Photos

On my trip to DC, the first place that we visited was the Christ Church, or popularly known as the First Church. It was the home church of both George Washington and Robert E. Lee, and has sponsored a tradition of being visited by presidents in memory of our first national leader. The church has a history in war, and was built less than a decade before the revolutionary war broke out. This was continued in 1861 when the city of Alexandria Virginia was captured by U.S. forces and occupied for the remainder of the war. During this time, the many churches of the area were torn down, used for quartering soldiers, or turning into hospitals. However, orders came directly from Washington to preserve the Christ Church, and only use it as a place of worship. These orders however, did not cover the outside graveyard.

Many of the gravestones were taken out of the ground and added to barricades/fortifications or used for making the Union troop's fire rings. That is why many of the current day headstones (Which were recovered and returned to the site in later years) are broken and have burn marks.

The civilians at the time of the war were not allowed to attend the church, or any large public gathering for fear of riots starting. The church-goers at the time were of course only U.S. Officers and sometimes the Union troops. This a funny irony when you think about how it was the home church of Robert E. Lee, a fact the Union knew very well.

     (Left) Robert E. Lee's family pew, #46.

(Above) Memorial Plagues to Robert E. Lee.

While I was visited the church, which is surprising calm and open for a historical site, or guide simply sat with us inside one of the box pews and held a rather nice conversation about the First Church. It was the pew featured below.

Originally, all of the pews had this very open setup due to how cold it cold get in the winters. Families would come with heavy blankets and set braziers in the center of the pew, while the church supplied hot coals to put into the braziers for warmth. After the church acquired two wood burning stoves, they had all of the pews torn down and remade into the setup below.

Pew #59/60 was left in it's original state because it was the Washington family pew. It was a cool way to kick off a vacation, having casual conversation in the place that our nation's first president sat over 200 years ago.

Other pictures