Turkey Thicket and the Civil War Comes to Washington, DC

 

This is a greatly expanded version of an account first published on November 24, 2011 in A Flâneur in Washington, DC.]

Having just enjoyed a long, restful Thanksgiving holiday weekend, it seems entirely appropriate to mention the fact that Washington, DC is home to a small and little known neighborhood known as Turkey Thicket which is located a mile or so from where I am writing this at home just over the District line in Maryland.  I have been driving through it fairly regularly over the past 40 years not knowing it by its old name.  In fact, few people other than those who call it home are aware of it for it is now considered part of the larger University Heights neighborhood adjacent to The Catholic University of America in the Brookland section of northeast DC.    

There has been neither a thicket nor any turkeys to speak of in these environs in even the farthest distant memory yet until the late 19th century this area was still largely hilly woodlands and farms where Washington’s elite would come to escape the heat and humidity of the District’s riverside precincts.  The area now known informally as Turkey Thicket was originally part of the Bellair plantation belonging to Colonel Jehiel Brooks and his wife Ann Margaret, the daughter of Nicholas Louis Queen, a prominent Maryland businessman and one of the largest landowners in the District.    

Brooks (1797-1886) was originally from Albans Province of Vermont and spent most of his boyhood years in Conneaut, Ohio, on Lake Erie east of Cleveland.  He served as a First Lieutenant in the First Regiment of Infantry with the Ohio Militia, in the War of 1812, and later studied law in Cincinnati and was admitted to the Ohio bar in 1823.  He practiced law in Ohio until 1826 when he moved to Natchitoches, Louisiana, south of Shreveport.  He continued to practice law after being admitted to the Louisiana bar in 1828.

Brooks came to the District of Columbia later in 1828 seeking political appointment and married Ann Margaret.  He was appointed governor of the Red River Indian Agency beginning in 1830 during the administration of Andrew Jackson.  The Agency had been established in 1804 in Natchitoches, but during Brooks’ tenure the Agency moved in 1831 from Caddo Prairie to Peach Tree (or Orchard) Bluff, on the Bayou Pierre Channel, south of Shreveport.  Brooks successfully negotiated a treaty with the Caddo in July 1835 after which he and his 

family returned to the District, settling on a tract of land belonging to Ann Margaret known as the "Inclosure" which included Turkey Thicket.  He assumed the role of gentleman farmer and the Bellair plantation’s original Greek Revival-style plantation house was built around 1840 and still stands on the site.

Shortly after returning to the District Colonel Brooks was accused of fraud during his years in Louisiana while he initiated a number of civil suits, almost all of which he lost, concerning land he claimed he had purchased from his Indian charges.  In order to resolve his financial troubles brought on by his legal failures, Brooks petition successive presidential administrations for patronage positions yet his only subsequent public office was that of Supervisor of the District’s Washington County, in 1845.  Washington County, ceded by Maryland in 1790, included all of what is now the present District of Columbia east of the Potomac River.  The original Alexandria County ceded by the Commonwealth of Virginia formed the portion of the District west of the Potomac. It was returned to Virginia by Congress in 1846.

In 1861, as the Southern secession tore the country apart, the

federal government erected 68 temporary fortifications around Washington, including seven earthen and brick redoubts inside the District itself.  One of these, Fort Bunker Hill, was constructed by the 11th Massachusetts Infantry on Brooks’ land.  This drew the ire of the Colonel, who had become an ardent Confederate sympathizer, and he unsuccessfully challenged the government to remove it.  In 1862, the fort was manned by members of the 11th Vermont Infantry whose encampment was situated in the adjacent Turkey Thicket.  The fort was manned until the end of the war in 1865.

It seems few people around here know the only Civil War “battle” to take place within the boundaries of the District of Columbia occurred on July 11-12, 1864 at Fort Stevens, one of the capital’s defensive installations a couple miles northwest 

of Fort Bunker Hill and the Brooks plantation.  Following the Confederate campaign to drive Union forces out of Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley, General Robert E. Lee ordered General Jubal Early and 15,000 troops of II Corps of the Army of Virginia to invade Maryland for a third time with the goal of threatening Washington while disrupting the B&O Railroad.  This move came just 50 years after the British had successfully attacked Washington in August 1814 during the War of 1812.  Early’s corps crossed the Potomac River on July 5 and four days later defeated a smaller Union force from VI Corps of the Army of the Potomac at the Battle of the Monocacy, south of Frederick, Maryland.  Thereafter it continued to advance on Washington from the northwest. 

In the meantime, General Ulysses S. Grant was focused on tightening his noose on the Confederate capital of Richmond and had moved the majority of the 23,000 soldiers assigned to defend Washington, D.C., to join in the siege thereby leaving the capital vulnerable to attack.  With Early now in Maryland and moving ever closer to Washington, Grant withdrew some of his forces deployed near Richmond, just as Lee had hoped.  Fortunately, the delay of Early at Monocacy permitted Grant time to reinforce Union defenses of the capital.

Early arrived on the northern edge of the District on July 11 but did not fully engage the Union defenders until the following day.  President Lincoln and his family happened to be staying at his summer cottage not far from the site of the impending showdown while a steamer waited on the Potomac to evacuate them if the situation became dire as even the White House was less than five miles from the advancing Confederate force.  In the meantime, Marylanders from the surrounding counties began to flock to the relative safety of the city.

The general defense of Washington was dependent on Major General Christopher C. Augur, Head of the Military Department of Washington and in command of the 31,000 largely untried troops of the Union XXII Corps of which less than 10,000 were combat ready.  Early’s troops, on the other hand, were battle-harden veterans.  Major General Alexander M. McCook was now called upon to assume overall command of Washington’s defense from Augur.  Reinforcement ordered from the siege of Richmond by Grant included troops from VI Corps commanded by Major General Horatio G. Wright and a detachment from the XIX Corps commanded by Major General Quincy A. Gillmore which manned the District’s northeast defensive line – Fort Bunker Hill, Fort Totten and Fort Lincoln.  The Union Army's Quartermaster General, Brigadier General Montgomery C. Meigs, commanded the northern line of forts, including Fort Slocum and Fort Stevens, and Augur's XXII Corps, First Division commander, Martin D. Hardin, commanded the northwest defensive line at Forts De Russy and Reno. 

As Wright's VI Corps troops arrived in the District July 11, advanced units of Early's II Corps were approaching from the north.  He delayed his assault on Fort Stevens until his troops had a chance to rest and for him to gather intelligence on the strength of the Union force he was facing.  This additional delay allowed McCook to further reinforce the Union positions with tried and test troops as it appeared they would bear the brunt of the Confederate assault. 

Around 3 pm, with the bulk of their corps present, Confederate infantry and artillery commenced skirmishing, probing the defense maintained by Hardin’s division of the XXII Corps in the northwest quadrant of the District.  The battle skirmishing increased around 5 pm when Confederate cavalry pushed through the advanced Union picket line in front of Fort Stevens.  It was quickly repulsed in a Union counterattack and fighting continued throughout the evening of July 11 as Union artillery shelled Confederate redoubts.

Additional Union reinforcements from the VI and XIX Corps arrived overnight and were placed in reserve behind the line as skirmishing continued on into July 12 with more Union artillery fire centered on Confederate positions in front of Fort Stevens.  When this failed to dislodge the attackers, elements of two Union brigades of VI Corps successfully advanced on these positions at 5pm but with heavy losses.

President Lincoln had personally welcomed the arriving Union reinforcements when they arrived in Washington, and on the morning of July 11 he and a few military aides arrived at Fort Stevens where he was warned to stay under cover as Confederate sharpshooters were already active in the vicinity.  Other than James Madison, who observed the Battle of Bladensburg (Maryland) in August 1814, Lincoln was the only other president to observe combat while in office.  Lincoln eventually returned to the safety of the White House, but later that afternoon he and his wife Mary returned to Fort Stevens.  Standing once again on a parapet to observe the fighting a bullet struck an army surgeon standing next to him and once again Lincoln was forced to take cover while giving a direct order for Union artillery to shell areas where the sharpshooters were positioned. 

It soon became clear to Early that Washington could not be taken without heavy losses.  He withdrew his forces that evening, heading west through Maryland, crossing the Potomac River into Virginia on the morning of July 13.  Early later commented on the battle: “We didn't take Washington but we scared Abe Lincoln like hell." 

The city of Washington began to expand following the war.  Colonel Brooks was involved in another local legal dispute in 1869 when the B&O laid tracks along an edge of his property. The Catholic University of America, situated adjacent to Turkey Thicket and the Brooks plantation, opened its doors in 1887.  Colonel Brooks died at home on February 6, 1886 at the age of ninety.  Marist College, as part of the CUA, took over the mansion and built an addition, and Brooks’ son John Henry (1841-1916), a physician, sold the remainder of the plantation to early 20th century developers for the new Brookland section of the city.  The area generally known as Turkey Thicket was still an open field in the 1930s as new homes and neighborhoods sprouted up nearby.  

The site of Fort Bunker Hill was improved into a park by the New Deal’s Civilian Conservation Corps and later taken over by the National Park Service as part of the District’s Rock Creek Park complex.  Very little of the original fort remains.   A clubhouse was eventual constructed in the nearby field in 1948, and it was replaced in 2003 by the Turkey Thicket 

Recreation Center and Playground.  This is the only reference to Turkey Thicket one will find on a current map of Washington, DC. 

So now you know the rest of the story.