In 1852, Congress chartered Saint Elizabeths Hospital as the Government Hospital for the Insane, with a mission of providing “the most humane care and enlightened curative treatment” for patients from the Army, Navy, and District of Columbia. The hospital opened in 1855, and shortly after the outbreak of the Civil War, it became a general hospital for sick and wounded combatants. It was these wartime patients who originated the use of the name Saint Elizabeths, after the property’s 17th...
