If my name ever goes into history, it will be for this act, and my whole soul is in it.
— A. Lincoln, 1863The Cottage
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Lincoln Cottage ca. 1860
On a hill overlooking downtown Washington, stands a charming cottage where one can still catch a breeze. During the Civil War, President Lincoln lived in that cottage on the grounds of the Soldiers' Home from June into November to escape the heat and distractions of life at the White House. The tranquil surroundings at the Soldiers' Home offered refreshing breezes and relative privacy during a period when the President confronted all-consuming decisions about military strategy, domestic policy, and foreign relations, and could not escape Washington or his responsibilities.
Two or three weeks [of vacation] would do me no good. I cannot fly from my thoughts — my solicitude for this great country follows me wherever I go.
— Abraham Lincoln.1
The President, during the heated season, occupies a country house near the Soldiers' Home, two or three miles from the city. He goes to and from that place on horseback, night and morning, unguarded. I go there, unattended, at all hours, by daylight and moonlight, by starlight and without any light.
— William Seward to John Bigelow July 15, 1862.2
At the Soldiers' Home, Lincoln made some of the momentous decisions that defined his presidency. There he met and consulted with Secretary of War Edwin Stanton, Secretary of State William Seward, Vice President Hannibal Hamlin, and many others. There he formulated his thoughts on freedom that became the Emancipation Proclamation. There he and his wife Mary mourned the death, from typhoid, of their 12-year-old son Willie. There Lincoln read Shakespeare, the Bible, poetry and treatises on war. And Lincoln and his family were evacuated from there when nearby Fort Stevens came under Confederate attack in July 1864.
On his daily rides between the cottage and the White House - a trip he often made alone - Lincoln watched as the war transformed the nation's capital. Military camps, government offices, hospitals, contraband camps where escaped slaves sought refuge, and a ring of defensive forts supported the burgeoning wartime activity.
I used to see Mr. Lincoln almost every day riding out to the Soldiers' Home that summer . . . Of course, we did not know what he was doing, but he was such a great man. And I can remember how we laughed and cried when he set the slaves free.
— Anna Harrison, young slave fugitive from Caroline County, Virginia, quoted at age 92 in The Washington Post, Dec. 1936.
Today, the cottage where Lincoln spent one quarter of his presidency remains intact on the grounds of the Armed Forces Retirement Home (AFRH) in northwest DC. The AFRH is an active federal retirement community for retired and disabled veterans who have given at least 20 years of service to our country.
In July 2000, Lincoln's cottage was designated the President Lincoln and Soldiers' Home National Monument. The newly opened National Monument is the most significant site related to Lincoln's presidency other than the White House.
The National Trust for Historic Preservation and the Armed Forces Retirement Home have a cooperative agreement, whereby the National Trust stewards the preservation and maintenance of President Lincoln's Cottage as the premier center for the public to learn about Lincoln and his presidency, in the context of where he lived and worked. Generous support from the Save America's Treasures program, the United States Congress, the National Park Service, the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the Mark Taper Foundation, Robert H. Smith, the Sidney Stern Memorial Trust, and individual members of the National Trust currently support the site's development. Visit our Preservation page and Donate section for more information.
1Cited in A Lincoln's Summer Home,@ Lincoln Lore, Fort Wayne, Indiana, 19 August 1935.
2Reprinted in Benn Pittman, ed., The Assassination of President Lincoln and the Trial of the Conspirators (orig. Pub. 1867; New York: Funk & Wagnall, 1954 ed.), p. 134, cited in Matt Pinsker, Lincoln's Wartime Retreat (Draft), National Trust for Historic Preservation, 2001, 215.