the statue. Who was Shepherd? Why was he important? What impact did he have? He only served a relatively short time, and yet was of enough consequence to earn a statue on Pennsylvania Avenue! Fortunately, I can now confidently refer inquirers to this wonderful biography of Shepherd by my friend John Richardson.
Shepherd’s story, told in this book with skill and confidence, is at once the story of a great American character, with all his great achievements—bold, visionary, pragmatic, entrepreneurial; and notable flaws—racially insensitive, ethically myopic, and not infrequently, completely unrealistic. After all, how many political figures retire to Mexico to single-handedly establish a silver mining operation, using state of the art technology?
And it’s also the story of a great and complex American city’s recovery from the Civil War, growth in the Industrial age, and implementation of one of the world’s greatest urban plans. In short, it’s how Washington became a city.
A larger than life figure in an impossibly difficult situation, Shepherd made things happen, and Richardson tells us how. In a way, Shepherd was the ultimate homebuilder, building the Washington that today is the home for the world’s largest diplomatic corps, the home of the federal government, and the home to District citizens and residents.
At a time when Washington struggles to get the basics done, at a point where risk avoidance is all too prevalent, and in an era when confidence in government is at an historic low point, it’s good to know that there’s another story. We can turn challenge into opportunity, economic despair into hope. Shepherd did all this, and John Richardson shows us how.
Tony Williams
Mayor of Washington, D. C., 1999–2007
Preface
ALEXANDER ROBEY SHEPHERD built the infrastructure of the nation’s capital after the Civil War, which had torn the country apart and left Washington, D.C., a muddy, treeless place. The stresses of the Civil War exposed the physical inadequacies of the city in the face of postwar demands for a national capital able to represent the aspirations of the reunited nation. Shepherd’s actions made it possible to realize the grand design for Washington, D.C., of Peter Charles L’Enfant,1 the French-born engineer appointed by President George Washington in 1791 to plan the new “Federal City” as it was then known. The lack of congressional financial support had kept the city’s infrastructure largely undeveloped and had prevented the realization of L’Enfant’s vision. Much of Shepherd’s work, carried out hastily, had to be redone, but he initiated critical changes that would not be reversed.
Shepherd’s methods, motivation, competence, and integrity are still debated, but he did succeed in making the capital a handsome, workable city and, in the process, overcame threats to remove the seat of government to a location closer to the center of the nation. In a brief but remarkably active period as chairman of the Board of Public Works and a short nine months as territorial governor (1873–74), he put flesh on the bones of L’Enfant’s design for an elegant, European-style capital. In doing so, Shepherd succeeded in his most important goal of making Washington a workable city. He also achieved his second objective, (although the result was subject to reversal): forcing Congress to accept responsibility for maintaining and improving the city where it met. This narrative follows the events of Shepherd’s life as closely as available records permit, and much of the story is told in the words of major participants and close observers.
While much is known about the whirlwind years during which Shepherd brought change to Washington, less is known about his final twenty-two years, lived in a remote mining town deep in the Sierra Madre Mountains of Mexico. Even less well known is that Shepherd’s Mexican silver-mining operation—intended to restore his fortune and permit a triumphal return to Washington—proved a disappointment that hyperbolic press reports about his lucrative “Eldorado” in the wilderness could not overcome. While the setting for his labors shifted dramatically, Shepherd lived by the same set of principles in Mexico as he had in Washington. The nature of the challenges was different, but Shepherd, once having identified an objective, brought intensity and energy to the task. The same intensity and energy that made it possible for him to overcome obstacles that would have defeated a lesser man proved to be weaknesses, because he was constitutionally incapable or unwilling to question the choices he made.
Shepherd’s intensity helped him to rise rapidly to the top of Washington business and society after the Civil War, turning his plumbing and gas fitting company into the engine for a complex real estate and construction empire. His rise reflected the social and political changes brought about by the Civil War, which disrupted the old, “southern” social patterns of Washington and allowed and encouraged ambitious men like Shepherd to rise. However, Shepherd’s elevation to czar of the capital’s road, sewer, gas lighting, and tree planting whirlwind during the years of territorial government left him unable to manage his own affairs, with disastrous personal consequences.
Although relatively little survives of Shepherd’s thought process in the form of letters or diaries, his life before voluntary exile to Mexico in 1880 was lived largely in the public eye and intersected with major controversies gripping the nation in the wake of the Civil War. These included challenges no less significant than the ongoing sectional controversies, the issues of political and social equality for African Americans, competition between the Republican and Democratic parties, as well as factionalism within the Republican Party. The role of Congress in District of Columbia affairs was central because the Constitution gave it authority over all legislative matters within the District, and yet, prior to Shepherd, Congress had approached its responsibility for the welfare of the nation’s capital only sporadically and, at worst, abdicated it altogether. Because of the constitutional dominance of Congress, most analysis of the District’s development has focused on Congress and assigned Shepherd a supporting role. But it can be argued that this man—with a clear vision for the future—was better equipped than Congress to bring about the city’s transformation, since most members of Congress were not full-time residents of the capital city, had little personal involvement in the city’s development or self-governance, and focused their energies on representing the interests of their constituents.
Race posed a per sis tent issue for D.C. governance in the post–Civil War era, and for Shepherd personally. Shepherd’s racial views were a product of his upbringing, and he was therefore no supporter of social equality for blacks. He was a staunch Unionist during the war and a mainstream Republican, thereafter accepting emancipation for blacks but resisting full political and social equality of the races. During Shepherd’s years in D.C. politics, Radical Republicans in control of Congress were determined to impose socially progressive measures on the nation’s capital. Shepherd came down strongly on the side of physical improvement over social justice for blacks. As Reconstruction ideals receded in the years after the Civil War, the social justice agenda also receded, leaving a permanent social imbalance in the nation’s capital.
Public corruption often dominated public discourse after the Civil War, heightening during the second term of President Ulysses Grant (1869–77), who was an avowed supporter of Shepherd’s program to build the District infrastructure. The scale and pace of public improvements under Shepherd and the methods he employed, particularly after expenses mounted and funding ran short, led to per sis tent criticism and allegations of corruption, echoing attacks upon perceived corruption within the Grant Administration. Means became subordinated to ends, and the management measures Shepherd instituted at the outset crumbled.
Shepherd’s twenty-two-year sojourn in Mexico, managing a modern silver-mining operation, was intended to restore his fortune lost following the Panic of 1873 and allow a triumphant return to Washington, which would permit Shepherd once again to prove his critics wrong. Older and more experienced, Shepherd exhibited a relentless determination to succeed and an unwillingness or inability to acknowledge—let alone accept—defeat, regardless of the impact on those around him.
