The president watched the fighting as Confederate sharpshooters fired upon the fort. President Lincoln, First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln, and members of the president’s cabinet traveled to Fort Stevens to observe the two-day battle. Fort Stevens and nearby Fort DeRussy led the defense of the capital as skirmishes broke out. In July 1864, Confederate troops under the leadership of General Jubal Early attempted to invade Washington.

Thomas’ encounter with the stranger was a story she told throughout her life, helping her story to gain recognition as part of the history of Fort Stevens. As soldiers removed her belongings, a tall, slender man dressed in black approached her and said, “It is hard, but you shall reap a great reward.” The man offering comfort was believed to be President Lincoln. According to Thomas, at the time her house was being demolished she was holding her six-month old baby and weeping beneath a sycamore tree. In September 1861, Union troops took possession of her land and ultimately destroyed her home, barn, orchard and garden to build Fort Massachusetts, later renamed Fort Stevens. The Thomas’ Seventh Street Turnpike property, then owned by Elizabeth and her siblings, was an ideal and necessary location for a fort.

William Morris Smith, from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Company F, 3d Regiment Massachusetts Heavy Artillery at Fort Stevens, District of Columbia, August 1865

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