Mary's Carriage Accident

[L Verge]

We reduced this down to get it to fit in one piece, but at the upper right is script indicating that this was how it appeared during the 30th Congress session. Judging by the style of dress on those promenading on the grounds, this has to date to the Civil War era or a little after, I think. I believe that the center building with the flag still exists - and is called simply Center Building.

The last I heard, many of the buildings are in sad repair; but the architecture was beautiful when I was a child.

In doing a bit more reading today, while waiting for a meeting to begin, I found that, during the CW, there was a shop on the grounds that manufactured artificial limbs for the wounded soldiers free of charge. The amputees would be sent there from other hospitals, fitted with and trained on how to use their prosthetics.

I also found that in the early-1900s, there were over 8000 patients housed there with 4000 employees. All of this dropped steadily after the enactment of legislation in the 1960s that forced many patients out into public clinics for outpatient treatment. The last figure I could find was the one for 2009, when only a little over 400 patients were housed at St. E's.

That is what prompted the Homeland Security move. I believe at one point that developers were salivating over it. However, the Anacostia area has serious blight and crime problems right now. It was a great, middle-class neighborhood when I was a child - went there nearly every Saturday for dancing school and lunch at the Woolworth's counter on seats that let you spin round and round while watching the hot dogs spin slowly around in their little "rotisserie." At Easter, we bought pink, green, and blue chicks there - live ones, who grew up to become Sunday's fried chicken dinner at my house.

I can only guess that Mary might have visited the wounded soldiers housed in separate wings of the main building as well as in hospital tents. The only thing that might make me hesitate is the thought that Lincoln might have forbid anyone from taking her there because of her delicate mental health. Does that sound strange?

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I just looked up the time of the 30th Session of Congress, and it was from 1847-49. Therefore, either I'm reading the above illustration wrong, or this is an architectural drawing of the proposed asylum. Its construction was not started until 1852.

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I'm on a roll -- just found a site with mention of Lincoln, himself, visiting the hospital - but nothing pertaining to Mary being there.

Hooker was a patient there after being wounded in the fall of 1862.