dignitaries, paid for by boat -- goldman sachs, incidentally. amanda is calling me down again. france, andoved to erected it on the monument. it's an hour and a half from notre dame, so if you are in paris, you have no excuse not to go down and see it. it's beautiful, and it is serene. we have given it to the nearby town, and it is four miles from the great cemetery. we gave macarthur his memorial. [applause] >> you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend. follow us on twitter @cs panhistory for information on our schedule and for keeping up on the latest history news. >> you are watching american history tv. oneekend, every weekend

c-span3. today, house of representatives historian and the curator use artifacts and photographs to trace the history of women in the house beginning in 1917 and ending with the story of margit chase smith. that is today at 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. eastern on c-span3. >> each week, american artifacts takes viewers into historic sites around the country. at the outbreak of the civil war in 1861, washington, d.c. was vulnerable to attack with only one ford located south of the city, and the confederate state of virginia right across the river. by the end of the war, the nation's capital had become one of the most fortified cities in ring ofld, with a forts surrounding the city.

we visit fort stevens which came under direct attack by confederate forces in july of 1864. >> this is fort stevens, which is one of the many forts in the defenses of washington. this is probably the most famous, and i will explain why. originally, this was known as fort massachusetts. the people who built it, immediately after the battle of first manassas, which really scared of the washington, d.c. area, and they started getting serious about building defenses -- fort massachusetts was built by massachusetts troops. it was a perimeter of about 168 yards and encompassed 200 men in the fort. second battle in august of 1860 -- 1862, they decided to make this larger because of its location.

it is on a high ground. plus, it covers 7th street, which today is georgia avenue. it.as important to protect they made it larger so it was about 375 yards in perimeter. as i mentioned, it was perhaps the most famous for, and that's because of the battle of fort stevens on july 11th and 12th of 1864 when jewell early brought troops up through the valley up around frederick, maryland and in towards washington, d.c. on july 11, he came near the fort itself. his men were pretty exhausted. they did kind of feel it out that day but decided they would have a demonstration the next day. thate explained before

these defenses were mutually supported, so that if you attacked fort stevens, you are going to catch fire from the forts on both sides. in his demonstration on the 12th realized that and decided to actually leave. the defenses, as i mentioned, have started being built in 1861. this is 1864 with the battle of fort stevens. this is kind of the culmination of the defenses. following the attack in july of 1864, they pretty much went on the line, but they still had some troops, but they weren't worried about that. was more or less headed south, and the other confederate troops were doing the same in other parts of the country.

1864 was probably the culmination of the defenses themselves, even though construction went on right through the end of the war, and some of them, even afterwards. interestingly, in the 1930's, the civilian conservation corps was brought in to work on this fort. after the civil war, it was untilned, and it wasn't around 1900 that some of the veterans of the sixth core, which had manned the court, -- fort, raised money to buy the land. as you can see, it is by no means all here at this time, but they tried to restore it as best as they could. the ccc, those fake logs are made out of concrete. basically what we are seeing is here,rea over two about

and then on the front side, you will see the ditches still there . this area is cut off over on the side. it was never fully furnished -- finished in the rear. backdid have logs in the to try to close it in to support it. while the "battle of fort stevens" was going on on july 12th,t -- 11th and abraham lincoln not that far away came out to the fort, and he actually got up on the parapet to look out to see where the troops were. there were actually some sharpshooters who took shots at him. they did not hit him. one of the stories is, oliver wendell holmes who became very

famous later was said to have said, get down, you fool, meaning, get down before you get shot. i doubt that happened, but there are people who said that that is what oliver wendell holmes said. abraham lincoln here standing on the parapet looking up to see where the enemy troops actually were. can watch this and other american artifacts programs any time by visiting our website www.c-span.org/history. pulitzer prize-winning reporter and author james rison on how the u.s. government wastes billions of taxpayer dollars on the war on terror. >> stuart delwin was really the --y u.s. official who became really tried to investigate what happened with all the money the united states sent to iraq.

there are different estimates. over $11 billion of the roughly $20 billion in iraqi money that the united states sent back to iraq was unaccounted for, and owen'sewart o when -- $200 billion in cash was stolen after it was thrown from andrews air force base to baghdad apparently by powerful iraqis and was being hidden in a bunker in rural lebanon. 8:00 p.m. eastern "q+a."an's "uni. -- >> monday night on "the communicators," peter teel, cofounder of paypal. >>