letter touched charmingly on her parents’ need for discretion during their courtship, what made the discov-ery remarkable was the stamp on the enve-lope: the “Blue Boy,” which is one of the rar-est stamps in the world. It is one of seven sur-viving provisional stamps issued in 1847 by Alexandria Postmaster Daniel Bryan and is the only one of the seven printed on blue paper.

Even in 1911, the stamp was special. Mary and Edward Fawcett sold the stamp on its

envelope for $3,000 to finance university edu-cation for Laurence, the youngest of their nine children surviving to adulthood; but they kept the letter, which is still in the family. The stamp on its envelope has since sold several times, most recently in 1981 to a German col-lector who bought it in Zurich, Switzerland, for more than $1 million.39

Jennett and Wallace Hooff had three chil-dren: Mary Goulding, Douglass, and Ellen

Douglass. Wal-lace’s uncle, Philip Henry Hooff, em-ployed Wallace in business before he began a career with the federal government in 1861. By 1858, they lived in the home on Prince Street.

Wallace ap-pears to have been

deeply affected by the Panic of 1837, which occurred when he was a pre-teen. 40 By 1849, when he was 24, he was saving—a lot. He continued saving, but in 1857, four years after he married Jennett in 1853, his fortunes were buffeted by the Panic of 1857. 41 Wallace’s bank certificates totaling 5,800 shares at $100 each became worthless.42

Alexandria was occupied by the Union Army in May 1861, and quickly developed into a major logistics center for Union military operations in Virginia. During the occupation of Alexandria by Union troops, Wallace worked for the U.S. Army in the Commissary at 201 Prince St., after the Army seized the premises of The Bank of the Old Dominion, which closed in 1862.43

Figure 5. "Blue Boy" stamp on letter addressed to Jennett Brown c/o Washington Gretter, Richmond, Va.

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From family stories of life in Alexandria during the Union occupation, one may infer that for Wallace to take a job with the Federal Government was a survival measure rather than a political affirmation on his part unal-loyed with apprehensions about the occupying Union force. As protection against looting by Union soldiers, Wallace hid the family silver in the cellar’s brick cis-tern.44 The Hooff family also protected the Wilmer Chalice, still treasured by St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, 228 South Pitt Street, by burying it in the home’s back yard while the church was closed and used as a Union hospital.45 Once St. Paul’s reopened in May 1865, the Wilmer Chalice resurfaced.

The family fortunes sur-vived as well. In 1870, Wallace Hooff was in the top 20 percent of Alexan-dria taxpayers, and in 1880 in the top 10 percent.46 Wallace enjoyed the secu-rity of a government job and the assured income that it offered in Alexandria’s suffering post-war economy. He continued working for the gov-ernment until he died at 90 in 1915, while still working. 47 Throughout, surviving records show that Wallace carefully monitored house-hold expenses.48

The Fawcetts. Mary Goulding Hooff mar-ried Edward Stabler Fawcett in 1875. Edward was born in 1846 in Alexandria. Edward’s family also had roots in both Virginia and Pennsylvania.49

Mary and Edward had 11 children: Wal-lace, Janet, Susan, Edward, John D., Ellen, Lewis, Malcolm, Richard, Mary and Lau-rence. Malcolm died as a baby, and John D.

died before turning two. With as many as nine children in the house at once, bedroom space was at a premium. Wallace, the oldest, was al-ready in his 20s when the youngest, Laurence, was born. To ease the constraints, one or pos-sibly two of the older boys still at home, Ed-ward and John, were sent to board with rela-tives or friends nearby who had more space.50

Mary was widowed in 1901 and reportedly wore black for the rest of her life, until she died in 1925. 51 World War I brought fur-ther sadness and stress. Her son, Richard, died in 1918 during an aircraft training exercise before going to the front lines.52

Mary’s oldest son, Wal-lace Hooff Fawcett, served in the U.S. Army during World World I. After his discharge, he worked dur-ing the rest of war as a me-chanical and electrical engi-neer at a munitions plant in Ontario, Canada. His work was clearly vital to the war effort, for he was obliged to obtain a permit to leave

Canada for three months to go to New York on business. The permit was granted on Sep-tember 14, 1918, less than two months before the Armistice. At that point, he had lived in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, for “nearly one year.”53

Another of Richard’s older brothers, Lewis Hooff Fawcett, served in the war and starting in 1918 worked as a civilian metallurgist at the Naval Ordnance/Gun Factory in Washington. D.C., while living in the home.54 Lewis’s older sister, Ellen, and perhaps his sister Susan as well, sold Liberty Bonds55 in support of the war effort. 56 The youngest, Laurence, was in-ducted into the Army in 1918, but did not see

Figure 6. Brick Cistern in Basement. Credit: HABS 1936

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action. Their brother, Edward, served in the Navy.57

The Fawcett family did not live lavishly. As descendant John Cheeseman observed, the family embraced its Scots sensibility:

“That stereotype of Scots being sort of tight in wallet, never throwing anything away, us-ing something until it wears out. That was one thing that always fasci-nated I think my brothers and sisters and myself at 517. Going to the house, it was like a time capsule. You know, they could point to this and that and talk about it, this belonged to the Browns, and the Fawcetts, this was the Hooffs, the Stablers, and all this. And it was in-teresting how it was. It was like how did all this stuff stay here and sur-vive, that they kept it to-gether over the years? We took it for granted.”58

When work was done on the house, the Fawcett family often did it them-selves. Cheeseman said he remembered that his Great-Uncle Laurence, the youngest and smallest of the Fawcett children, talked about how he squeezed inside the house walls to wire it for electricity around 1910.

Susan Stabler Fawcett’s will, drafted in 1936,59 left the house to her brother Lewis and sister Ellen Douglass Fawcett, both of whom were living in the house at the time. Ellen lived there with her sister, Susan, until Susan died in 1955. Ellen died in 1965, when Lewis was 76. The house reflected the tastes of the sisters—or at least the layers of changing wallpaper did. The sisters kept newspaper

clippings about Alexandria house tours, in-cluding a 1938 article that mentioned theirs: “The house owned by Misses Susie and Ellen Fawcett, who are the fifth generation of the family who have lived in there, is quaint in its architecture and contains much of the original furnishing.”60

Ellen attended the Corcoran School of Art briefly, but did not pur-sue a career because she felt financially con-strained.61 She instead became an executive secretary with the Dic-tionary of American Bi-ography, where she worked with the histo-rian Dumas Malone.62 Ellen later spent 13 years at The National Archives in Washing-ton.63 In retirement, she organized many of the papers that today tell the story of the family. Susan worked as a pub-lic school teacher.

The Cheesemans. Ja-net Brown Fawcett, Ed-ward and Mary’s oldest daughter, married

Lewis Cheeseman of Philadelphia in 1906 at St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in Alexandria, where other family members had married since the time of the Browns. She lived in Port Henry, New York, and Orlando, Florida, with her husband and sons, Richard and David. Lewis Cheeseman died in 1934, leaving two sons, Richard, then in his teens, and his younger brother, David. Because of Janet’s family connections in Alexandria, she moved back to Alexandria with Richard and David and moved into the house with her siblings,

Figure 7. Wood Shingles (c. 1770-72) beneath later ad-dition: Note knob and tube electrical wiring. Credit: HABS 1936

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Ellen, Susan, and Lewis, where she lived until she died in 1952.

In the depths of the Great Depression, all were expected to pitch in, and all were ex-pected to contribute financially. Until an oil furnace was installed in 1940, Richard’s job was to stoke the coal. Frugality and close at-tention to expenses were habitual. Bills on in-dex-card size paper from 1947 to the 1960s that were saved by Ellen show that real estate and property taxes were always paid on time.64 In fact, everything was saved. Even in times of scarcity, “The family never sold anything.”65

In 1936, Richard Cheeseman joined the Navy Reserve. During World War II, he served in the Pacific. He was reactivated in the Korean War and retired from the Navy Re-serve in 1953 when the Korean conflict was winding down.

Richard also be-gan a distinguished business career. In 1939, Richard be-came a co-founder of the Robinson Terminal Ware-house Corp., a newsprint storage and handling facility in Alexandria. Richard was president from 1966 to 1980, and chairman until he re-tired in 1985. His obituary states that “[d]uring his career, he had a major role in courting shipping clients worldwide.”66 Richard served on the Board of Directors of the Burke & Herbert Bank and Trust Company from 1970 to 2005 and was active in many local trade and commerce groups.67 Richard started a newsletter for his Robinson Terminal employ-ees expressing pride in their work.68

Richard married Jeane Plebuch in 1945.They built a house in the Marlan Forest section of Alexandria in 1948 where they moved to raise their family. After his uncle Lewis Fawcett died in 1971, Richard inherited the house on Prince Street.

The last descendant of John Douglass Brown to live in the house was Richard’s son, David Cheeseman, who lived in the home from 1981 until it was purchased by Joe Reeder in 2000.69 As a young couple, David and his wife Janice were grateful for a place to live, but it came with a caveat: Take care of the house. Janice remembers climbing ladders to paint the white clapboard frame.70

Preserving a Landmark and Uncovering Its Story

The Murray-Dick-Fawcett House is a dis-tinctive surviving example of 18th Century vernacular urban architecture. It is also a home that was cherished by one family for almost 200 years. Both the building and the people

who lived there have stories to tell about its evolution as both a commer-cial building and a home.

But like other historic buildings of its era, even with maintenance over time, the building is

showing its age. In 2018, part of a ceiling fell, exposing some horsehair-mud fill between laths, dating that portion of the structure to 1800-1805.71 Early in 2019, plaster cracks and bulges in hallways appeared.

Scalloped wood roof shingles from the last century that are layered over the original 1772 roof have holes, possibly made by squirrels. And the tin roof on the 18th Century addition leaks and is noisy whenever it rains. The red-lead treatment that preserved the wood shin-gles of the “new roof” for some 100 years is highly toxic and is now illegal. 72

When John Cheeseman was told about the red lead shingle sealant, he chuckled. He re-membered seeing something written about it, perhaps on a well-worn scrap of paper from

“That stereotype of Scots being sort of tight in wallet, never throwing anything away, using something until it wears out. That was one thing that always fascinated I think my brothers and sis-ters and myself at 517. Going to the house, it was like a time capsule.” John Cheeseman

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the 1960s, tucked inside an envelope or a Bi-ble. “I’m pretty sure there’s still a family recipe for it.”73

Today’s living descendants, some of whom lived in the house, have been recalling for the Office of Historic Alexandria their memories about the house — the way wallpaper covered every inch of most rooms, the scorching heat on summer days in the attic room above the original kitchen, the Saturday dinners using

1 The 1769-1770 census from Perthshire, Scot-land, lists Patrick Murray as having "Merchants houses and shops one Shilling and six pence" for which he seems to have been taxed 16 pounds. He was not taxed on land, as were others listed. Perth-shire, Scotland, Census, Stent and Valuation Rolls, 1750-1899; 1769-1770 p. 8.

2 The address of the home was then 129 Prince Street. The open space alongside at the corner of St. Asaph and Prince Streets was then numbered 131 Prince Street. The City renumbered Alexandria’s streets in 1888. The property is now numbered 517 Prince Street.

3 Fairfax County Deed Book M1:121-124, Dec. 20, 1774.

4 Alexandria building permits, zoning and archi-tectural review board minutes. Interviews and oral histories since 2017 with Charles Joseph Reeder. The home in its current condition reflects renovations un-dertaken by Reeder, its most recent owner. Before purchasing 517 Prince Street, he purchased and reno-vated several other Alexandria houses, usually reno-vating them for resale. He bought 517 in 2000 for $850,000 and then made renovations that both up-dated and restored the house to its earlier condition. He updated heating and cooling systems, removing radiators; removed layers of wallpaper, saving scraps as documentation, and added a kitchen using re-claimed materials, including wood beams from a Pennsylvania barn and dry-sink cabinets. The new fireplace is similar to the 1790 one. In November 2005, the house was featured on the cover of Clem Labine’s Period Homes.

5 In 1936, the Works Progress Administration sur-veyed the house for the Historic American Buildings Survey (“HABS 1936”) (HABS VA-104), https://www.loc.gov/photos/?q=murray+dick+faw-cett. A 1936 field notebook on the Fawcett House is on file at the Library of Congress. The house is also included in six other notebooks that contains sketches from Gadsby’s Tavern, the Jockey Club, and Ramsay House; sketchers looked for similar architectural

the “good India china” in the 1816 Spode pat-tern that was owned by the Browns. They are also sharing family photos and contributing objects that in time will help interpret the building and the folkways of a family that en-dured wars and depressions and survived to enjoy occasional periods of prosperity and hope.

The mysteries of the house and the stories of its occupants are still being revealed.

details. The HABS documentation lists Lewis Faw-cett as owner.

6 The City of Alexandria purchased 517 Prince St. in April 2017 using funds from the Virginia Land Conservation Foundation and the Virginia Outdoors Foundation. Charles Joseph Reeder made an equity donation toward the purchase price as well. Under terms of the purchase agreement, Reeder has a life tenancy; the house is open a few times a year; and the garden is open daily 8 a.m. to 6 p.m.

7 Notable objects surviving include a fine silk pet-ticoat, a widow’s mourning dress, and a small-waisted cotton velvet hunting jacket circa 1850 worn by James Wallace Hooff, who married a Brown daughter. Also surviving and in the Lyceum collec-tion are Hooff’s beaver cap and two bags of heavy-weight linen for carrying supplies and small prey. More recent items include a 20th Century maid’s uni-form (black dress with starched white apron) worn by Miss Minnie, who cleaned and cooked for the family in the 1950s.

8 The Virginia Journal and Alexandria Advertiser Feb. 5, 1784 to Jan. 27, 1785. Architectural historian C. Richard Bierce, AIA, in 2001 told the Alexandria Board of Architectural Review that the brick addition could be earlier. In a 2017 interview, he noted the re-used structural materials in the addition.

9 In March 1787, Patrick Murray owned three horses, mares and mules, according to personal prop-erty tax records. Listed as a “white tithables above 21 years” is “Thomas Something [cq] servant.” In 1788, Murray owned two animals and a wagon. The build-ings associated with that operation survived into the 19th Century. Insurance records indicate that a stable was attached to a warehouse on the site in 1839; Mu-tual Assurance Company Policy No. 11040 dated June 24, 1839. The warehouse was there until 1846 but gone by 1853, according to Mutual Policy No.14301 dated Aug. 17, 1846 and Policy No. 17673 dated July 8, 1853. The Sanborn Map for 1885 shows a grocer located where the warehouse had been.

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10 Alexandria Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser,

June 30, 1784. 11 The first U.S. Census in 1790 does not exist be-

cause the British burned the records during the War of 1812. Census numbers were compiled using state enumerations and tax lists. Alexandria’s population in 1790 was 2,748; nearly 22 percent were African Americans. https://www2.census.gov/library/publica-tions/decennial/1790/heads_of_families/vir-ginia/1790m-03.pdf# and http://www.census-online.com/links/VA/Alexandria/&title=Cen-sus+Online+-+Alexandria+Co.,+Virginia+Cen-sus+Records.

12 Fairfax County Circuit Court Historic Records Center, name index files.

13 In 1788, Patrick Murray was the grantee of 806 acres of land “on the waters of the Piney River” in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania. Library of Vir-ginia, Land Office Grants No. 18, 1788-1789, p. 661.

14 In 1784, when Murray built the addition on his house in Alexandria, he advertised the land and its improvements, including meadow, cultivable land, orchards, and improvements for sale. Alexandria Ga-zette, March 11, 1784.

15 Fairfax County Circuit Court records show that Murray had five or six debts around the same time as the western Virginia land was advertised for sale, in-cluding a debt to John Jolly in 1783. Alexandria Ga-zette, Oct. 12, 1786, p.3. One debt was 33.5 pounds--equal to $5,261.15 in 2019 money. https://gbp.cur-rencyrate.today/usd/1783; https://www.measuring-worth.com/calculators/uscompare/.

16 The Peerage, Baronetage and Knightage of Great Britain and Ireland for 1862, Including all the Titled Classes. Vol.22. by Robert P. Dod, p. 445, Bishops, Privy Councillors, &c.

17 Alexandria Gazette October 1789. 18 "There is at present on the lot fronting on

Prince a commodious framed house with 4 rooms and 3 fireplaces on the first floor and 2 rooms and on sec-ond and a kitchen annexed to the same–Also a large stable on one of the lots on St. Asaph St.” Virginia Gazette and Alexandria Advertiser Sept. 13, 1792.

19 Murray-Dick-Faucett [cq] report by Edward A. Chappell of Colonial Williamsburg for the Office of Historic Alexandria, Dec. 17, 2017.

20 Elisha Cullen Dick is now most remembered as one of the physicians who attended George Washing-ton at the time of his death. The home in Alexandria now most associated with him is 211 Prince Street, which he rented after losing his home at 408 Duke Street in bankruptcy. Dr. Dick’s bankruptcy did not diminish the esteem he enjoyed in Alexandria. In 1804-1805, he was Mayor of Alexandria, D.C., and was throughout his life involved in other civic and political endeavors in the community. See T. Michael

Miller, Prince Street Profiles, Part II, Gentry Row, The Alexandria Chronicle (Fall 1997) p. 12; Wil-helmus Bogart Bryan, A History of the National Cap-ital from Its Foundation Through the Period of the Adoption on the Organic Act (Macmillan 1914) p. 424; Index to Politicians: Dick. The Political Grave-yard, by Lawrence Kestenbaum, www.politicalgrave-yard.com, retrieved Apr. 26, 2019. Mary V. Thomp-son, Death Defied, George Washington's Mount Vernon. Mount Vernon Ladies' Association, Essay 3.

21 Alexandria Hustings Court Deed G:39, April 15, 1794.

22 Alexandria Hustings Court G:39 Nov. 14, 1794. R&N Alexandria Hustings Court Deed G:284, March 28, 1796; Alexandria Deed Book N:42, July 2, 1806.

23 The portrait of John Douglass Brown is un-dated. Thompson was one of the artists who rented space from Guy Atkinson during 1805-1806 at 113 North Fairfax Street. Thompson also made annual trips through the South as a portrait painter between 1800 and 1825. Deborah L. Sisum, A Most Favorable and Striking Resemblance: The Virginia Portraits of Cephas Thompson, Journal of Early Southern Deco-rative Arts, 1997, Vol. 23, p. 1-101. https://www.findagrave.com/memo-rial/60063136/cephas-thompson.

24 Brown genealogy chart on file at Office of His-toric Alexandria. Samuel Brown came to Pennsylva-nia from near Belfast, Ireland. He owned farms in Montgomery and Chester counties.

25 Alexandria Gazette, October 21,1823. 26 Cheeseman family papers. Copies on file at Of-

fice of Historic Alexandria. 27 During the term of Edward Jennings Lee as

Mayor, 1815 -1818, Alexandria undertook a number of street improvements including paving Prince St. as far as St. Asaph St. See J. Tercha, The Origins of the Alexandria, Virginia, Sewerage System, Part 1: Chal-lenges and Improvements before the Civil War, The Alexandria Chronicle (Fall 2017).

28 Margaret and Ellen were born before 1816. Three other children followed.

29 Mutual Assurance Company Policies: No. 1903, 1815 Dec 15, taken out by William Smith, and Policy No. 4914, 1823 March 31 by John D. Brown.

30 “Copartners" listed in “Supplementary Arti-cles” for the partnership were Thomas Janney, Presi-dent; William Jolliffe, Thomas Shreve, Anthony C. Cazenove, Jonathan Butcher, Edward Stabler, and John D. Brown. Cheeseman family papers.

31 Alexandria Gazette, October 1825. 32 Alexandria Gazette, January 1826. 33 Alexandria Gazette, April 1826. 34 Will of Mary G. Brown, Alexandria Will Book

6:308, Aug. 24, 1853.

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35 Family Genealogical Records. Copy on file at

Office of Historic Alexandria. 36 Betty Hoff Lemons, “GENESIS: Hoffs and

Hoofs of Virginia 1730 to 1980” (“Hooff Family His-tory”) (Vienna, Va. 1980).

37 Gay Montague Moore, Seaport in Virginia. Garrett and Massie (Richmond 1949).

38 Others in the Hooff family were among those leaving Christ Church to form St. Paul’s Episcopal Church in 1809. See Ruth Lincoln Kaye, The History of St. Paul’s Episcopal Church, Alexandria Virginia, November 12, 1809 — November 12, 1984 (“Kaye, History of St. Paul’s”) (Springfield, Va.: Goetz 1984) p. 6.

39 Theresa Vargas, A Rare Stamp Reunited with Its Lost Love Story Philatelic Detective Work Matches 1847 Letter to “Alexandria Blue Boy”, Washington Post, May 25, 2006. The letter was not sold and is still in the Cheeseman family. But see, Kaye, History of St. Paul’s pp. 6, 10, 188 (showing Hooffs as founding members of St. Paul’s and “John D. Brown” as an early member of the vestry).

40 https://dp.la/primary-source-sets/the-panic-of-1837

41 The Panic of 1857 ignited when the Ohio and Life Insurance and Trust Co. collapsed following massive embezzlement. British investors moved their funds from American banks. Goods began to pile up in warehouses, leading to massive layoffs. Railroads suffered, followed by land speculators. All of this preceded the National Banking Act of 1863. https://www.u-s-history.com/pages/h159.html .

42 From review of copies of the bank share certifi-cates on file at the Office of Historic Alexandria. It may be estimated that Hooff lost the equivalent of at least $200,000 in 2019 dollars. According to paper stock certificates, he owned shares in Farmers Bank of Virginia, Exchange Bank of Virginia and The Bank of the Old Dominion.

43 The Bank of the Old Dominion opened in 1851 at 201 Prince St. and operated until Union forces oc-cupied Alexandria. Its premises were seized and it became the Chief Commissary Office used by the U.S Commissary Quartermaster (where Hooff worked). The bank closed in 1862. http://www.nvfaa.org/history; http://www.an-tiquemoney.com/. The building that survives is now the Athenaeum.

44 In the cellar dirt floor, by some family ac-counts.

45 Or, maybe also in the cellar dirt floor. St. Paul’s was closed by the Union occupation in February 1862 and its sanctuary was used as a hospital for the duration of the conflict. Kaye, History of St. Paul’s pp. 44-64. The ties of the family to St. Paul’s and the Episcopal Church were strong. Wallace was a St.

Paul’s vestryman; his sister-in-law, Ellen, was an ac-tive volunteer, usually working in the sacristy; Wal-lace and Jennett’s son, Douglass, graduated from Vir-ginia Theological Seminary in 1881and later served as rector of All Saints Episcopal Church in Frederick Maryland. In person Cheeseman family interviews.

46 Philip G. Terrie, A Social History of the 500 Block, King Street in Alexandria, Va., Special Col-lections, Alexandria Library (1979).

47 John Cheeseman, oral history, April 5, 2019. 48 An 1894 ledger survives showing the price paid

for staples – bacon, brooms, prunes, sardines, castile soap. Copy on file with the Office of Historic Alex-andria.

49 William B. Fawcett Jr., A History of the Faw-cetts and Related Families in America (“A History of the Fawcetts”), Utah State University, Vol. 1, p. 96 (1996).

50 One of the boys did not want to leave home. He expressed his displeasure by deeply scratching the glass window in his attic bedroom. The scratched pane remains. Family interviews on tape with OHA.

51 Mary’s descendants have donated a lace bodice and satin skirt from her mourning period to The Ly-ceum, the City’s history museum.

52 Alexandrian Killed in Flying Accident; Lieut. R.H. Fawcett Falls at Scott Field, Belleville, Ill., Mother Is Informed, The Washington Post, July 9, 1918.

53 Wallace’s height and weight were listed on the permit as 5’ 11”, weight 145 pounds, which was tall for his generation. Copy of original document on file at Office of Historic Alexandria.

54 Hooff Family History, p. 82-83. 55 https://owlcation.com/humanities/What-Were-

Liberty-Bonds-in-World-War-1; https://www.feder-alreservehistory.org/essays/liberty_bonds

56 Ellen saved eight of the 7-by-10 ½-inch thin black-and-white paper flyers. One side shows Lady Liberty with outstretched hands imploring: “Let’s End It-Quick With Liberty Bonds.” On the flip side is an explanation that includes: “There are many of us who cannot offer our lives in the service of our coun-try. Yet we can prove that we are with our Govern-ment for Liberty…SUBSCRIBE TO THE LIBERTY LOAN TODAY GET BEHIND THE SOLDIER.” A copy of one of the flyers is on file at Office of His-toric Alexandria.

57 Kaye, History of St. Paul’s p. 148. 58 John Cheeseman, oral history, April 5, 2019. 59 Susan’s will is dated July 6, 1936; proved

Oct. 27, 1955. Susan died in 1955, Ellen in 1965. Mary died without a will; the list of heirs included Susan, Ellen, Lewis, and Mary, ages 44, 38 37, and 3, as living in the home; and Wallace, Janet, Edward and Laurence as residing elsewhere.

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60 Katherine Barrett Pozer, Tour for Benefit of

Two Famous Old Churches To Include Houses of Al-exandria’s Historic Past, The Washington Post. (May 8, 1938.)

61 Margaret (Missy) Cheeseman of San Diego, El-len’s grand-niece and a working artist, said Ellen en-couraged her to be an artist because she felt she could not pursue her own dream for financial reasons. Tele-phone interview March 2019.

62 Malone was, among other things, editor of Jef-ferson’s papers and the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the six-volume biography, Jefferson and His Time. The family has first editions of each volume. John Cheeseman Interview, March 2019.

63 A History of the Fawcetts, p. 49. 64 Cheeseman family records; copies of selected

ledgers on file at Office of Historic Alexandria. 65 Interview with John Cheeseman. 66 Obituary, The Washington Post, Jan. 27, 2006,

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lo-cal/2006/01/27/obituaries/f926d90e-44bf-4904-ba40-2c94fdf58fea/?utm_term=.620acabcd7cf and

https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/washing-tonpost/obituary.aspx?n=richard-l-cheeseman&pid=16488852

67 Julia M. Williams, Burke & Herbert Celebrates 150 Years: A living legacy of Commitment and Ser-vice (Richmond, Va.: Dietz Press 2002).

68 Robinson newsletter, unnamed, article by Rich-ard L. Cheeseman. Copy on file at Office of Historic Alexandria.

69 Between 1971 and 1981, various family mem-bers and friends stayed in the house from time to time, bur no one lived there. Janice Cheeseman Inter-view.

70 Janice Cheeseman, phone interview, March 20, 2018.

71 Investigation of the Colonnade Ceiling, Fawcett House, by Mesick Cohen Wilson Baker, Architects, April 21, 2018.

72 In person interview with Joe Reeder (April 2019).

73 John Cheeseman, oral history interview, April 5, 2019.

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The Grand Presidential Troop Reviews of April 1863

Terry E. Zerwick†

In April 1863, my great-great grandfather, Dr. Lafayette F. Butler, M.D., was an assistant surgeon in the 125th Regiment of the Pennsyl-vania Reserve Volunteer Corps, serving in the unit with his eldest son, 14-year-old Corporal Charles E. Butler, until both mustered out on May 18, 1863.74 The 125th was part of Briga-dier General Thomas Kane’s Bucktail Brigade. The Buck-tails were in Major General Henry Slocum’s Twelfth Corps, which was stationed near Aquia Landing, Virginia.

Dr. Butler wrote letters home to his second-born son, James Edwin Butler, “Eddy.” who was living with his mother and siblings in East Freedom, Pennsylvania. He often related details about camp life, describing his quar-ters, what he ate, what the weather was like, the condi-tions he endured, and what he saw and heard. In one of these letters, he described for Eddy a grand review of the Twelfth Corps before President Abraham Lincoln:

“…We had a grand review the other day Eddy and I would like you to see one like it. There was about 23,000 men under arms to be reviewed by the President. There was about 120 or 200

† Terry is a past president of the Gadsby’s Tavern Museum Society. He has been a member of the Alexandria

Historical Society and a Friend of the Carlyle House for over 20 years. Navy veteran and magna cum laude graduate of the University of Maryland, Terry has had a lifelong interest in the Civil War and is a member of the Civil War Round Table of the District of Columbia. Terry and Kay, his wife of 47 years, live in Alexandria.

drums and 4 brass bands there. There was also 18 large cannon and each wagon drawn by six horses. There was also all the Generals of the Army of the Potomac that you read of in the pa-pers. It was a very beautiful sight and I wished that you were with me for one

day to see it. Charles … was on duty at the land-ing that day so he missed the most beautiful sight I expect ever to see. Most of the Regiments there were old ones that had been in many battles and they were very well drilled. They marched along under their flags that were all riddled with ball. One flag I seen was nearly all shot away – only a small piece was hanging to the flag staff and even that was full of bullet holes…”

This review, witnessed by Dr. Butler on April 10, was the last of five formal reviews of the corps of the Army of the Potomac con-ducted for the President between April 6 and April 10.

Figure 1. Dr. Lafayette F. Butler, M.D.. Credit: Author’s personal collection

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Prelude to the Grand Reviews In late November 1862, after Antietam and

the appointment of Major General Ambrose Burnside as its commander, the Army of the Potomac set up camp in Stafford County, Vir-ginia. The Army of the Potomac eventually grew to 135,000 soldiers and occupied 200 square miles on the north side of the Rappa-hannock River.75 In December, however, Burnside’s army suffered 12,600 casualties (total killed, wounded, and captured/missing) in a calamitous defeat near Fredericksburg by the Army of Northern Virginia under the com-mand of General Robert E. Lee. The Army of Northern Virginia sustained 5,400 casualties.

In January, Burnside’s plan for a second major attack on Lee’s army across the Rappa-hannock was thwarted by three days of icy-torrential rain. The rain turned roads into bot-tomless pits of mud. Horses, mules, wagons and cannon got stuck in the quagmire, immo-bilizing Burnside’s army, which re-treated in humilia-tion without firing a shot, ending the dis-astrous “Mud March.”76

On January 26, 1863, President Lin-coln replaced Burn-side with Major General Joseph Hooker, who took steps to improve the army’s capability and morale. A few weeks later, Dr. Butler joined his son’s regiment, the 125th Pennsylvania.

In the spring of 1863, Mary Todd Lincoln was still consumed by melancholy a year after the loss of her third son, William Wallace Lin-coln, “Willie,” to typhoid fever. She proposed

to her husband that they escape the cares of Washington and visit the troops in Fredericks-burg, taking their youngest son, Thomas Lin-coln III, “Tad,” with them to celebrate his birthday, which fell on April 4, the day before Easter.77

In a meeting with General Hooker on March 31, the president likely discussed a presidential visit to Hooker’s command.78 On April 3, Lincoln telegraphed Hooker that he would arrive on Easter Sunday with a party that “will probably not exceed six persons” and stay until Tuesday morning.79 In fact, he stayed until Friday, April 10.

Arrival at the Front and the President’s Impression of General Hooker

Toward sunset on April 4, the president, Mrs. Lincoln, Tad, Attorney General Edward Bates, Dr. Anson G. Henry, an old Springfield friend, Noah Brooks, a correspondent of the

Sacramento Daily Union and a confidant of the President, and a family friend from Oregon boarded the steamer Carrie Martin at the Washington Navy Yard amid a heavy snowstorm and headed for the land-ing at Aquia Creek.

The presidential party arrived at Aquia Landing on Easter Sunday morn-ing, April 5th, snow still falling. About 10 o’clock they boarded a freight car fitted with rough-hewn plank seats and be-decked with flags and

bunting for an hour’s ride to Falmouth Station. From there, two four-wheeled ambulances fit-ted with springs conveyed them, under cavalry escort, to Hooker’s headquarters three miles to the east.80

Figure 2. Camps of the Army of the Potomac (April 8 review site highlighted in red). In February 1863, the Ninth Corps was ordered to Newport News and then to Kentucky and was not present during the president’s April 1863 visit. Credit: Stafford’s Big Day, Blog: Mysteries and Conundrums, National Park Service (April 7, 2013)

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Traveling over a “fearfully muddy road” they passed the charred hulk of the Phillips house, Burnside’s former headquarters. Ac-cording to Noah Brooks the “ruins of that ele-gant mansion … added to the sorrowful ap-pearance of the region desolated by war.”81 Arriving about noon, the guests were shown to their quarters, which consisted of three large hospital tents.82 Deterred by inclement condi-tions, the President contented himself with re-ceiving Hooker’s staff, shaking hands and ex-changing pleasantries.

In conversations with Hooker, Lincoln found the general boastful and arrogant, con-firming uneasy thoughts already held. Hooker expressed little doubt about his being able soon to capture Richmond. The President later

confided to Noah Brooks: “That is the most depressing thing about Hooker. It seems to me that he is overconfident”.83 Lincoln found it necessary to focus Hooker on defeating Lee’s army as the correct objective.84

The Grand Reviews During his six-day visit to the Army of the

Potomac, Lincoln formally reviewed all seven of Hooker’s corps and his newly formed con-solidated cavalry unit. The general hoped to impress him with the readiness of the Army; and the soldiers got a rare opportunity to see their President and to see themselves marching in splendid form.

The snowstorm delayed a cavalry review planned by General Hooker for Easter Sunday

Figure 3. Edwin Forbes drawing of President Lincoln reviewing cavalry of the Army of the Potomac on Monday, April 6, 1863. Retrieved from the Library of Congress, www.loc.gov/item/2004661562/ (accessed May 5, 2019).

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until the next day. Monday morning, April 6, was cold and blustery when the President set out on horseback to visit the sick and wounded in hospital tents, each typically occupied by six soldiers. Noah Brooks wrote “The large hearted and noble President moved softly be-tween beds, his face shining with sympathy and his voice often low with emotion … a touching scene, and one to be long remem-bered … No wonder that these long lines of weary sufferers, far from home and friends, often shed a tear of sad pleasure as they re-turned the kind salutation of the President and gazed after him with a new glow upon their faces.”85

At noon, following a 21-gun salute, the presidential party watched as the 15,000

horsemen of the new Cavalry Corps under Major General George Stoneman passed by, the largest such concentration ever assembled on this continent.86 Held probably on the Sthreshley Farm (pronounced Thrashley, the exact location is uncertain), this show of force was purposely staged in plain sight of the Confederates across the Rappahannock River. Tad, riding a pony, marveled and Attorney General Bates called the cavalry review “the grandest sight I ever saw.”87

Tuesday morning, April 7, saw the cold continue as President Lincoln and General Hooker, accompanied by lancers, passed by units of Major General George Meade’s Fifth Corps arrayed in front of their camps. They then proceeded to the hospital tents of the

Figure 4. Thomas Nast engraving of the April 8 Grand Review of the II, III, V Corps (the largest of the Grand Reviews) show-ing General Hooker on a white horse. Harpers Weekly, October 10, 1863, pp. 648-649.

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Fifth Corps located near Stoneman’s Station on the Richmond, Fredericksburg and Poto-mac Railroad. The president spent most of the day visiting with every soldier in every tent. Passing the Fifth Corps encampment on the way back, Lincoln received a thunderous cheer from the soldiers, who had gained a new appreciation for his compassion and empa-thy.88 That evening, President and Mrs. Lin-coln attended a gala hosted by Third Corps commander Major General Daniel Sickles at Boscobel, the home of Henrietta Fitzhugh, which Sickles had commandeered as his head-quarters.

The largest of the Grand Reviews before the President was on April 8. The review oc-cupied most of the day, involved 70,000 sol-diers, and received national press coverage. The Second, Third and Fifth Corps were re-viewed together on the Sthreshley Farm, and the Sixth Corps was reviewed nearby on the fields in front of Boscobel.

This event was the largest such display of military might until the parades held in Wash-ington, D.C., on May 23 and 24, 1865, to cele-brate the end of the war.89

Thursday, April 9, dawned bright and sunny for the president’s review of Hooker’s First Corps near Belle Plain about eight miles east of Fredericksburg. The fine weather en-hanced the picturesque setting — a broad flat parade ground partially surrounded by woods and open on one side to a beautiful view of Potomac Creek.90

On April 10, a day that was cool and crisp, the President and his traveling companions left Hooker’s headquarters heading north in car-riages drawn by horses over corduroy roads.91 They were escorted by General Hooker and a cavalry bodyguard a half-mile in length. At around noon, they arrived at Brooke Station, where the President reviewed the Eleventh Corps. Major General Darius Couch, com-mander of the Second Corps and Hooker’s

Figure 5. “This was a picturesque spot near the front, used as a hospital for Slocum’s corps, and as a rendezvous for ske-daddlers.” Harpers Weekly, May 23, 1863, 331 (A. R. Waud drawing, 333).

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second-in-command, sat on horseback next to Lincoln, and he later reminisced: “It was a beautiful day, and the review was a stirring sight. Mr. Lincoln sitting there with his hat off, head bent, and seemingly meditating, sud-denly turned to me and said, ‘General Couch, what do you suppose will become of all these men when the war is over?’ And it struck me as very pleasant that somebody had an idea that the war would sometime end.”92

Between 3 and 4 o’clock, the president re-viewed the Twelfth Corps, about 20,000 strong, at or near Stafford Courthouse. A sol-dier in Dr. Butler’s regiment, the 125th Penn-sylvania, wrote about the preparations for the review: “This visit and inspection by the Pres-ident was a great occasion. We all labored to appear our very best: clean clothes, blackened shoes, bright buttons and burnished guns, told the story of how we appreciated the visit.”93 After reviewing the Twelfth Corps, the Presi-dent and his group boarded the train at Brooke Station for a short ride to the Carrie Martin at Aquia Landing for their return trip to Wash-ington, D.C.

74 Charles was serving a nine-month enlistment which began in August 1862. His muster-in record obtained from the National Archives stated that he was 18, when, in fact, he was only 14. In September he was wounded at Antietam but was not disabled.

75 Jane Hollenbeck Conner, Lincoln in Stafford (“Conner, Lincoln in Stafford”) (Stafford, Virginia: Parker Publishing, LLC, 2006), p. 21. In addition to providing information about the Army of the Poto-mac in Stafford County, Ms. Conner’s well re-searched book documents a number of the details about the presidential reviews of April 1863 de-scribed in this article.

76 Conner, Lincoln in Stafford, pp. 29-31. 77 Noah Brooks, letter sent on April 12, 1863 and

published in the Sacramento Daily Union on May 8, 1863: “The thoughtful wife of the President, an able and a noble woman, ought to have the credit of origi-nating the plan of a tour through the Army by the President, as she saw what an excellent effect would be given to the troops, now in good condition and

Aftermath In early May, General Lee, commanding

half as many men, defeated Hooker at Chan-cellorsville. Casualties were appalling: 17,300 for the Union, 12,800 for the Confederates. Hooker’s defeat at Chancellorsville and Lin-coln’s growing frustration with Hooker’s lack of aggressiveness as Lee marched his army into Pennsylvania led the president to replace Hooker with Major General George Meade three days before Gettysburg.

The 125th Pennsylvania, part of General Slocum’s Twelfth Corps, was heavily engaged at Chancellorsville around the Chancellor House, which served as a field hospital until it caught fire and burned on May 3. Kalmbach’s Sawmill, located about two miles north-north-west of Chancellor House and identified in Harpers Weekly as a steam mill “used as a hospital for Slocum’s Corps,” served as a medical facility for men of the Fifth Corps.94 Dr. Butler almost certainly tended soldiers wounded in the battle, possibly at one or both of these locations, but his experiences and those of his son are not recorded in surviving letters.

ready to march, by coming in contact with their Com-mander-in-Chief and his family.” Many years later, Brooks stated that the trip “had been intended to cele-brate Tad’s tenth birthday”. St. Nicholas (a periodi-cal), November 1882, p. 62. 78 “Gen. Hooker, after his interview with the Presi-dent on the 31st ult., visited the theatre at Washing-ton.” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (New York, NY), April 18, 1863. The same issue of Leslie’s reported that “Hooker reviewed the army on the Rappahannock on the 2d of April” prior to and perhaps in rehearsal for the president’s visit. Since ancient times, reviews of troops have been means to inspect the discipline, equipment and battle-readiness of troops. See, e.g., Kaveh Farrokh, Shadows in the Desert: Ancient Persia at War (2007), p. 40.

79 Abraham Lincoln, Collected Works of Abra-ham Lincoln (“Lincoln, Collected Works”), Vol. 6/1:344; maintained online by the University of Michigan, accessed February 19, 2019.

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80 Howard K. Beale, ed., The Diary of Edward

Bates 1859-1866 (“Bates Diary”) (Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office, 1933) pp. 287-288.

81 Noah Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time (“Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time”) (New York: Rinehart & Co, Inc., 1958), p. 58; quoted in Conner, Lincoln in Stafford, p. 44.

82 The correspondent of the Evening Star (Wash-ington, D.C.) wrote from the Headquarters of the Army of the Potomac on April 6, 1863, “The visit of President Lincoln and family has served to relieve the monotony of camp life, and has had a good effect upon the men, as showing the interest the Chief Mag-istrate feels in their welfare. It is pleasant also to see a lady in the camp; and Mrs. Lincoln probably had a new experience in sleeping for the first time in her life in a tent.” Evening Star, April 7, 1863, p. 2:1.

83 Brooks, Washington in Lincoln’s Time, p. 56; quoted in James M. McPherson, Tried by War: Abra-ham Lincoln as Commander in Chief (New York: Penguin Press, 2008) pp. 164-165.

84 “My opinion is, that just now, with the enemy directly ahead of us, there is no eligible route for us into Richmond; and consequently a question of pref-erence between the Rappahannock route, and the James River route is a contest about nothing. Hence our prime object is the enemies’ army in front of us, and is not with, or about, Richmond—at all, unless it be incidental to the main object.”, Abraham Lincoln, “Memorandum on Joseph Hooker’s Plan of Cam-paign Against Richmond” (c. April 6-10, 1863), in Lincoln, Collected Works, Vol. 6/1:354, accessed March 3, 2019. Emphasis in original.

85 Albert Z. Conner, Jr., with Chris Mackowski, Seizing Destiny (Eldorado Hills, CA: Savas Beatie LLC, 2016), p. 212, quoting Brooks.

86 Among the organizational and administrative improvements Hooker made after assuming com-mand was the consolidation of cavalry into a single

corps under General Stoneman. Bruce Catton, Glory Road (Garden City, NY: Doubleday and Company, 1952), pp. 141-147.

87 Bates Diary, pp. 287-288. 88 Conner, Lincoln in Stafford, pp. 50. 89 On May 23, 1865, General George Meade led

90,000 men of the Army of the Potomac from Capitol Hill down Pennsylvania Avenue to the reviewing stand in front of the White House occupied by Presi-dent Andrew Johnson, General-in-Chief Ulysses S. Grant and members of the cabinet. The next day, 60,000 soldiers of the Army of the West marched through town led by General William Tecumseh Sherman. D. Reid Ross, Civil War Grand Review, America’s Civil War, May 2015, accessed at https://www.historynet.com/civil-war-grand-re-view.htm on March 2, 2019.

90 Conner, Lincoln in Stafford, p. 61. Connor notes that the beauty of the site was especially men-tioned in a New York Times article published on April 13, 1863.

91 Corduroy roads were made of cut logs laid close together perpendicular to the direction of travel.

92 Darius N. Couch, The Battle of Fredericksburg, The Century War Book (New York: Arno Press, 1978) 169; quoted in Conner, Lincoln in Stafford, p. 66.

93 Conner, Lincoln in Stafford, p. 66. 94 The identification of the “steam mill” pictured

in Harper’s Weekly as Kalmbach’s Sawmill and its use as a hospital for Fifth Corps wounded were con-firmed for me by John Hennessy, chief historian at Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. Detailed timeline maps of the Battle of Chan-cellorsville were used to substantiate the location of Kalmbach's Sawmill and the deployment of the 125th Pennsylvania and Slocum's Twelfth Corps. The maps were researched by Frank A. O'Reilly with the assistance of Eric J. Mink, illustrated and produced by John Dove, 1998.

The mission of the Alexandria Historical Society is to promote an active interest in American history, particularly the history of Alexandria and that of the Commonwealth of Virginia as a whole.

Schedule of Events: May-June 2019

“We Cannot be Tame Spectators”: Three Centuries of Virginia Women’s History Dr. Cynthia Kierner, Professor of History

George Mason University 22 May 2019 • 7:30 p.m. at The Lyceum

The Early History of Seaport Alexandria: New Insights from Archaeology Dr. Eleanor Breen, City Archaeologist

Office of Historic Alexandria 26 June 2019 • 7:00 p.m. at The Lyceum

Schedule of Events: Fall 2019

They Came for Freedom (In honor of the 5th anniversary of Alexandria’s Contrabands and Freedmen Cemetery Memorial)

25 September 2019 • 7:30 p.m. at Alexandria Lyceum Ms. Char McCargo Bah, author

Alexandria Freedman’s Cemetery: A Legacy of Freedom

Virginia Slave Housing: Issues of Research, Preservation and Interpretation Dr. Douglas W. Sanford, Virginia Slave Housing Project

23 October 2019 • 7:30 p.m. at Alexandria Lyceum Professor Emeritus, Department of Historic Preservation, University of Mary Washington

Additional details are on the Society Website: www.alexandriahistorical.org