Washington DC's Hidden Memorials: Beyond the Lincoln and Jefferson

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial consists of two polished black granite walls sunk into the ground, bearing the names of 58,318 Americans who died or remain missing from the Vietnam War, listed chronologically rather than alphabetically.

The design, by 21-year-old architecture student Maya Lin, was extraordinarily controversial when selected in 1981. It has since come to be regarded as one of the world’s most powerful pieces of public memorial design.

Walk the full length of the wall, from the beginning to the apex and down the other side. At the apex, surrounded by names, the reflection in the polished surface places visitors and the surrounding city alongside them.

Two additions are often missed: the Three Soldiers statue to the southeast and the Vietnam Women’s Memorial to the northwest.

The DC War Memorial sits roughly halfway between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument and is one of the least-noticed memorials in the city. The small circular Greek temple was built in 1931 to honour the 499 Washington DC residents who died in the First World War.

Surrounded by trees and outside the Mall’s primary sightlines, it reminds visitors that the city itself, not only the nation, has its own relationship to the wars of the 20th century. LetzGo’s White House and National Mall Tour passes directly through this section.

On Rhode Island Avenue NW, west of Dupont Circle, a bronze relief depicts twelve orders of Catholic nuns who served as nurses during the Civil War. The memorial was controversial when unveiled in 1924, partly because it placed religious figures in a civic memorial space.

It commemorates the work of over 300 nuns from twelve religious orders who nursed soldiers on both sides without regard to their army. It is a ten-minute walk from Dupont Circle metro station.

At Pennsylvania Avenue and Seventh Street NW, in front of the National Archives, stands a small granite fountain surmounted by a heron. Henry Cogswell, a California dentist and temperance advocate, donated it in 1884 on the condition that it provide cold water to encourage people to drink water instead of alcohol.

The fountain no longer dispenses water. The heron remains, along with the inscription “Faith, Hope, Charity, Temperance”.

The Emancipation Memorial in Lincoln Park was dedicated on 14 April 1876, the eleventh anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination. It depicts Lincoln standing over Archer Alexander, a formerly enslaved man rising as his chains are broken. Formerly enslaved Black Americans funded the memorial, and Frederick Douglass delivered the dedication speech.

The design has been debated for decades because Lincoln stands while Alexander kneels. Calls to remove or relocate it intensified in 2020. As of June 2026, the original Washington DC memorial remains in Lincoln Park.

Its contested quality makes it worth visiting. It raises questions about who decides how liberation is depicted, who funds memorials, and whose perspective is centred. For the wider story, LetzGo’s Lincoln Assassination, Spies and Patriots Tour traces the history through downtown DC.