Military Education at Fort McNair
. honors the memory of the commander of Army Ground Forces during World War II who died in battle.The fort is the U.S. Army’s third oldest installation, after West Point and Carlisle Barracks. Fort McNair dates back to , when Washington City planner Pierre L’Enfant saw that the point where the Potomac and Anacostia rivers meet was ideal for a military installation,and he so noted it on his map.At first the installation was known as the Arsenal at Greenleaf’s Point, where the Army stored and distri buted weapons. During the War of , according to a con tem porary newspaper report,a dozen British Redcoats were killed when they accidentally set off gun powder hidden down a dry well by a retreating American commander. In a U.S.penitentiary was added to the instal- lation, and ye a rs later four of the ei ght prisoners charged with conspiracy in President Lincoln’s assassination were hanged in its courtyard. Af ter the Civil War, the fort’s importance in the defense of Washington declined. In the arsenal was closed, and the fort was used to store Army uniforms and supplies. The small post hospital became a re s e a rch cen ter, and from u n til his death in ,yellow fever pioneer researcher Dr. Walter Reed studied infectious diseases here.Then in the Army War College was founded, open- ing the era of higher education for senior military personnel. In the ei ght divisions of the Nati onal Defen s e Un iversity include the Nati onal War College, which opened in the aftermath of the Spanish- American War ( ).Fort McNair also is home to the In ter-American DefenseCo ll ege, established at the height of the Cold War to safeguard the Western Hemisphere.
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