The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1892-06-24
A BIT OF HISTORY.
The Famous Armory Square Hos.
pital at Washington.
Built by q Militia Regiment, the Building
Became a Refuge for Wounded Union
Soldiers-Dr. ID. W. Bliss and
His Surgical Skill.
Especial Washington Letter. |

The history and work of the United
States fish commission interested me
last week, and probably interested my
readers; but, there Is history back of
It which we did not anticipate nor i'm
agine as we walked together through
the building and viewed the big fishes,
little fishes, cannibal eel and other GU
riosities The location, the edifice it.
self, has history.
In the summer of 1857 the militia
companies of Washington buried their
rivalries and concentrated their COM
mon sense long enough to combine, for
the general good, and build for them
selves an armory in which each COM
pany should have an equal share of
room and general accommodations.
They had strawberry festivals, ice
cream parties, balls, and all that sort o.
thing so familiar TO everybody in small
cities. We must remember that in those
days the national capital was aSfp14
small affair, as compared with the thing
of beauty it is to-day. Although he said
il in derisien, Charles Dickens wrote the
truth when he described Washington as
city of magnificent distances" Well,
the good young people of that ante-bel-
lum time raised enough money to build
an armory, but they found real estate as
unreasonably high as it is to-day, in a
comparative sense. So, as matter of
necessity, they purchased a piece of
ground out in the suburbs. Soldiers,
you know, can afford to march few
blocks without complaining of weari-
ness; and the young fellows of 1857
said, and meant it, that they preferred
place in the suburbs to a site in the
city. The site for the armory was three
blocks from the old National hotel, on
Pennsylvania avenue; hostelry which
was at that time patronized by Daniel
Webster, John c. Calhoun, Thomas II.
Benton and other great men of the sem
ate, house of representatives and in the
executive departments. Henry Clay
died there only a short time before.
Within twenty rods of the famous ho-
tel there was a canal which was regard
ed as a natural boundary between
north and south Washington, and all of
south Washington, lying between the
canal and the Potamac river, was called
The Island. Indeed, it is so-caned to-
day by the oldest inhabitants, although
the canal has long been thing of the
past. 1t was filed with our common
soil, and well paved streets cover its
former luggish bed.
The entire block of ground on which
the militia lads then erected their
armory was called, and is to this iay
called, Armory square. Scarcely had
the building been completed when
there came upon this country the hor-
rors of long and cruel internecine
war. The young soldiers who drilled
there were the first defenders OF the
national capital. Many of them went
out to Bull Run in July, 1861, and there
entered upon the sleep that knows no
Weakening soldiers sleep. They fell
in defense of their country. Thousands
of good men and true were taken sick,
many We're wounded nigh unto death,
and the surgeons and nurses supple
mented with skill and tenderness the
awful carnage. Churches, schoolhouses,
the capitol building and portion of
the patent Office were converted into
general hospitals. AS the war contin-
ued, all of the sufferers of the union
armies were brought to Washington,
and the armory, which had been erected
by the militiamen, became one of the
most prominent of the harbors of refuge
for the victims of that terrible strife.
II was called Armory Square general
hospital have seen the records which
were kept at that time, and over thirty
thousand sick and wounded soldiers were