Tag: War Department (Washington DC)

Wikipedia says: In the early years, between 1797 and 1800, the Department of War was headquartered in Philadelphia; it moved with the other federal agencies to the new national capital at Washington, District of Columbia, in 1800. In 1820, headquarters moved into a building at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW, adjacent to the Executive Mansion, part of a complex of four matching brick Georgian/Federal style buildings for Cabinet departments with War in the northwest, Navy in the southwest and to the other side: State to the northeast and Treasury in the southeast. The War Department building was supplemented in the 1850s by a building across the street to the west known as the Annex and became very important during the Civil War with President Abraham Lincoln visiting the War Office’s telegraph room for constant updates and reports and walking back and forth to the “Residence”. The original 1820 structures for War and Navy on the west side of the now famous White House was replaced in 1888 by construction of a new building of French Empire design with mansard roofs, the “State, War, and Navy Building” (now the Old Executive Office Building, and later renamed to honor General and President Dwight D. Eisenhower), built in the same location as its predecessors.