Civil War Camp to Victorian Neighborhood tenth and u streets nw
the cardozo shaw neighborhood and the Greater U Street Historic District are rich in African American and Civil War history. The area is the ideal place for the African American Civil War Memorial now located at the intersection of Tenth and U Streets and Vermont Avenue. The neighborhood is named for Robert Gould Shaw, the white commander of the 54 th Massachusetts Regiment, an African American unit featured in the celebrated film Glory. When the first shots of the Civil War were fired, this entire area north of Washington’s downtown was still woods and open fields, with a few small wooden houses scattered about. The Union com- mand chose this area for some of the city’s major military encampments — Campbell Hospital at Sixth and Florida Avenue, the Wisewell Barracks at Seventh and P Streets, and Camp Barker near 13 th and R Streets. These camps were safe havens for freedmen fleeing the South, and some chose to stay and make their homes in the area. After the war, as the city’s population mushroomed, public streetcars began to run north from down- town through this neighborhood, opening it up for development. From the 1870 s to 1900, builders filled its residential streets with the Italianate, Second Empire, and Queen Anne-style rowhouses that characterize the neighborhood today. Blacks and whites built and lived in this neighborhood, which became predominantly African American between 1900 and 1920 . The Most Worshipful Prince Hall Grand Lodge at 1000 U Street, a large building adjacent to the African American Civil War Memorial, was designed by the prominent African American architect Albert I. Cassell in 1922 , and continues to be a center of civic and social activity.
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