Transcripts For CSPAN3 Washington Navy Yard Walking Tour 20170528

Up next, a walking tour through the Historic Navy yard organized by the national ms. Him of the united the navy. This program is about 75 minutes. Welcome to the Washington Navy yard. Im the director of education here at the National Museum of and this tour will take us throughout the history of the Washington Navy yard, which is a very extensive one. The yard itself is seen a lot of different historical events. Some happy, some, some every day events. The yard itself has changed dramatic he over the many years. Andas first founded in 1798 it was around that time that the united ace realized we needed a Standing Military force. He was after the American Revolution that all the military was basically disbanded because of the sentiments from before the American Revolution, who had a Standing Army at that time that was stationed in the United States. The british, with that idea still fresh in their mind, they realize they didnt want a Standing Military. We started having problems overseas. American merchant ships were being attacked in the mediterranean. We realized we needed that Standing Military. And more importantly, we needed a navy to protect american interests all over the globe. Congress basically said that yes, we need a navy. They pass the resolution founding the United States navy and commissioned different neighbor yards to build a numerous amount of crickets for the navy, one of which is no information with the navy today. Is anyone know the name of that ship . The cost fusion. Theres a point for you. There will be a quiz later on. Just be ready for that. We realize that not only did we need spring gets an being built, we needed navy yard to actually build those ships. Congress wanted a navy yard that was very close to them though they could keep an eye on what the navy was doing. Where a better place to do that than right along the Anacostia River, right down the street from the u. S. Capitol so they could keep an eye on what was going on here. That suspicion of the military for the federal government at that time, thats why this area was chosen. The very first commandant of the navy yard retasked was tasked with building the yard was a man by the name of thomas stingy. He has a very long history with this navy yard. He builds it, destroys it, then builds it again. We are getting a little bit ahead of ourselves with that story. Is really part of the original portion of the navy yard. The very first portion of the navy yard. We are going to head out to our second stop, which is just up the hill over there. Theres a small looking shack that is a nice looking shack when you get up close to it, but it has a long history behind it. So, feel free to get under the porch. Take a second and check it out. Its pretty unassuming right, . Just a single room, nothing too fancy. So the captain is the first commandant of the Washington Navy yard. Hes in charge of holding the facilities here. There are a few buildings that are on the property that are actually still around today, but when hes tasked with building is not only the shipbuilding facilities, which down the hill in that direction over there, you see how the hill slopes down. I was the first boat ramp area that they would build ships on and then launch them out. But they also have massive wood lots he was in charge of surrounding the navy yard, so cutting down all the lumber. Holdinglso in charge of all the housing two for yard workers, and the officers who would stay here in the yard itself. And also in charge of building the gates thats behind us. That is latrobe gate, built i the famed architect benjamin latrobe. Does his name sounds familiar at all russian mark how many of you have been to the u. S. Capitol russian mark he designed the capital. There is that familiarity. It was actually Thomas Jefferson who worked with him to get latrobe down here to design not only the gate thats there, but also the house thats right next , that is the house of the commandant of the navy yard. They designed the facilities that are up there. 1798, the yard starts picking up, theres more and more activity happening here. Just a few years later, lets say 1814, whats happening in the u. S. Around that time . The war of 1812 is happening. 18 13 is when the british started reading this area. Tingey is still commandant of the yard and there is a commodore by the name of Joshua Barney was put in charge of the defenses of washington, d. Theres actually militia that maryland and virginia militia that are brought to washington to help protect the capital, but you also have yard workers, who are and marines basically drafted into the effort to help defend washington. , just way, latrobe gate out of the gate and of the street, guess whats up there . The barracks. What barracks . The marine barracks. The whole reason why the marines are there is because of the Washington Navy yard. This gate is the oldest u. S. Marine guard post in the world. Thats the reason why the marines are at the barracks because of that guard post right there. We will get back to that in just a second. The war of 1812, the british are making their way onto the city. The militia is sent out first to a place called bladensburg. Its at of 1812, the british are making their way onto the city. Bladensburg that the militia are routed by the british, they are sent packing, and the sailors and marines are sent over the navy yard ridge, todays 11 street ridge. They are sent from the height on the other side and are there to defend the bridge. They were never told a militia turned and fled. They are there by themselves when the entire British Force comes up rated goes back and forth, Commodore Barney is wounded, the use of basically all the ammunition they have and they turn in because theres nothing else to them to do. Barney is captured and surrenders to the british. If you want to check that out later, you can. Because there is no defenses left, they start making their way onto the city. The navy yard here. Tingey is in charge and hes been told by secretary of the navy, when the british start making their way onto the city, we know its going to happen but if they start making their way into the city, burn the navy yard great we dont let into fall into the hands of the british. We dont want them using of those supplies. So he does. But before he does that, he evacuates. Adams really put forth the effort to form the United States navy, he founded the United States navy library. Its basically books and tactical manuals from all around the world. He wanted the officers to read these books and learn from the best around the world. Tingey evacuated the navy yard library. United dates navys library from the navy yard, and heres a question for you. Im going to be asking a lot of questions during this tour, so be prepared. This library is older, the library of congress, or the library of the navy . The navy library, because they did not evacuate the library of congress when it was burned by the british. We have that over the library of congress. The boat ramp that is there, he makes his way down the boat ramp. Theres a rowboat with other yard workers waiting for him after they put the torch through the yard and make their way down the anacostia to alexandria. Thats where they hide out for a few days until the british leave the city. He didnt torch all of the buildings, though, including the other houses that you see across the way over there. Those houses were untouched. There was really no wall surrounding the navy yard, and all the locals all that the navy had basically left this area. They went into all the houses and took everything that wasnt nailed down. When tingey came back, he came back to a gutted navy yard and he had to work on rebuilding the szilagyis that are here. A hes doing that, he puts in proposal to congress saying, i want to build a wall around the navy yard and i wanted to be about 10 feet high. Thats the first wall that surrounds the navy yard. When you walk around the perimeter of the navy yard and you see the white painted rick wall, thats a portion of the original wall that tingey had built. Back to the facility right here, this building is actually the original marine guardhouse. Originally, it was up over there. So when visitors would come in through the latrobe gate, they would stop at the watch box and sign in through the navy yard. The original guard post for the navy yard. This has seen a lot of famous people passing by at, when it was the official marine watch spot, including president s Franklin Pierce and president abraham lincoln, including on his last day of life when he comes to the navy yard to visit the facilities here and meet with some people. We will talk about that further in the tour. This building was actually brought to the indian had the szilagyi for a while, because they were lacking buildings, and they needed it it actually served as a telephone switchboard operator house served as a mailroom and served as a guard post. It was in use until 1930 x, when it was abandoned at indianhead, and it wasnt until the 1990s that somebody tracked it down. It wasnt until a few years ago that they picked it up and brought it back here and refurbished it into what you see today. As we start making our way back down the pathway, we are going to be crossing the street talking about whats over there. As we do, you will notice there are cannons that line the drive here. These are all cannons that were captured during different wars that we had, from the first barbary war all the way up until the civil war. One of the cannons was captured twice. I will show that to you as we get down the road here. Its actually the very last canon in this line. Here, you cann share it with your rants, later on if you take anybody else walking by this. This gun was captured during the first barbary war, and brought not to the navy yard, but down to the northwood naval yard, and put on display there. It fallse civil war, to the confederates. They find this canon and say, we canon, and place it on to one of their gunboats with that gunboat was captured by a union navy ship and was brought here to the navy yard. This is the canon that was captured twice and is now here on this way of the Washington Navy yard. [inaudible] [no audio] it is inscribed, and also basically just tracking it, as you can see on the top here it has a trophy marking. Whenever they would capture, they would market with a trophy number. Of navya little bit yard history will every day and dont realize. To cross the street, so we will go behind this pickup here and stick to the sidewalk. To cross the street, so we will go behind this pickupso the part that youd for anchor here, is named rear admiral who is the commandant of the yard 1905 to one whod was the son of painted the famous crossing of the delaware. Everybody has seen the painting, where its Washington Crossing the delaware with all the ice flow and everything. This park is basically what we call the quarter deck of the navy. It is the ceremonial Parade Ground for the navy yard and all of the navy. He a lot of ceremonies that happen here. Sometimes he lives in them and everything. Theres a lot of his horrible pieces that surround this park but we will mostly talk about this one right here. As you can he, the anchor from , which iss enterprise one of three Aircraft Carriers that actually was built before world war ii and survive the entire war. She was the most decorated Aircraft Carrier the most decorated naval ship from world or to. Aw a great length of service the answer is here. Bill and believe is at the Naval Academy that they ring during if you everl games have a chance to pop in, you can check it out. It was at one point in the south civic was the only Aircraft Carrier left in the pacific, because we lost the lexington, the hornet, the wasp, and the yorktown, and she was it great for those of you know your world war ii history, the effect was really a carrier war. The people have the most Aircraft Carriers, they would be the victors. At one point after losing the hornet and wasp and she was the only one left, somebody on her light deck on a banner that said enterprise versus japan. That was what it was at that point in time. Theres a lot of history surrounding this anchor, even though its just a big hunk of metal, just think of what this piece witnessed here. Some other things that surround the park here, some of the other housing. First off you can see the latrobe gate but also the tingey house, the commandants house, its across the parade deck. A little funny anecdote about died, he forngey some reason left the house in his will to his children because he loved house so much and he thought he really earned the house, which im not sure if you can will Government Property to your children, but he tried to, and of course the federal government didnt really honor those wishes. Some other things that surround this area, the buildings that you see on either side of you, when ships came to the navy yard to get reoutfitted or repaired, the crews could not stay aboard the ship as they were being worked on. So they are placed in housing surrounding the field here. The enlisted state in this building located behind you, officers stayed in the surrounding buildings over here. And, another building that i like to point out to people, if you take a look of there, its kind of the oddly shaped building with the hard bay windows at the top. That is the optical building, before radar. Rangefinders above ships to get the range of other ships when they were firing their big guns toward ships to calibrate those guns. They actually did the calibrations of their. The big bway ay windows would slide open. They used certain points around washington, d. C. To calibrate the rangefinders. There were certain points that really dont move. First off, they use the u. S. Capitol. Second was the washington monument, and third was the masonic temple in alexandria. Those were used as the fixed points, so you have those calibrated. Today i believe its a big Conference Room up there. That was built in the early 1900s, so 1903. 1919 isy, 1918 through when they were calibrating the rangefinders up there. But it was probably built 1915, 1916 before they started calibrating everything up there. Anyone else . All right. So,191 again, just a lot of hisy in this area. How many of you have been to the Marine Corps Museum . I see some hands raised. Originally the Marine Corps Museum was located in that building right there. They realized they needed a bigger facility, and they moved it to quantico. Built, museum was being they shut down this one and moved everything down there. Got Everything Else out of storage. Today across the street, the naval history and heritage command is based out of that building right across the way. The navy museum falls under the naval history and heritage commission. If we dont have any more questions, we will head to our a little bitich is of a hike but i promise you there some good stuff there. All right. Lets head on up. Were going to go through this holding here and just out the other side to the william iii. Today is the coffee shop but it has a different history and just coffee than just coffee. Lets head on through. So, in 1822, and john rogers designs and builds the first marine build railway. People get very different ideas when they think of Marine Railway. Winch withlly a tracks with a palette, where the ship comes up and on top of the palette, i get sucked into the palette and gets hooked into the palette and is pulled up and out of the water so they can work on the hull, and winches back down into the water. Builtailway was actually , 1822. First one here was you see today here built in the 1880s, 1890s. As you can third, see, and espresso bar or coffee shop, it really was the witch house for the Marine Railway. As you can see, out over there, you can see the tracks for it chefverything too, the would be winched up and out of the water for. They were able to save the machinery there for the nice last window so everybody could put it out. You see remnants of the history of the navy yard like this throughout the yard itself. You see other items like this is a go through the rest of the tour. Its almost like a ghost of the past that is sitting there. For those of you who walk i this every day, now you know what it is exactly. Look at somea models that are there and show you what the navy yard look like in the very beginning and what it looked like at its heyday its heyday. So i always love you people in here because this really shows you what the navy yard look like in the very beginning. You look at this model here, this is what it looked like after the british had to burn the yard, and this is what it looked like as they started to rebuild it. As you can see by the outline you see with the white dashes, that is what the navy yard is kind of like today, or when it was like in its heyday, but you can see latrobe gate, tingey house, the farmhouse, the optical tower would be in this areahere, the winch house or Marine Railway where they first started working ships up and out of the water, and this is what it was like when they were starting to really get into the true shipbuilding facilities. Lets take a look at this model over here. Looked like in the 1960s. And, as you can see, a lot of changes really havent. They filled in a lot of the land. You can still see a lot of the remnants. You have latrobe gate right there, the tingey house. Theres that optical tower i was talking about. Where are we at today . In this building. We passed through it, you can see the wench house is in this area here winch house is in this area here. This is when the navy yard was actually not known as navy yard. During the 1890s, the navy yards mission changes, which seems to happen throughout its history. It always changes. Before the 1890s, there were foundries as the country making naval guns. Their their procedure to look at how good the guns were, basically spot checking the guns to make sure they were made correctly, they had so many variations from all the different down trees. The navy was getting fed up. We should make our own guns. 1960in the 1890s to about or the Washington Navy yard becomes known as a naval gun factory. This is where all the battleship guns are made, from 12 to 14 to 16 inch guns, 5 inch guns, 40 millimeter antiaircraft guns, all the guns for the navy that are mounted aboard a ship are made here. Really that way they can keep an i on quality control, whats coming out of the actor is factories. Here at the gun factory, great factories and shops. A forge, warehouses and foundries. Overhead runways. Roads. And rail lines. As well as development and testing laboratories. The naval gun factory is a prototype laboratory for new and or the navy of tomorrow. As a prototype laboratory, the first working models of new guns are built for test. Theres a factory for new and improved weapons. The gun factory is not only ms but of hundred weapons, weapons that aches require extreme technical skill and knowhow in many different engineering yields. Thomas its in the 1960s we realize we dont need battleship units anymore because the we starts changing, so losing some of these buildings, giving them back to the cities. We are more of a legit sticks now. Thats when our mission changed. It becomes known as the Washington Navy yard again. Basintalk about the model which is today known as the old work gallery, and the history behind that place to. We are going to head out the doors right over there, and. Top outside of the canada the building you see behind you here, the taylor building, it was during the 1890s that a lot of missions were changing within the navy. How many of you have heard of the uss maine . Do any of you know who designed the maine . It was a british design. We bought the rights to the design of that ship. Well, it was during that time that we started realizing it didnt make sense to buy rights for designs from other countries could we did pretty well at designing our own ships before, so why not continue doing that . Facilities were built here in the navy yard to help again with ship and hull design. This was one of those First Holdings buildings. I have a small photo to show you what it looked like on the inside. Was a very long basin, a tub, with tracks on either side, and arm the goes across it, and they would design ship hulls on small models, look them up to the bar that goes across, and dragged him through the basin. Rdrag them through the basin. It worked. It worked really well for a good amount of time, but lets take a look at my navy yard history map here. This is the taylor model basin. As you can see in this area here, what is it built on top of . This is the original shoreline. Reclaimed land. So they filled in the Anacostia River. Over time, the train tracks on either side of basin were so heavy, and the water was so heavy in that recent that whenever they would drag the ship model through, the tracks would shift to cousin of the weight because it was not on solid red rock. Bedrock. Throwing off all their calculations are they realize they needed a new facility. Later the abandoned this building and moved to a new facility in carter rock, maryland. This is where they are still at today. The taylor model basin, situated 12 miles northwest of washington, is the largest and most complete model basin in the world. Thomas this is the father of that facility right here. Today, its our cold war gallery, but also the offices of the underwater archaeology ranch of the naval history and heritage command, which those of you who dont know, the navy is in charge of their downed aircraft around the world and they are the ones who go on survey those sites and dive on them and if people bring up artifacts illegally, dont get them. Go and get them, with other groups too. This is their headquarters building, right there. There is that vestiges of the past, the past is all around us reminding us of where the navy came and where we are at today. From and where we are at today. Lets check out one of the oldest things here in the navy yard and we will cross the street and look at this White Building right here. [inaudible] this is building number one, it is the Commandants Office for the navy yard, builtin 1838. This building is seen a lot of history. Its building number one because it was one of the first buildings built here at the navy yard. You look at the model thats in there of the navy yard when tingey was basically still commandant. You can see how on that model and everything. If you notice, if you start looking at the building numbers around the yard, a dont really match up. They are haphazardly numbered over the place. They are numbered in the timeline they were built. That commandants name, we will talk about him in a bit. Abraham lincoln would come and visit him at his offices quarters. They would sit on the back porch and smoke cigars and drink and do other things we will talk about, mostly what they called champagne experiments. Why dont we head to the back of this building, and talk about those champagne experiments . Theres a story that goes with all these guns that im about to tell you. This gun right here is what they call it peacemaker. Not the revolver. Developedas actually by Commodore Robert stockton, u. S. Navy, and a swedish engineer by the name of john erickson. The name may sound familiar for those of you who know your civil war history. This gun was actually made in the 18th wartys 1840s. It was supposed to be a revolutionary gun, and it was supposed to go on a special ship, which had more revolutionary designs on it, and a special type of screw propeller, a special type of engine, and it had this new special gun. It was made here at the navy yard, and the two Work Together to build the ship and the gun and get it ready for service. What was being done with this gun and the ship. And stockton invited onto fairbury 28, 1844, president john tyler and 500 government officials and dignitaries to go on to the and basically take some cruises up and down the potomac and anacostia, firing this canon off. There were two that were made. There was the original peacemaker, and this one. Theres a reason why this one is still in a distance and the original is not. After a couple firings, including by the president who fired the cannon and everything, the president actually went below deck with his female companion dont worry, he was single at the time so it was all in the up and up, the firings continued, and one of those firings, the cannon exploded, killing several people, including the secretary of state, the secretary of the navy, and 4 others, including ms. Gardners father. It is not a good day for the president. He was luckily below deck. Stockton was cleared of all wrongdoing, and all the blame went on to his partner, erickson, who got it up with the navy and said, i will never work with them again, i went up to new york. And went up to new york. This gun was never fired again, the other one was trashed to who knows where. There was also somebody here at the navy yard who was aboard the ship and it was the commandant of the navy yard who was observing everything. His name was franklin buchanan. It was the commandant of the navy yard up until the civil war. Again, theres a tie between all of these guns. Lets Flash Forward to the civil war. Franklin buchanan, a marylander, when states start seceding from the union, he believes that maryland is going to secede from the union. So, he turns in his commission, gets out of the navy, and says im going with maryland when they secede. President at the time, abraham lincoln, says maryland is not the union. Cede from to keep that from happening, he incarcerates all the politicians, turns off the guns at fort mchenry into the city, and his fortifications built on rural hill in baltimore with the guns pointed on the city. Maryland does not secede from the union. That theyreizes not going to succeed from the union and goes back to the secretary of the navy and says, i was just kidding. I would like my commission back. The secretary of the navy says, no. You want to go south, go south. He does that, and he joins the confederate navy. That opens up the position here for the commandant of the yard, for dahlgren, john dahlgren. Is what we call the godfather of naval ordinance. You make some of the best cannons in the navy at that time , and does a lot of experiments we will talk about in a few minutes. But he can go south. Its when hes in the south, hes down the norfolk and finds there is this new ship being built. The virginia is what we call one of the first ironclads. It was originally designed to ram other ships to sink them. It was a very armored ship. It was made from the wreckage of the uss merrimack, which was in norfolk to get our engine repaired. The yard workers torched her. The confederates raised her up with their engine. What they didnt realize is the engine needed to be repaired. She can only do 2 or 3 knots. She was a very slow and lumbering ship. Five for the union here that this ship is being built. The realize they need an armored ship, and they need someone to design its, and they hear this eccentric guy in new york city is designing this ship called the monitor, i nhin his name, te designer who gets who swears he will never work with the navy again, erickson. Erickson is designing a ship called the monitor. It takes several people, including the president , to convince him to work with the navy again. They get it else in time built in town. A virginia set sail. The first day it goes down, sinks 2 union ships and grounds another one before the tide falls low enough that they have to go back upriver to norfolk. The next day they come back down when the tide is high enough, and they want to go and finish off that other union ship. Is a small, ironclad ship with a revolving turret. And very maneuverable, those guns could fire wherever they needed to go. You didnt have to turn the entire ship to fire those cannons. That day, the fight ends in a draw. The very first battle of the ironclad. When that battle ends, other countries around the world hear about this battle and stop production of all their wooden ships because they realize that they have been really left hide by the United States and the shipbuilding capabilities their shipbuilding capabilities. There is your tie in to the monitor and buchanan. Buchanan is actually the skipper or the captain of the virginia for the first day of battle. Hes wounded in the leg by a union sharpshooter from the short he went on deck and started shooting at people on shore. They shot back and hit him in the leg. He wasnt in command of the virginia during the second they of the battle. What happens to the virginia . She goes back up the river. Union forces make their way up the finance one and are about to take the narco when the confederates blow her up. Buchanan is out of a job. What happens to the monitor . She is brought back to the navy. Ard they are starting to tell her down south to i believe South Carolina when she gets caught in the storm, capsizes in sinks. And sinks. Her wreck was later recovered and parts of her are on this play in norfolk. If you ask us later on, we might bring it out for you. Uchanan is out of a job he goes down south again and theres another iron led the inbuilt ironclad being built and its called tennessee. These guns are from the tennessee. The tennessee takes part in the battle of mobile bay, going up against the admiral by the name of sarah get. You will hear just a little bit about him. He was important during the civil war. When the tennessee was there isaptured your tie in, between the keys maker, the guns of the tennis, the commandant of the yard by the name of buchanan, and an eccentric swedish engineer by the name of erickson. Theres your very long story that ties all of this together. Any questions so far . [inaudible] thomas the champagne experiments. Thank you for bringing that up here the champagne experiments, it was admiral dog run, the commandant of the yard here. He would experiment with canon. You will see some of the test and it little bit of what he was shooting at you if his guns would rate through breakthrough some of the steel from ironclad. President lincoln was an ordinance nut. 11 cannons and he loved firearms. He loved cannons that he loved firearms. It was a newly designed rifle that basically he was shooting at a log pile to see how this gun would work, so he was an ordinance nut, so we knew the dahlgren was experimenting with canon, so they would come down here, smoke cigars, drink champagne, and tire cannons into the anacostia fire cannons into the anacostia. Dahlgren was also asked limiting experimenting with rockets and one of those experiments, they were firing the rockets and lincoln wanted to set off one of the rockets. Dahlgren said, here you go and heres how you do it. Lincoln goes up with the secretary of state, seward. They are standing right by it, they set it up and it explodes on the path. In dahlgrens own words, i thought i killed the president because he disappeared into a cloud of smoke and fire. Along with the secretary of state. A few seconds later, who should come out of the smoke coughing and laughing, lincoln and seward. Lincoln said something to the extent of, well, i guess i didnt work, lets load up another. It was something that happened right in this area here. All this history happens here in the Washington Navy yard. It is on lincolns last day of life that he comes to the navy yard and visits dahlgren in the offices, but he also visits a ship thats actually at our next step we will talk about. Theres your answer for the champagne experiments. We are going to cross the street, and if you will follow me design was the first that could penetrate and ironclad whole an ironclad hull . Thomas during the civil war. Testve some of those plates you will see today. So, this area here, we not only talk about the building i work at, but also what happens in this area viewers tending in you are standing in. Its the National Museum of the united dates navy. And, when it was the naval gun factory, it was the breech mechanism factory for the yard. The breech mechanism was recently for breech loading cannons, so back in the canon. You load your cannon in with the powder and you closely breach and lock it down. Its the gun youre able to close. The gun barrels would be brought in through the front door, a breech mechanism would be attached to the back and they would exit out the back. Theres also a small forge in there. A lot of stuff happened in that building their. The next time you go inside, take a look at the cranes that are still up over your heads when you go through the exhibit. What happens in this area here . During the time of the civil war, this area where ewers adding was actually part of the Anacostia River you are standing was actually part of the Anacostia River. In, a monitor style ironclad. , one of the sailors aboard her was the son of a friend of lincoln that lincoln wanted to visit. He came to see one of the sailors and tour the montauk. Toinvited those sailors visit him at fords theater that evening. Some of those sailors did go to fords theatre and witness the assassination of abraham lincoln. The montauk is also famous for other reasons too. Andr the assassination, during the time they are rounding up all the lincoln conspirators, the people who took part in conspiracy to assassinate lincoln, and spirit jurors are brought here to the navy yard and are imprisoned aboard uss montauk. The photos that were taken of the can reuters. Conspirators. If you look, theres all that iron in the background, thats the carrots of uss turret of the uss montauk. The only one whos not imprisoned here was mary surratt. House whereboarding all the conspirators met. Montauk is also famous for when john wilkes booth, the assassins, was killed, his body was brought back here to the navy yard. Montauk,topsied on the which is one of the reasons why we believe the navy has one of booths spurs. Its in the navy collection, and thats probably why. His body was brought back here to the navy yard. Theres also have your history that happens here. Its out in the docs in that area of the dogs that are not there anymore, that Charles Lindbergh after he makes his trip across the atlantic or hes brought act by a u. S. Navy ship, who deposits him here at the navy yard right in that area there, where the parking lot is today just on the other side of the fence. If youre ever walking along the river, thats where Charles Lindbergh comes back. Theres a little bit of a solemn history too. The very first body for the tomb of the unknown soldier, from world war i, is brought back here to the navy yard aboard the uss olympia. She was a shift from the spanishamerican war. From the spanishamerican war. She is still in service during world war i and she brings back the remains of the first soldier from the tomb of the unknown. They are brought here to the navy yard, brought out to latrobe gate, and then on to Arlington National cemetery. Again, the monitor also comes back here. And, also, most people dont know this. The navy yard was kind of the ceremonial gateways to the world for diplomats coming into the nations capital. It is in the 1860s of the first elements from japan, the first ambassadors from jim and are actually brought here japan are brought here to the navy yard. And then, onto their embassy they just established. Their photo was actually taken here in the navy yard, which they have a photo of here, and the yards commandant at that time is standing in the photo, and his name is franklin buchanan. This is just before the civil war touches off. Its a very famous photo of them. A lot of history happens here in this area. Also, the u. S. Navys dive school was first in the Anacostia River. It was probably a miserable place to train for diving. The navys for submarine, the uss holland, was tested for the first time out in the and across your river Anacostia River. Lots of history happens in this one area. We also have lots of historic items on display, just on the other side in willard park which is our next stop. Is everyone ready to go see it . All right. Lets go to go look. Its a titanium pressure sphere for the vehicle alan alvin. It is still in use in the navy today. The navy may sound familiar because its the commercial that dr. Robert ballard took of the titanic in 1986. Really does a lot of work for. He navy when the pressure spheres are used over a certain amount of time, you dont want to use them too much because each dive you do puts wear and tear on it. These are replaced over time, and so this one was used a lot by the navy and then it was retired and were laced replaced. It was brought here. Thats why its on display. That titanium really protects them at great depth. What you see behind you is these fair propeller blade from uss maine, which was signed on february 15, 1898, during the time they believed it was a spanish mine that sank her. Thats actually not the case. He was told by the secretary of the navy, the commander of the thee was told he sent savannah harbor to help protect american interests in cuba at that time. The captain of the maine was told to be fully stocked with coal and ready to go at a moments notice in case of any shots that are iron fired. They were loaded with a special coal that was known to burn very quickly and very hot, so the could get steam up very quickly for their engines. That coal was also known to self combust. Now, ship designs at that time too. They realize armor is very important, and you really need to protect your ships magazines, the ammunition lockers are they said, we need a next her offer buffer an extra buffer. We should put the coal bunkers around the ammunition. Filled with fuel that can self combust. Thats what happens. Boom. And, thats really actually what sinks the maine. It is not until studies that were done until the 1980s, 1990s that that actually comes out to be the main cause. At that time they thought it was a spanish mine, and that gets us into the spanishamerican war. On more interesting things around the yard here, we are actually going to walk over here. You will see some iron plates that are in this area, those are the test plates from dahlgren, from when he was testing his dahlgren gun. You can see that some of them have been punished through by his punched through by his guns. If you look at shots like this here, most people say, that didnt do too much damage. Actually, for a confederate ironclad, yes they have iron on them, but whats underneath that holding the iron in place . A hit like that would cause the wood inside to explode and send shards and splinters throughout the gun decks and any open space in that area. Hits like that are very devastating, along with hits where they do penetrate and go through. Again, this is a piece of history that you can walk up and touch. This is what dahlgren was firing at in the Washington Navy hard. Yard. It was also during the civil war that some of the residents around the navy yard were complaining about dahlgren because he was firing these canons too much. The dahlgren facility across the river and down the river was he could get out of the basically president ial area with his canons washington, d. C. With his cannons. A massive gun, and the tracks its on, the railroad car as you can see there, thats how they would transport these guns around the navy yard. The Railroad Tracks are again still underneath the pavement too. This is how they would bring the guns around the yard, until they were ready to be put on a ship. And you can see the diameter of the board here, just to see how wide the shell would be. If you want to see the height of a shell, we have some of the gun. Rounds for the 16 inch these were test rounds from the battleship new jersey. And again, they are test rounds because they dont have the tips on them and they are basically solid shot. They had all different types of shots that would sometimes ask when it explode when it would hit. It depended on the hiring mission they were firing mission they were assigned. Some other things we have here, lets take that big hug of steel hunk of steel you see over there. Iss armored plate here actually from the shipyards, then fill the japanese super battleship yamato. At the end of the war, the navy went to the shipbuilding silly and found this deal and found some of the yard workers who said, this is the thickest armor placed aboard battleship yamato. Who here knows what sank yamato . Bombers. Basically navy torpedo planes an d bombers. And, the navy wanted to see if our large 16 inch guns could penetrate this armor. It did. As you can see. What they wont really tell you is that the muslin of the 16 inch gun was a few inches away from the arbor when the fired that route through it. Round through it. Looking at the numbers that were done, they said even at a distance it might have actually penetrated because of the type of propellants they were using. The type of gun that the yamato had, they had some of the largest battleship guns in the world at that time, the 18 inch gun. The 18 inch gun fired those 18 inch shells that are located around the corner, and that will be our next stop you can check out and they may be bigger than some of you here. Lets go around the corner here. Those are the 18 inch shelf that yamato would have fired. I think they are a little bigger than you. Yeah. This is the type of round that they fired. I will also point out this right here. Gun is a u. S. Navy railroad. It is a 14 inch battleship gun on a railroad car. During world war i, the allies had some pretty good artillery, but the germans had Railroad Artillery that could fire a greater distance than what the allies had. The allies had to ask the navy if we could basically develop a fire ad gun that could battleship type shell. Here at the navy yard, they designed it. From the first design, from when it first fired in france, it was 230 days. Which is a quick turnaround time. The barrels were made in the yard, the trains themselves were made in philadelphia. Made,de they were brought in here, and assembled. These were some of the guns that fired the last shots of world war i on november 11, 1918. The crews of these guns are u. S. Navy personnel. These gunsve of throughout france, and had a massive train attached to it that had bunk houses for the crews, cooking facilities, and munitions storage, construction material, also aircraft that would fly up and above and spot to tell the guns where 2 a. M. In where the shells were landing, too. They were devastatingly effective. The crews themselves, there was no uniform regulations for the Navy Personnel on these guns. There are photos of them wearing dresswhites, there were blues not their dress blues, their navy blues. There are wearing army navy uniforms. Rank was on your sleeve, you could wear whatever you wanted. I always joked with people at thatuseum that it was they did whatever they wanted. As long as they got the mission done, they were good to go. It was this is the last one in existence, and it is on display here at the navy yard. See,so have, as you can the screw that is right there is not the u. S. S. South dakota. That is some of her thinnest and thickest armor right next to each other. We will walk past that on our way to our next stop. Follow me. So, the submarine sale that you see over there is off the uss lejo. Home uss val it is a submarine for world war ii. A lot of you are too young to the young to know this movie called operation petticoat. There are a few hands raised. It is a funny movie, it is a comedy, and it is all about submarine service in the philippines during the start of world war ii. There is a submarine that only has its base layer painted on, making it look pink, which is part of a true story. Before the fall of the philippines. During that movie, the vallejo was pink and was known as the pink submarine for the movie operation petticoat. Was retired ino the 1960s, the sail was cut off and moved here as a memorial for mariners in world war ii. The rest of her was sank. That is why that sail is here at the navy yard. Now, for those of you who may have seen the advertisement for this walking to her, there is a mention of the leg in the navy yard. Our next stop, we will talk about that. It ties in with admiral dahlgren too. Lets check out a parking garage. Right. We are going to stand here. You do not have to stand in the sun if you dont want to, stick to the shade if you want. I will talk about this parking garage. Not just parking garage, but what was here before the parking garage. We are standing at the site of the dahlgren foundry. It is where admiral dahlgren made his cannons. Test his guns, it was a hot place to work because they had the foundries going, pouring steel into the casts to make those cannons. We are not here to talk about admiral dahlgren, we are here to talk about his son come a kernel colonel his son, dahlgren. The battle of gettysburg, and after that, the union army is chasing robert e. Lee back south. Skirmishes outside the town of hagerstown, maryland. It is there that Rick Dahlgren loses his leg. He gets shot in the lake, and due to the severity of the injury, they have to amputated. Is some reason, the leg brought to the navy yard, is encased in a lead case, and is placed in the wall of the foundry with a plaque over it this walls, within ren,he leg of colonel dahlg wounded july 6, 1860 three, while skirmishing in the streets of hagerstown with the rebels after the battle of gettysburg. It is in the wall. Ulrich dahlgren is killed later in the civil war. He receives a prosthetic leg, joins the cavalry, because he cant be marching anymore, so he , and takesback part in a raid on richmond in 1864. He was killed in the raid outside richmond near the county 2, 1864se on march during a raid to try and free union soldiers. There is a scandal that comes out because on his body, papers are found that basically detail mainn that dahlgrens mission is to go into richmond and killed the confederate president along with his cabinet, along with any confederate generals along with robert e. Lee that they happen to run into. It is a whole scandal that goes on both sides during the civil war. In the north, the papers were denounced as a forgery designed moreaken the unions effort, and the south said he is a murderer, an assassin, he should never have been sent on a mission like this. Fight goes back and forth. Even admiral dahlgren, who later sees copies of the papers say, it does not look like his handwriting. So we may never know. Howe is also a story about admiral dahlgren gets his sons body back. There was a spy for the union based in richmond, and somehow she is able to steal the body in using her network of spies, getting it through union lines back up north, where he is able to be buried a peer. The l buried up here. The leg is another mystery. After the civil war, the body is continuing to be used, and in the 1880s the building is torn down. The plaque is removed, and there is no mention of the leg after that. Another foundry goes up, and someone says, maybe we should put the plaque backup. The plaque upon the building. 1920s, a new building comes up in its place, and the plaque is put back. No mention of where the lake is at. Recently, of where the leg is at. Goestly, a parking garage up, and someone said to put the plaque up. You can see on the base of the wall, the plaque is on the wall. Nobody knows exactly where that leg is at. It could possibly be somewhere here in the navy yard, maybe a few feet under where we are standing now, or somebody found the case and went, ugh, and tossed it. We will go up the street a little bit. Take a look at the dahlgren leg plaque, and we will head on her way. You can see the photo of dahlgren, too. His leg was stolen by some confederates when his body was found, and they cut off one of his fingers to take one of his rings, too. His body was dragged around and was desecrated before the spy was able to steal the body back. So, it is in this area that we loft. Bout the we cannot get too close, but if you take a look down there, you can see that game sticking out of the building there. That is where the loft is located at. It is right over there. Is thel loft headquarters for the u. S. Navy band. It was in 1916 that the 16 piece band from the uss kansas was ordered here to the washington a 17 pieceo augment band from the president ial yacht, mayflower. The mayflower was permanently docked here for whenever the president wanted to go on excursions up and down the potomac to wine and dine politicians or dignitaries. They would take the mayflower out and have the band on it. Theyke that band larger, took them off the uss kansas, and permanently stationed them here at the navy yard. He needed a place to practice. And the place with the commandant told them to practice was by the coal pile. That is a perfect open space for you, go to the coal pile and you can practice there. The band members had, that does not suit us. They started asking around the navy yard and finding an open place for them to hold their actresses, and they ran into the workers from the sale loft to hold their practices and they ran into workers from the sail loft. They never made sails up there. A made campus covers that would go over ships they made canvas covers that would go over ships, but they never made sails. There is a big open space up there and the band asked, do you mind if we practice in this open space . You can hear the music. And they said, that is not a bad idea. And the band took over the sail loft. It is now their headquarters today. In fact, their concerts are held up there. There is different functions held up there. In fact, some inaugural parties were held in the sail loft, too, but today it is one of their otherractice areas, and stuff happens in there, too. But that is the story behind the sail loft and the navy band. We have two more stops, one will take us inside a building where we can see the remnants of the navy yards past. Are you guys ready . We are going to head down the street here, past the blue trucks, and into the building. So, this is building 22. This is the admiral gooding center, where their offices up shop, up top, shops down below. I tell people, this is the building that gives a great reminder of what the navy yard came from and where we are today. Wasepurposed a lot of what really used here at the navy yard. A lot of those buildings. Looking around here, it looks like a modern office building. But even in this room, there are little whispers of the past in here. Looking at some of the frames above your head, all of the ironwork and everything. The bricks that surround you here, too. This doorway used to be a heck of a lot bigger, as you can tell by the brickwork up above the door. You can see the archway. Many people do not know what exactly happened here in this building, so we are going to head into the other portion near the cafeteria area where we can see even more remnants of what happened here in the yard, and i will tell you what happened in this building here. Just in here, take a look above your heads. You can see the two different cranes above you. This is where those large 16 inch guns were made. It was in this building where they had a foundry. I have this photo here to show you what the interior of this building look like looked like with the guns in there, you can see the two cranes over in the photo. They are on two different levels, but they ended up putting them all on onee to showcase and have that reminder in the navy yard of where the past came from. You can see the photos that are up there, too, to show where we came from, just to remind the yard workers of the history here at the yard, the rich and deep history of the work that went on here, and the events that happened throughout our time frame, from 1798 until today. So, we are actually going to head back to the museum. It is there that if you have any questions, feel free to ask me. But we are going to walk down the entire length of the outside of the museum so you can see how long the building was and still is today. That is basically our walking to her of the navy yard walking tour of the navy yard. I hope you enjoyed your day. If you are interested in learning more, we have this Wonderful Museum here. It is a long museum that you can head all the way to the back at, it covers the history of the United States navy. We have great artifacts on display, and great events that happen at the navy yard in the museum. Usto our website or follow on facebook, and we always have our events listed from lectures urs to events like this today. I hope you enjoyed this. [applause] up next on American History 1957,real america, from Potomac River naval command. This film details the wide variety of activities undertaken by the u. S. Navy in the National Capital area during the cold war. From a ship building and design to aircraft pilot training, ordnance testing, medical research, and Motion Picture production