On March 11, 1856, President Franklin Pierce sent a message to the Senate Committee on Military Affairs with information regarding a suitable location for an Armory for "the preservation of ordnance, arms, etc., in Washington".

Following the American Civil War's 1861 beginning, President Abraham Lincoln asked Doctor Willard Bliss to organize a system of hospitals in and around the city of Washington, D.C.[2] Among the facilities which resulted from this directive were several facilities which were built in or near Washington, D.C., including the Armory Square Hospital, which was built on the land surrounding the city's Armory in 1862.

Wounded soldiers were brought across the Potomac River to the city wharves in southwest Washington, D.C., including the Fish Wharf as well as on the Long Bridge which landed at the other end of Maryland Avenue SW a few blocks away.

His homely face with such sad eyes and ungainly figure did not fill my youthful idea of a "President of the United States"; but it was a grand thing for him to come and cheer our soldier boys with his presence.

[2]Hospital chaplains also worked to ease the suffering of wounded soldiers, dispensing books and other reading materials, as well as words of comfort and advice.

The last edition of the hospital newspaper, which was published on 21 August 1865, offered the following reflection: During the last three years, thousands of our brave soldiers have been inmates of Armory Square [...] One cannot conceive of a gun-shot wound that has not been treated here.

God grant that the stern emergency of a bloody civil war, which rendered so many asylums for our wounded and sick soldiers a necessity, may never again arise to curse with its mildew blights our native land.

We now bid adieu to Armory Square—but not without some regrets [...] Within its walls we have learned many a lesson of wisdom, of patience under suffering—of the keenest grief—of faith, forgiveness, of true manhood.