Built between 1861 and 1863 and originally called Fort Massachusetts, Fort Stevens guarded the northern defenses of the nation’s capital during the Civil War. On July 11–12, 1864, it defended the city from a Confederate attack under General Jubal Anderson Early. During the battle, President Abraham Lincoln came under direct fire from Confederate sharpshooters while witnessing the fighting from the fort’s parapet, the only time in American history that a seated President came under direct fire from an enemy combatant during wartime. Fort Stevens was named for General Isaac Ingalls Stevens, who was killed on September 2, 1862, during the Battle of Chantilly, Virginia. To construct the fort, the home of the original property owner, Elizabeth Thomas, was destroyed.
