Hi there. I'm Washington Post reporter Lillian Cunningham. Stay tuned after the show to hear about my latest podcast, Moonrise. It's the dark but true story of why we went to the moon and what we found there. The full series is available now.

Hey, history lovers. I'm Mike Rosenwald with Retropod, a show about the past, rediscovered.

In 1864, during the only Civil War battle that took place in Washington, the Battle of Fort Stevens, President Abraham Lincoln got in his carriage one evening and made

an extraordinary request. He wanted to go see the fighting. Nobody, of course, thought this was a very

good idea. But Lincoln did, and off he went. Lincoln wanted to support the Union troops.

He wanted to see the situation with his own eyes.

And he very nearly got himself killed.

As Browns zipped over his top hat, a young officer shouted,

Get down, you fool!

Lincoln's secretary of war, Edwin Stanton, was so worried about his boss that he ordered an ambulance to evacuate him.

Lincoln was not happy.

He said, I thought I was commander-in-chief.

Lincoln was not the first president to step foot on an American battlefield.

President James Madison was at the Battle of Bladenburg during the War of 1812.

But Lincoln's visit is often cited by historians in recounting the importance of

presidents visiting troops in or near war zones, to better grasp conditions, to reverse public

doubts, and to signal to both U.S. and enemy forces that the country took war efforts seriously.

Veterans have split on the value of such visits with some suggesting that these so-called dog and pony shows

obscure the realities of war and drain military resources to keep the president safe.

True or not, these visits provide lasting symbolic images of presidents as commanders in war. Military, as well as all other

requirements, must be calculated in an atmosphere of cold logic, not of senseless fear.

Take Dwight Eisenhower, the former Supreme Allied commander in Europe during World War II,

...