A Tale of Two Lost Buildings: Women in Civil War Washington

*This article quotes harmful language from historical documents describing enslaved persons in a derogatory and racist manner. While the DC Preservation League does not in any way condone this language, it is essential to discuss this history in full.

In the August heat of 1814, British troops set fire to the half-built U.S. Capitol Building in Washington, D.C. At the time, the Capitol was home to the Library of Congress, the Senate and the House of Representatives. While the building was not completely destroyed, the decision to rebuild the soot-streaked Capitol left the government in need of a home.

After purchasing a nearby hotel conveniently located only a few steps away from the U.S. Capitol, the stock company in charge of the relocation promptly tore it down and began construction on a new building.

Ready for business in under 6 months, the Old Brick Capitol building served as Congress's meeting place until 1819. A Federal-style building primarily composed of brick, the three floors would serve a variety of purposes throughout the 19th and 20th century. Following the relocation of Congress, the space became a private school and then a boarding house for congressmen. Most notably, state Senator John C. Calhoun died here in 1850--famously missing the start of a Civil War he encouraged through his relentless state's rights rhetoric.

Following the attack on Fort Sumter in the spring of 1861, the U.S. government purchased the Old Brick Capitol (as it was called at the time) for use as a political prison. Initial changes to the building included nailing wooden slats to the windows and construction of a large wooden wing towards the rear of the building (visible in the picture above). The conversion of this building into a Civil War prison is where our story truly begins. It marks the start of the Civil War and the eventual overlap of two drastically different historical figures: Rose O'Neal Greenhow and Elizabeth Keckley.

Before the year's end, inmates from all walks of life crowded the prison. Early on in the war, prisoners were occasionally shot for approaching the windows. Officers feared that they were sending messages to the numerous Confederate sympathizers within the District. [DC was bordered by two slave states and allowed enslavement within its borders until midway through the war. Multiple prominent families moved deeper into the South after the outbreak of the war, only to rush back into the city with the hopes of protecting their property from government seizure.]

Rose O'Neal Greenhow lived only four blocks from the White House and less than two miles from the Old Capital Prison. Originally mocked for her birth to low-status parents in 1814, Greenhow married a wealthy man and became a prominent DC socialite in the early 19th century. A staunch Confederate and pro-slavery advocate, Rose became a spy for the Confederate States of America as soon as it was formed. She ran a network of 48 female spies, hiding notes in their hair, translating ciphers, and communicating Union secrets across state lines.

Within a year of beginning her work, Union officers discovered her tricks and accused her of treason. Initially placed under house arrest, Greenhow continued to filter information to the Confederacy by waving different colored handkerchiefs out her window and using her eight-year-old daughter as a pint-sized messenger.

Increasingly frustrated by the ease of her espionage, the government transferred her to the Old Capitol Prison in 1862. When it was believed that she was continuing to use her daughter to export information to the Confederacy, the eight-year-old was imprisoned alongside her mother. In her memoir, Greenhow describes how poor the conditions were inside of the prison. Vermin filled the rooms in the heat of the summer, a nutrient deficient diet weakened prisoners, and poor ventilation made individuals more prone to illness. On multiple occasions, Rose and her daughter were seen by doctors who noted that their health was in jeopardy.

As a staunch Confederate and slavery advocate, Greenhow complained about the "contraband" individuals who shared the prison common spaces with her. At the outset of the war, enslaved persons fled the South and sought out DC as a place of refuge. Initially, without a clear solution to the problem and still unsure about the status of the enslaved within the Union, the government placed "contraband" individuals into prisons or camps.

A vehement racist, Greenhow argued for slavery with the following words:

"Two races - one civilised, the other barbarous - being locally intermingled, what does the good of society require - the freedom or servitude of the barbarous race? The South believe that the freedom of the blacks, under such circumstances, would result certainly in their final extermination, and that servitude is best adapted to their intellectual and moral condition."

A firm believer in the supremacy of the white race, Rose O'Neal Greenhow swore to never return to the North during her lifetime and was ultimately released by the U.S. Government into the care of the Confederacy. Welcomed as a hero and entertained by Confederate President Jefferson Davis, Greenhow would go on an international tour in England and France to raise money for the Southern cause. Upon her return to the South, her ship was grounded to avoid Union soldiers. During the final push to shore on a rowboat, Greenhow's boat capsized and she drowned--weighed down by $2,000 worth of gold for the Confederacy sewn into her clothes.

Ms. Greenhow is a complicated historical figure that alludes simple categorization. During her lifetime, Rose broke gender norms by assisting with government espionage through a network of women, surviving in a mostly-male prison, and conducting international political campaigns. However, she completed all of these acts to support the institution of slavery--an institution that she believed was morally just and logical. A belief system that became more and more impossible to academically justify as the formerly enslaved began to pen books, memoirs, and articles about the inhumanity they experienced not from their enslaved communities, but at the hands of white slaveholders.

One of these individuals was Elizabeth Keckley (also spelled Keckly), a talented seamstress to the First Lady who authored a sensational memoir about her four years in the white house. Born into slavery in 1818, Elizabeth Keckley had her first job at age four, where she was flogged after making a single mistake. Her family was separated early in her life, but her mother taught her how to sew--a skill that would serve her throughout her lifetime. Throughout her memoir, Keckley described the physical, mental and sexual abuse that she endured throughout her time as an enslaved woman. This type of direct honesty was dangerous and defiant--but Keckley told her truth.

Enslaved to a violent master, Keckley was also raped repeatedly by a local white man for four years--a horrifying ordeal that ultimately ended with an unwelcome pregnancy and the birth of a son who would be her only child. She described the experience in her memoir:

"The child of which he was the father was the only child that I ever brought into the world. If my poor boy ever suffered any humiliating pangs on account of birth, he could not blame his mother, for God knows that she did not wish to give him life; he must blame the edicts of that society which deemed it no crime to undermine the virtue of girls in my then position."

After buying her own freedom and that of her son, Keckley moved to Washington, DC in 1860 to work as a seamstress. During her time in the city, she worked for Varina Davis (the wife of future Confederate president Jefferson Davis) and other prominent women. She gained renown for her skill and was recommended to First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, who ultimately hired and became close with Keckley. During the Civil War, Elizabeth made many dresses for Mrs. Lincoln and even solicited support for the Contraband Relief Association. Keckley helped establish the Contraband Relief Association and worked with others to provide relief to the influx of formerly enslaved that flooded the District.

Just South of the Old Capital Prison sat "Duff's Green Row," a block of row homes converted to a holding area for "contraband" individuals. Activist Harriet Jacobs visited Duff's Green Row in the spring of 1862, and described it as such:

"I found men, women and children all huddled together, without any distinction or regard to age or sex. Some of them were in the most pitiable condition. Many were sick with measles, diptheria [sic], scarlet and typhoid fever. Some had a few filthy rags to lie on; others had nothing but the bare floor for a couch. Plagued by overcrowded accommodations, unsanitary conditions, racism, and a preoccupied federal government, refugees wondered: “Is this freedom?"

While Keckley doesn't mention Duff's Green Row directly in her memoirs, it is possible that she visited the space along with the many other contraband camps that she attended to. Following the conclusion of the Civil War, she published her (controversial) memoir, worked as a sewing teacher, and ultimately died at age 89 here in DC at the home of the National Association for the Relief of Destitute Colored Women & Children.*

The question is: did Elizabeth Keckley and Rose O'Neal Greenhow ever cross paths? Technically, we'll never know. However, they did run within the same circles and frequently visited buildings right across the road from each other. Greenhow's home was only four blocks away from the White House where Keckley worked, and Greenhow's cell was across the street from a contraband camp that Keckley charitably supported.

Neither the Old Brick Capitol (Capitol Prison) or Duff's Green Row (Carrol Prison/Carroll Row) survived the massive waves of development that the late 19th and early 20th century brought to DC. Duff's Green Row was torn down in 1887 to make way for the Library of Congress. Following the end of the war, the federal government sold the Old Brick Capitol building to developers who remodeled the space into Second Empire style row homes. These row homes became the headquarters for the National Woman's Party in 1913, and were ultimately torn down in the early 1930s to make way for the U.S. Supreme Court building.

It can be difficult to recreate a landscape that no longer exists, but piecing together seemingly separate stories into one cohesive narrative ensures that we see an accurate history. The built landscape of a city contributes immensely to the lived experience of its inhabitants; when researching history, it is essential to describe the individuals in the settings and streets that they experienced at the time. It can drastically change the narrative and enhance our understanding of the past when we reevaluate former landscapes and see them as contributing to lived experiences.

While Elizabeth Keckley and Rose O'Neal Greenhow were extremely different individuals with separate backgrounds, privileges, and life stories, they lived in the same city at the same time. They walked the same streets and passed the same buildings. Comparing past histories through analysis of buildings and their proximity to each other can enrich our understanding of an individual's personal experiences--and ultimately teach us about the city as a whole.

*Elizabeth Keckley did not pass away at the National Association's home that is currently landmarked. However, the site is linked as it is an important historical space in DC and Keckley was one of the organization's founders.