Possible Naval Yard Bridge photo?

[L Verge]

The report today that more ricine was found on mail coming through Joint Base Bolling triggered some history related to what we have been discussing here. The Washington Arsenal used to be a colonial point of land called Turkey Buzzard Point (we can only guess why). After the capital was created in that area, its name was changed to Young's Point (then landowner of the point) and finally to Greenleaf's Point (for the land speculator who started to develop the area).

Across the Eastern Branch from Greenleaf's Point/Washington Arsenal was another colonial strip of land known as Giesboro (Giesborough) Point - the name taken from the Youngs' Giesborough Manor plantation. At the time of the Civil War, Mr. Young was D.C.'s largest slaveholder, and when D.C. slaves were emancipated 151 years ago this year, he was compensated with $17,771.85. His land also became the U.S. Cavalry Depot for the capital region and as many as 200,000 horses passed through this depot during the war - many of them used to conquer nearby Virginia environs.

There was an adjacent Camp Stoneman that housed troopers awaiting remounts and also one of the defense fortifications of the capital, Fort Carroll. The Government Hospital for the Insane (Saint Elizabeth's) looked down on all of this from the area that we now know as Anacostia. I believe that I am correct that Col. Ellsworth's Fire Zouaves were camped at Stoneman when they set forth to take the city of Alexandria. I have often wondered if Ellsworth spent his last night in camp or in the White House since he was good friends with Mr. & Mrs. Lincoln and the boys.

Anyhow, the purpose of this harangue is to offer more photos of Civil War Washington around the area of Giesboro Point - several of which might tie in with Heath's photos. In fact, I believe that an almost identical photo but taken from a vantage point of an incline is near the bottom of this set of photos: http://www.vintag.es/2012/10/photos-of-w...1865.html.

BTW: I first got interested in Giesboro many years ago when I read an old journal or set of letters that described Mrs. Surratt going to the plantation home there for Catholic services during the time that the family was living in what is now the Oxon Hill area of Maryland (before 1852). Sometime between 1840 and 1850, Mrs. Surratt and another woman rode horseback around the area to solicit funds to construct a Catholic church in the Oxon Hill area. St. Ignatius still stands (second church) and her mother is buried in its cemetery.

I later found a statement (I think from one of the Surratt slaves at Surrattsville) indicating that horses escaped from the Cavalry Depot and made it as far as Surrattsville. Mrs. Surratt saw to the horses being rounded up and stabled until the U.S. Army could claim them.

I forgot to mention that Joint Base Bolling, which now houses the Defense Intelligence Analysis Center, is on Giesboro Point - hence what triggered this history lesson.