also stands right off of georgia avenue, which is a heavily traveled commuter road in and out of washington, d.c.. i'm considering what could have happened with an entire corps of troops left loose in washington, d.c., lean and hungry troops. the treasury was there for the looting, the treasury department. they could have burned the capitol. the navy department, which lincoln did not know had a ship waiting for him in the potomac to take him out of town. think about what could have happened to the union cause had there been confederates running loose in the streets of washington, d.c.. don't forget, lincoln was fighting for his political life at this time. this was the presidential election of 1864 was just a few months away. lincoln barely got the republican nomination. he had to choose a democrat for his running mate, andrew johnson of tennessee, and no one --

lincoln's popularity was so low, no one thought he'd win that election. this would have killed any chances that lincoln could have gotten re-elected. and think about this, too, the confederate -- the english and the french were sort of looking for an excuse to come in on the side of the confederacy. they didn't have cnn or c-span back then, but they had newspapers and this got covered. just wouldn't have been very good for the union cause had headlines been splashed around the country and around the world that confederate troops were loose in the streets of washington, d.c., so number one, i do believe that what lew wallace did at monacacy did save this from happening. wallace was relieved of his command after he lost that battle, but within two weeks, grant had reinstated him and grant writes in his memoirs and just about everyone else who knows about this agrees, had wallace not on his own blocked early for an entire day, early very well, very well could have

caused havoc in washington, d.c., so this is the battle that saved washington and changed the course of american history. you know, think about it. lee's fourth objective and probably his most important in his mind was to try to force grant to take troops out from around richmond and petersburg. grant didn't want to do it. he wait the until the last minute and finally did it. the number of troops went down drastically from like 137,000 at the end of june to like almost 70,000 two months later. it did work but it didn't work until april '65. if lee had not forced grant to do this, i really believe that the war could have ended sooner. maybe much sooner. maybe a matter of six months sooner. maybe three months. but, you know, it's a what if and, you know, can never be proven one way or the other. but it's a what if that came pretty close to happening.

and it also goes to show that nothing is inevitable in history. sn nothing is inevitable in the civil war. it didn't have to come out the way it did. lots of over things, obviously, had to do with it. this one little piece of the puzzle is very important in the timing and the end of the timing of the end of the civil war. if you want to remember it this way, can you remember that august, the one thing to remember about this whole thing is early was one day late. early was late. >> american history tv and prime time continues wednesday with the civil war battle of the

crater which took place during the siege of petersburg, virginia, on july 30th, 1864. the battle failed with heavy losses for union troops. at 8:00 p.m., the national park service commemorates the 150th anniversary of the battle and honored the role of color troops. and emanuel dabny discusses how the attack failed and why u.s. color troops were unjustly blamed. and at 10:15, author kevin levin discusses how color troops were remembered in the years immediately following the civil war. the battle of the crater at 8:00 p.m. eastern here on c-span3. >> here's a great read to your summer list, sundays at eight, a collection of stories from the most influential people over the past 25 years. >> there was a risk in the

bohemian arsenal and i decided to take it because whether it's delusion or not, i don't think it is, it helped my conservation, it stopped me being bored. it stopped other people being bored to some extent. it would keep me awake. it would make me go on longer and prolong the conversation and enhance the moment. if i was asked would i do it again, the answer is probably yes. i would have quit earlier, possibly, hoping to get away with the whole thing. easy for me to say. it's not easy for my children to hear. if i would say yeah, i would do all that again to you. it would be hypothetical for me to say no i wouldn't touch that stuff. i did know. >> the soviet union and the soviet system in eastern europe contained the seeds of the own destruction. many of the problems that we saw at the end begin at the very beginning. i spoke already about the

attempt to control all institutions and control all parts of the economy and political life and social life. one of the problems is that when you do that, when you try to control everything, then you create opposition and potential disdense everywhere. if you tell all artist thez have to paint the same way and one artist says, no, i don't want to paint another way, you have just made him into a political dissident. >> if you want to subsidize housing in this country and talk about it and the populous agrees that it is something we should subsidize, then put it on the ballot sheet and make it clear and evident and make everybody aware of how much it's costing. but when you deliver it through the third party enterprises, fannie mae and freddie mac, when you deliver the subsidy through a public company with private shareholders and executives who can extract a lot of that subsidy for themselves, that is not a very good way of

subsidizing homeownership. >> those were a few of the 41 engaging stories in c-span's sundays at eight. now available at your favorite book seller. >> each week american artifacts takes viewers into archives, museums and historic sites around the country. at the outbreak of the civil war in the spring of 1861, washington, d.c., was a lightly defended city and vulnerable to attack with only one fort located 12 miles south of the city and virginia was just across the river. by 186 5shgs the nation's capital arguably had become the most fortified city in the world with a ring of about 70 armed forts and batteries encircling the city. we visited three of the surviving forts with dale floyd from the national park service.

>> right now we're in the museum which has a variety of different artifacts. one of the nice things is we have a map of the fences of washington and gives you a good idea of where they are today.. fences of washington and gives you a good idea of where they are today. and today we are also going to go to fort foot which is down here. and all the way up to fort stephens which is up there. the reason that the forts were built was basically to protect the capital of the united states. it first started in may, may of 1861. soon after virginia succeeded from the union. the troops moved over one night across the potomac over into arlington and alexandria and started building fortifications. after the first battle of

manassas in july of 1861 in which the union was actually defeated, the men came streaming back into the city and the city literally the con fed rats could have walked in and taken the city. so after that with the fear, more and more fortifications were built and general john g. bernard who you might call the father of the civil war of fences of washington and he was in charge of them for almost the whole war started developing the system of fortifications around the capital and how they would actually defend the city from enemy invaders. after second manassas, which was also a union defeat, fear again and some more impetus to make sure that the fortifications defending washington were doing

their job. over the year, the four years, many of the forts were changed. they were made larger. guns within them. they were changed to get the best function out of each fort and out of the system itself. the defenses were tested in july of 1864. now before i say that, there were raids on the forts guerrilla forces where they steal horses or supplies or whatever. but the only real attack and it really wasn't an attack, it was a reconnaissance in force took place in july 11th and 12th of 1864 when early had marched up through the valley, fought out near frederick, maryland, and then watched -- marched towards washington coming in on the northern side and eventually came up and faced these forts up

there, the main one fort stephens where abraham lincoln actually came out to watch what was going on. he was not successful. he realized he couldn't do what he wanted to do and he eventually turned around and went back down into the valley. and after that, basically, nothing really tested the fortifications after that. besides the forts themselves, you had the batteries that were on both sides and the rear or whatever of the forts. you also had trenches that connected the forts all the way around the city. you can see up here where in between you had the covered ways going all the way from one fort to the next to the next battery and on. so troops could move back and forth without being seen. besides the forts, they also built other types of defenses

such as block houses and certain places along railroads, channel attacks. and they had other things that they actually built for protection within the whole system of the defenses of washington. so it was actually a system of fortifications and if you attacked one, like if you attacked here, you would catch fire from the forts on both sides of that fort. so they were mutually supported. and it was -- it would have been very hard to actually take one fort because of all the fire that you would receive coming from the various forts. so it's not important necessarily about how many forts there were, it's the system and the mutual defense that was there that would really stop an enemy from getting into the

city. if you look at some of the pictures they have here, you'll see an interior of fort stephens. and then the low end is a photo of fort slemer which is my favorite photograph of the civil war defenses of washington because it shows you what a fort looked like on the outside. vegetation has been removed. but you have the front. this is the sally fort where the troops coming out. you can see over into the fort where the guns are mounted. so that's really one of my favorite photographs. so this is very helpful for a start. fort ward is a good place to actually start our tour of the civil war defenses of washington. before we go out and actually look at fort ward, i want to point out this is an 1864 plan of the fort. the part that has been restored here is the northwest corn cher

is right here. and you'll see that. the rest of the fort is not as distinct when you walk through it. but the northwest section is. this is a model of the fort as it might have looked. notice around it is the outside of the ditch. and then the fort itself and this is the northwest bastian here. and the fort, itself, and this is the northwest bastion here. this is the gate, or sally port, to ft. ward. it was on the rear wall of the fort. it's been redone a number of times. the army down at ft. belvoir, especially when the engineers were there, helped redo this gate a number of times. but this is your entrance to ft. ward. i want to point out, if we look around, there were buildings here. they are based on plans and photographs of buildings that were actually in the defenses of washington. but there were other gates like

this at some of the other forts, too. they may not have been as nice, but some of them were, you know, with the name up above like you see here. the 1865 probably would not have been on the original gate. above it is the engineer castle. that's the logo of army engineers. and as i told you, the local -- the engineers at ft. belvoir helped rebuild this gate a number of times so they put the engineer castle on top. and, of course, they oversaw the construction of the original defenses of washington. this is one of the best preserved of the various forts that were in the defenses of washington. these parts of it are fairly well taken care of, but once we get to the northwest bastion,

you will see what the fort would have looked like at the time of the civil war. but these are all parts of the fort that we're actually in. it was a large one, so you have a large area. there is also signage that we will see as we walk through explaining what each resource we run into was. such as a sign here which is pointing out that there was a bombproof right here which collapsed in. but a bombproof basically was for men to go in when the fort was being shelled and it would protect them. depending, it would at least be made out of earth. sometimes they had a basement

from something they used or bricks or whatever they used in it, but it had dirt over top with grass growing on it, and if you got inside the bombproof, you were pretty well safe. that's what's underneath here. we are coming to the northwest bastion, and first of all, notice the revetment, the wood that is there to strengthen the fort. besides the earth, you have the wood that helps keep it in place. you can see the guns, and they are a variety of guns that you will see. and this is what happened at a lot of forts. it's what guns you could get ahold of. you have everything from field artillery to some bigger guns. the fort, itself, was supposed to cover the little river turnpike, the orange and alexandria railroad and the

leesburg and alexandria pike, but we are on a high point, so the guns can fire for a long distance and they can cover those areas. the original fort that was built for 24 guns when it was redone finally in 1864, it held 36 guns and was the perimeter of 18 from 54 yards to 818 yards with the bigger fort and 12 additional guns within the fort. they started building it very early and kept working on it and changing it to the place where it was eventually the fifth largest. you had basically during the war green guns and black guns with bronze and the iron. usually the bronze was smooth ore and the black guns were

rifled guns. and the rifled guns, of course, had a better range and actually fired better. but a gun like this was a good anti-personnel weapon. there were various types of ammunition you could use in this, plus even at times you could put chains and everything else in here and fire it at an enemy. and, of course, the chain, or whatever, would -- could mow town a number of men. so this became a very -- this type of gun became a good anti-personnel weapon. with this platforms, you can get up and take a look at the fort without actually walking on the walls. as we get up here, you can see the ditch and the embracers as they come out of the fort which is what the gun would have fired out. on the inside, that's called the scarf. on the outside, that's called the counter-scarf. at the top, they have those bushes running along. that's to keep people from walking in the mote and trying

to walk up the parapet. the bushes are sort of like abatee which were pointed sticks and stakes that they would have outside of a lot of forts. so it has two purposes. to keep the people out and to kind of give you an idea of what abatee might have looked like, and these platforms that they built, you can walk right down into the mote and get a view along it, but you're not actually walking on it and helping to destroy it. so if you attacked, you came across open ground. these trees would have been cut down. that would have been all open ground. you can see -- they can start hitting you with artillery and even rifle fire way back. you would have had to come up, hit the abatee, hit the ditch, down, and try to climb up. you would have had infantry on the other side as well as artillery firing at you. so it was not an easy task in trying to take one of forts in

the defenses of washington, plus you're catching fire from the other forts on both sides of this one. a lot of these forts in the defenses of washington, when i first came to this area in the late '60s, there were a lot of them still here. but in the years that have passed, a lot of them became housing developments or whatever. interest over the years has actually increased, but it was a problem in this area because these were union forts and most of these people in virginia had southern sympathies. they couldn't see any good reason for saving a northern fort. we're now at ft. foote on the potomac river in maryland. we came from ft. ward across the potomac river to ft. foote. and on this map you'll see it was the anchoring, the defenses on the potomac river down here. across the river is in alexandria was battery rodgers

and the two of those then covered the potomac river in case ships or raiders would have come up. this fort was actually built and constructed between 1863 and 1865. unlike most of the other forts, it was not abandoned at the end of the civil war. they continued to maintain this fort and man it until 1878 because it was on the river. the only other fort on the river, of course, you had battery rodgers across the river, but on toward the chesapeake bay was ft.

washington which is basically located about across from mt. vernon, george washington's home. at the beginning of the war, it was manned actually by marines and was manned in one sort or another during the war but was not actually part of the civil war defenses of washington, the circle of forts. but if there would have been ships trying to come up, it would have had an effect also. if you look at the map here, or actually plan, it will give you an idea of the way the fort was located on the river. you have the fort, itself, and some of the buildings associated with it behind. its main focus was the river, itself, even though it anchored the other civil war defenses of washington. this is the way it would have looked to have someone that would have come here during the civil war.

this is a national park. at times it has been quite overgrown. right now, you can see if you look around, it still needs some manicuring, but it is better than i've seen it in the past. but you saw at ft. ward how well taken care of it is. it's a city park, actually, and the city does a very good job of taking care of ft. ward. other forts, depending on who maintains them and how good a job they do, you can see a lot. some places it's completely overgrown and you really don't have a good idea of what you're actually seeing. we're coming down to the water, to the potomac river, and if you

look across the way, you'll see alexandria in virginia where i mentioned that at jones point was battery rodgers. jones point would have been up in this direction on the other side of the bridge, actually, where jones point with battery rodgers was, then the forts went off from there. it anchored the defenses on the virginia side and the forts went on through alexandria and on over toward arlington and then back to the potomac river and across. they actually had a chain that they could put across here, across the potomac, to keep ships from coming up the river. as far as i know, it was never actually laid out, but they did have it here that they could use a chain across the river.

this is a map. there's ft. foote right on the river, jones point over here. then back over toward ft. ward. and then we are going to go to ft. stevens which is right here. so to give you an idea, see these black marks point out where the different forts were. so to give you an idea on the map. and the city more or less imposed on the map, itself. we're coming up on one of president 15 inch rodman guns. you can see how large it is. there were guns like this that had actually a 360 degrees shooting area because you can move it all the way around this ring. now, these guns were left here when they left the fort and when i saw them they were off their

carriages sitting on the ground. what had happened was during world war ii when they were scrapping metal for the war, they came out here and started dismantling the guns. they took them both off the carriages. they cut up one of the carriages. and then a national parks service ranger showed up and said, wait a minute, what are you doing? and they said, and they said, no, no, no, these are protected. this is a national park. we don't want these guns cut up. so they left, but they just left them sitting here on the ground. and for many years, that's the way they were. finally, a congressman from pittsburgh, where these guns were actually made, said, well, if the park service is not going to remount them, i want them back in pittsburgh. so at that point, the national parks service decided to remount

them and so they built the new rings and the new carriages for the funs and they have been remounted as they would have looked. so it's quite -- it was quite a job, but it gives you an idea of the way these guns would have looked at the time of the civil war and after. 15 inch rodman guns. the problem with world war i and world war ii, so many guns were melted down, there are few guns left, big guns especially from the civil war period. there are some. as a result, it's very valuable to have these two here in ft. foote. all the guns have markings on them with the serial number at one place or another. this says it was made in 1863.

this is the initials of rodman. thomas rodman. he was also an inspector, so he may have inspected it. it depends on the fort, itself, as to what guns might actually be in them. this one had 2 15-inch rodman guns. they had 4 200-pounder rifles would which have been large. 6 30-pounder. i mentioned a lot of places, there were some vacant platforms, there were 11 vacant platforms where they could have had guns. so it depends on the size of the fort and what you're trying to as to how many guns are actually in them and how many guns are