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Fast Money & Foreign Objects
On Aug. 24, 1814, the British started a fire — and ultimately kindled a capital’s future.
By Joel Achenbach August 23 at 1:43 PM
A blanket of clouds forms around the United States Capitol. On Aug. 24, 1814, the British burned the U.S. Capitol and the White House among other buildings. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
7 a.m., Aug. 24, 1814
The day began like so many days in Washington, with a painfully long meeting marked by confusion, misinformation and indecision.
The British were coming. They were on the march in the general direction of Washington. The precise target of the invaders remained unclear, but their intentions were surely malign.
James Madison, the fourth president of these young United States, had raced to a private home near the Navy Yard for an emergency war council with top generals and members of his Cabinet. The secretary of war, John Armstrong — conspicuously late for the meeting — had argued in recent days that the British would not possibly attack Washington, because it was too unimportant, with just 8,000 inhabitants and a few grandiose government buildings scattered at a great distance from one another.
“They certainly will not come here. What the devil will they do here? No! No! Baltimore is the place, sir. That is of so much more consequence,” Armstrong had declared.
The British had landed five days earlier near the head of navigable waters on the Patuxent River, southeast of Washington. There were about 4,500 of them — hardened fighters fresh from the Napoleonic wars.
James Madison used this table during his presidency. The table is now at the Octagon Museum in the District. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
The American forces called out to meet the invaders and defend the capital numbered about 5,500, but most were local militia — farmers and tradesmen with minimal training.
The war council proceeded in a desultory fashion until finally a bulletin arrived reporting that the Enemy was most definitely headed straight for Bladensburg, a town just six miles northeast of the Capitol. This provoked a convulsion of activity. Generals prepared to dash to the field of battle. Madison decided he should go, too. Someone handed him two pistols that he strapped around his waist.
The gunslinging 5-foot-4-inch president galloped on the pike toward Bladensburg.
It had been a brutally hot, dry August, and the sun was beating down again. This day was shaping up as a real scorcher.
The war no one remembers
In recounting this inauspicious chapter in our history it might behoove us to acknowledge that few Americans care about this strange little war. It was fought beyond the tall ridgeline in American memory of the Civil War. In the far distance we see the misty peak that is the Revolution. But the War of 1812? We don’t know why it happened, or where the battles were fought. We are a little vague on the question of who won.
(We have a decent idea of when it happened, because of the name, but given the critical events of August 1814, the conflict possibly should be called “the War of Approximately 1812.”)
Still, the bicentennial has incited some local celebrations (including a major event Saturday in Bladensburg), and it has given rise in recent years to new historical accounts, including “ Through the Perilous Fight ,” a book by Steve Vogel, a former Washington Post military affairs reporter who agreed to be conscripted as a guide for this retelling of the momentous events.
With Vogel, we ventured to the Navy Yard, the Marine Barracks, the Sewall-Belmont House (burned after snipers fired on the British), the Octagon House — which sheltered the Madisons for many months after the great debacle — and the battlefield at Bladensburg. A trained eye sees only the faint palimpsest of the war beneath layers of urbanization, expansion, suburbanization and all the lacquer that an affluent and busy society slathers on the past.
The Sewall-Belmont House and Museum was burned by the British as they invaded Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
At the White House, curator William Allman can point a visitor to fire-blackened stones atop an old entrance to the mansion beneath the North Portico. You might walk through that doorway for years and never notice the scorch marks unless someone pointed them out.
A brief history lesson: The United States had declared war on Britain in June 1812. One of the central incitements had been the practice in the Royal Navy of “impressing” American sailors, many of them wrongly accused of being wayward British subjects, into service on British warships. The British interfered with American trade with the French, aligning themselves with Native American tribes on the frontier.
Critics called the conflict “Mr. Madison’s War.” Later historians would sometimes call it the Second War of American Independence. In Canada, the war looms larger in memory, as part of the founding mythology of the nation (“Canada” being a plausible answer to the who-won question).
What everyone seems to agree on is that the United States chose to wage a war for which it was spectacularly unprepared. The young republic had a vast territory and a miniature army and navy. Madison was a Republican (sometimes called a Democratic-Republican), like his predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, who came to power by promising tax cuts and a small federal government. This proved problematic when the United States declared war on the mighty British Empire.
The sun sets on the Capitol in Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Most of the action was initially in Canada and the Great Lakes, but then in 1813 the British launched the Chesapeake campaign, raiding towns and bringing on board African Americans who had been in bondage and who viewed them not as invaders but as liberators.
Charged with the defense of Washington was Brig. Gen. William Winder, a lawyer with an undistinguished military background but good political connections. On the 24th of August he clearly didn’t know what to do, or how to do it, or even where he ought to be. The best that can be said of him is that when he finally rode to Bladensburg, he had a keen perception that events would go badly.
Noon, Bladensburg
Madison arrived at Bladensburg and went a little too far, nearly riding into the British lines before reversing course and finding a spot to watch the suddenly erupting battle.
Busybody Secretary of State James Monroe, hardly in the chain of command, took it upon himself to rearrange the second line of the American defense, moving the soldiers too far back to be of much help.
Leading the British invasion were Gen. Robert Ross and Adm. George Cockburn. The British officers detected the cockeyed American defensive positioning and decided to press ahead with light infantry even before their stragglers, who had been marching for seven hours in brutal heat, had caught up.
A pedestrian walks over the bridge spanning the Anacostia River in Bladensburg, Md. The British crossed the river, then known as the Eastern Branch of the Potomac River, during the Battle of Bladensburg. The British defeated the American force and then marched to Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
The Americans had mysteriously failed to destroy the bridge at Bladensburg that spanned the Eastern Branch of the Potomac — the Anacostia River. The silted-up river was shallow enough to cross on foot, anyway, but the intact bridge hastened the British assault.
Some of the Americans on hand had dressed inappropriately for the occasion.
“People arrived on the field of the battle of Bladensburg in winter wear, many of them. They had no boots, they had no flints for their muskets. They were totally unprepared,” says historian Anthony Pitch, author of “The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814.”
“They have one training day a year, which is mostly spent drinking rather than drilling,” University of Virginia historian Alan Taylor, author of two books that deal with the War of 1812, says of the militiamen. “Whoever was elected captain would take them down to the local tavern and they’d get blasted.”
The British fired newly developed rockets that could not be aimed accurately, which added to their terrifying effect. Several screamed over the head of Madison — the first time a sitting U.S. president had been under fire.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...d-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html?tid=sm_fb
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By Joel Achenbach August 23 at 1:43 PM
A blanket of clouds forms around the United States Capitol. On Aug. 24, 1814, the British burned the U.S. Capitol and the White House among other buildings. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
7 a.m., Aug. 24, 1814
The day began like so many days in Washington, with a painfully long meeting marked by confusion, misinformation and indecision.
The British were coming. They were on the march in the general direction of Washington. The precise target of the invaders remained unclear, but their intentions were surely malign.
James Madison, the fourth president of these young United States, had raced to a private home near the Navy Yard for an emergency war council with top generals and members of his Cabinet. The secretary of war, John Armstrong — conspicuously late for the meeting — had argued in recent days that the British would not possibly attack Washington, because it was too unimportant, with just 8,000 inhabitants and a few grandiose government buildings scattered at a great distance from one another.
“They certainly will not come here. What the devil will they do here? No! No! Baltimore is the place, sir. That is of so much more consequence,” Armstrong had declared.
The British had landed five days earlier near the head of navigable waters on the Patuxent River, southeast of Washington. There were about 4,500 of them — hardened fighters fresh from the Napoleonic wars.
James Madison used this table during his presidency. The table is now at the Octagon Museum in the District. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
The American forces called out to meet the invaders and defend the capital numbered about 5,500, but most were local militia — farmers and tradesmen with minimal training.
The war council proceeded in a desultory fashion until finally a bulletin arrived reporting that the Enemy was most definitely headed straight for Bladensburg, a town just six miles northeast of the Capitol. This provoked a convulsion of activity. Generals prepared to dash to the field of battle. Madison decided he should go, too. Someone handed him two pistols that he strapped around his waist.
The gunslinging 5-foot-4-inch president galloped on the pike toward Bladensburg.
It had been a brutally hot, dry August, and the sun was beating down again. This day was shaping up as a real scorcher.
The war no one remembers
In recounting this inauspicious chapter in our history it might behoove us to acknowledge that few Americans care about this strange little war. It was fought beyond the tall ridgeline in American memory of the Civil War. In the far distance we see the misty peak that is the Revolution. But the War of 1812? We don’t know why it happened, or where the battles were fought. We are a little vague on the question of who won.
(We have a decent idea of when it happened, because of the name, but given the critical events of August 1814, the conflict possibly should be called “the War of Approximately 1812.”)
Still, the bicentennial has incited some local celebrations (including a major event Saturday in Bladensburg), and it has given rise in recent years to new historical accounts, including “ Through the Perilous Fight ,” a book by Steve Vogel, a former Washington Post military affairs reporter who agreed to be conscripted as a guide for this retelling of the momentous events.
With Vogel, we ventured to the Navy Yard, the Marine Barracks, the Sewall-Belmont House (burned after snipers fired on the British), the Octagon House — which sheltered the Madisons for many months after the great debacle — and the battlefield at Bladensburg. A trained eye sees only the faint palimpsest of the war beneath layers of urbanization, expansion, suburbanization and all the lacquer that an affluent and busy society slathers on the past.
The Sewall-Belmont House and Museum was burned by the British as they invaded Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
At the White House, curator William Allman can point a visitor to fire-blackened stones atop an old entrance to the mansion beneath the North Portico. You might walk through that doorway for years and never notice the scorch marks unless someone pointed them out.
A brief history lesson: The United States had declared war on Britain in June 1812. One of the central incitements had been the practice in the Royal Navy of “impressing” American sailors, many of them wrongly accused of being wayward British subjects, into service on British warships. The British interfered with American trade with the French, aligning themselves with Native American tribes on the frontier.
Critics called the conflict “Mr. Madison’s War.” Later historians would sometimes call it the Second War of American Independence. In Canada, the war looms larger in memory, as part of the founding mythology of the nation (“Canada” being a plausible answer to the who-won question).
What everyone seems to agree on is that the United States chose to wage a war for which it was spectacularly unprepared. The young republic had a vast territory and a miniature army and navy. Madison was a Republican (sometimes called a Democratic-Republican), like his predecessor, Thomas Jefferson, who came to power by promising tax cuts and a small federal government. This proved problematic when the United States declared war on the mighty British Empire.
The sun sets on the Capitol in Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Most of the action was initially in Canada and the Great Lakes, but then in 1813 the British launched the Chesapeake campaign, raiding towns and bringing on board African Americans who had been in bondage and who viewed them not as invaders but as liberators.
Charged with the defense of Washington was Brig. Gen. William Winder, a lawyer with an undistinguished military background but good political connections. On the 24th of August he clearly didn’t know what to do, or how to do it, or even where he ought to be. The best that can be said of him is that when he finally rode to Bladensburg, he had a keen perception that events would go badly.
Noon, Bladensburg
Madison arrived at Bladensburg and went a little too far, nearly riding into the British lines before reversing course and finding a spot to watch the suddenly erupting battle.
Busybody Secretary of State James Monroe, hardly in the chain of command, took it upon himself to rearrange the second line of the American defense, moving the soldiers too far back to be of much help.
Leading the British invasion were Gen. Robert Ross and Adm. George Cockburn. The British officers detected the cockeyed American defensive positioning and decided to press ahead with light infantry even before their stragglers, who had been marching for seven hours in brutal heat, had caught up.
A pedestrian walks over the bridge spanning the Anacostia River in Bladensburg, Md. The British crossed the river, then known as the Eastern Branch of the Potomac River, during the Battle of Bladensburg. The British defeated the American force and then marched to Washington. (Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
The Americans had mysteriously failed to destroy the bridge at Bladensburg that spanned the Eastern Branch of the Potomac — the Anacostia River. The silted-up river was shallow enough to cross on foot, anyway, but the intact bridge hastened the British assault.
Some of the Americans on hand had dressed inappropriately for the occasion.
“People arrived on the field of the battle of Bladensburg in winter wear, many of them. They had no boots, they had no flints for their muskets. They were totally unprepared,” says historian Anthony Pitch, author of “The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814.”
“They have one training day a year, which is mostly spent drinking rather than drilling,” University of Virginia historian Alan Taylor, author of two books that deal with the War of 1812, says of the militiamen. “Whoever was elected captain would take them down to the local tavern and they’d get blasted.”
The British fired newly developed rockets that could not be aimed accurately, which added to their terrifying effect. Several screamed over the head of Madison — the first time a sitting U.S. president had been under fire.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/natio...d-11e4-86ca-6f03cbd15c1a_story.html?tid=sm_fb
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