Fort Lesley J. McNair,
DC is located on the point of land where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers
join in Washington, D.C. It has been an Army post for more than 200 years,
third only to West Point and Carlisle Barracks in length of service. The
military reservation was established in 1791 on about 28 acres of what
then was called Greenleaf Point. Maj. Pierre C. L'Enfant included it in
his plans for Washington, the Federal City, as a major site for the defense
of the capital.
An arsenal first occupied the site and defenses were
built in 1794. The fortifications did not halt the invading British in 1814. Soldiers
at the arsenal evacuated north with as much gun powder as they could carry, hiding
the rest in a well as the Redcoats came up the Potomac from burning the capitol.
About 47 British soldiers found the powder magazines they'd come to destroy empty.
Someone threw a match into the well and "a tremendous explosion ensued," a doctor
at the scene reported, "whereby the officers and about 30 of the men were killed
and the rest most shockingly mangled." The remaining soldiers destroyed the arsenal
buildings, but the facilities were rebuilt after the war.
Land was purchased north of the arsenal in 1826 for the
first federal penitentiary. The conspirators accused of assassinating President
Abraham Lincoln were imprisoned and, after being found guilty, four of the conspiritors
were hanged and the rest received prison sentences. Among those hanged was Mary
Surratt, the first woman ever executed under federal orders. A hospital was built
next to the penitentiary in 1857, and Civil War wounded were treated at what then
was called the Washington Arsenal. The arsenal was closed in 1881, and the post
transferred to the Quartermaster Corps.
A general hospital, predecessor to the Walter Reed Army
Medical Center, was located at the post from 1898 until 1909. Maj. Walter Reed
found the area's marshlands an excellent site for his research on malaria. Reed's
work contributed to the discovery of the cause of yellow fever. The major died
of peritonitis after an appendectomy at the post in 1902. The post dispensary
and the visiting officers' quarters now occupy the buildings where Reed worked
and died.
About 90 percent of the present buildings on the post's
100 acres were built, reconstructed or remodeled by 1908. In 1901, with the birth
of the Army War College, the post, now called Washington Barracks, became the
Army's center for the education and training of senior officers to lead and direct
large numbers of troops. Its first classes were conducted in 1904. The Army Industrial
College was founded at McNair in 1924 to prepare officers for high level posts
in Army supply organizations, and to study industrial mobilization. It evolved
into the Industrial College of the Armed Forces. The Army War College was reorganized
as the Army-Navy Staff College in 1943, and became the National War College in
1946. The two colleges became the National Defense University in 1976.
The post was renamed in 1948 to honor Lt. Gen. Lesley
J. McNair, commander of Army ground forces during World War II, who was headquartered
at the post and killed in Normandy, France, July 25, 1944. Fort McNair has been
the headquarters of the U.S. Army Military District of Washington since 1966.
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