Washington in 1860 was still a comparatively small and undeveloped city, with a population of 61,122. But the people were soon aroused to intense excitement because of the strife between the States. When the Civil War began, the eyes of the Nation were turned on Washington. The city increased in population to over 100,000 in a few months time and was the center of great war-time activities. On April 18, 1861, 500 Pennsylvania troops, the first to answer President Lincoln’s call for volunteers, entered the city, and the day following they were joined by the Sixth Massachusetts Regiment. Soon thousands of additional men were here from all the States in the North. Washington became an armed camp. Schools, churches, and public halls were turned into hospitals to care for the sick and wounded. A chain of forts and batteries was erected about the city to protect it, and by October 1862 there were 252,000 soldiers encamped around Washington on both sides of the river. There were 70 hospitals, caring for 30,000 sick and wounded men.

On the morning of July 11, 1864, great fear spread over the city as Gen. Jubal A. Early reached a point about 6 miles to the north of the city where the Walter Reed General Hospital now stands. General Grant sent the Sixth and part of the Nineteenth Corps to Washington, and their arrival on the afternoon of that day saved the city. On the following day a skirmish of troops and sharp engagement took place, which President Lincoln witnessed as a spectator at Fort Stevens, exposing himself for a time to the fire. That evening General Early, finding himself opposed by a greater force than he was prepared to meet, withdrew, recrossing the Potomac at White Fords, Va.

During the four years of the war thousands of troops passed through Washington on their way to the front, thrilled by the thought of being in the Nation’s Capital. Even though the Civil War was a great handicap to the carrying out of improvements in the city, still several notable improvements were made, among these being the work of enlarging the Capitol and completing the Dome as we see it to-day. In that period also the first street-car line was opened, the Long Bridge was rebuilt, and work on the Washington Aqueduct developed so that from that time water has been brought from the Potomac at Great Falls to the city.

In 1861 the number of employees of the Government was 3,466, and in 1865 they numbered 7,184.

On October 2, 1862, the first horse-drawn street cars commenced operation, running from the Navy Yard to Georgetown; they continued in use for 40 years.

On April 14, 1865, occurred the great tragedy when President Lincoln was assassinated at Ford’s Theater by the actor John Wilkes Booth. The funeral procession was a great solemn occasion, for Abraham Lincoln, on whom the Nation had depended during four years of war to guide it safely through the bitter conflict, had given his life for the cause that the Union might be preserved. On May 23 and 24 took place the Grand Review on Pennsylvania Avenue of 200,000 men, requiring six hours for General Meade’s army on the first day and seven hours for General Sherman’s army on the second day to pass before President Johnson and General Grant. In a few days those who made up these armies passed from military life and resumed their places among their fellow citizens.

Buildings that had been used as hospitals were again given over to peaceful pursuits, and the forts that surrounded the city were dismantled. Lumber from temporary buildings that were torn down was used to begin the construction of houses in a new subdivision called Mount Pleasant. But the great era for civic improvements was not to take place for another five years, until the administration of President Grant.