by Lynne Cheney
Both the president and the secretary of war did have things to worry about besides the British invading Washington. An August 16 letter from Madison to Armstrong conveyed presidential concern for the Niagara front, where American forces in Fort Erie were under siege, and stressed the importance the president placed on a combined land and naval operation to gain control of Lake Ontario. But to the citizens of Washington, the capital was what mattered, and by the end of July 1814 they had worked themselves into what Dolley Madison called “a state of perturbation.” She wrote to her friend Hannah Gallatin that she’d rather she and James were in Philadelphia. “The people here do not deserve that I should prefer [this place]. Among other exclamations and threats they say if Mr. Madison attempts to move from this house in case of an attack, they will stop him and that he shall fall with it.” She claimed not to be alarmed, but she also expressed frustration that probably echoed her husband’s: “Our preparations for defense by some means or other is constantly retarded.” News that a large British force had arrived in the Chesapeake and was beginning to ascend the Patuxent River sent Major General John P. Van Ness of the District of Columbia militia rushing to the secretary of war to complain of inadequate preparations. Armstrong told him not to worry: “Baltimore is the place, sir. That is of so much more consequence.”50
With the president’s approval, James Monroe, accompanied by a troop of cavalry, undertook a scouting mission to Benedict, Maryland, where British troops were landing, and the secretary watched from a distance as they debarked. The next morning, he reported to Madison that he had seen some two dozen square-rigged vessels, a number that the president found surprisingly modest, given how far the British were from their transports. He warned Monroe that the enemy “may however count on the effect of boldness and celerity on his side, and the want of precaution on ours,” which would turn out to be astute analysis.51
Brigadier General Winder, meanwhile, had issued a mass militia call. A motley army from Washington and Georgetown, joined by 120 marines, marched to the Woodyard in Maryland, about twelve miles from Washington, where some 300 regular troops had already assembled. On the morning of August 22, Winder marched the combined forces, some 1,800 strong, toward Nottingham, where the British had camped. Reconnoitering with Monroe, who had joined the march, Winder got a glimpse of the battle-hardened British troops. They seemed to be headed straight toward the Americans, and thinking their numbers to be from 5,000 to 7,000, Winder ordered his forces to fall back.52
As they withdrew, they heard a series of loud explosions. It was the sound of Commodore Joshua Barney’s flotilla being blown up. Barney and his men had thoroughly irritated the British with guerrilla-like attacks on their ships in the Chesapeake, and one of the British missions up the Patuxent, where Barney had retreated, had been to get rid of him and his squadron. Realizing that capture was inevitable, Barney had ordered the flotilla destroyed. He and some four hundred sailors and marines fell in with Winder’s troops, and the men spent the night at Battalion Old Fields, some eight miles southeast of Washington.53
Late on August 22 the president, accompanied by members of his cabinet, joined the troops. He had been concerned about leaving Mrs. Madison in the chaotic capital, where panicked citizens were fleeing, but she had assured him, she reported to her sister Lucy, “that I had no fear but for him and the success of our army.” Determined to do what he could to lift the spirits of the men in the field, he had departed, urging his wife as he left to take care of herself and of “the cabinet papers, public and private.” The papers of the State Department—including the Declaration of Independence—were already being put into coarse linen bags and loaded into wagons. A clerk named Stephen Pleasanton would hide them first in a gristmill on the Virginia side of the Potomac and then in a locked farmhouse near Leesburg, Virginia.54
On the morning of August 23, the president reviewed the troops. He reported to Mrs. Madison that they were “in high spirits and make a good appearance.” He was probably putting the best face on things for her as the troops no doubt had done for him. In fact, they were not well prepared, being, as their militia commander put it, “not three days from their homes, without organization or any practical knowledge of service on the part of their officers.” Nor were they well equipped. Two companies were carrying muskets, which fired less far and less accurately than the rifles that their captain had requested from the War Department. He had been told by General Armstrong that it was muskets or nothing; the rifles were for the troops in the North. The riflemen had also been issued an inadequate number of flints, a request for one thousand yielding only two hundred.55
The president wrote to Mrs. Madison that the British had neither cavalry nor artillery, and he was surely glad to observe as he passed by the troops in review that American forces had both. But skilled horseman that he was, he no doubt noted that many of the cavalry horses were “raw.” They had been purchased just two weeks before.56
During the day the president became increasingly concerned. A sentinel named Thomas McKenney rode into camp with two deserters and reported to the president and Armstrong his belief that the British were readying an attack on the American position. According to McKenney, Armstrong responded, “They can have no such intention… . If an attack is meditated by them upon anyplace, it is Annapolis.” It was not an unreasonable assessment. From where the British had encamped at Upper Marlboro, the route to Annapolis was a natural one and the town itself a pleasant place to wait if the British were expecting reinforcements. Winder later testified that he, too, thought at this point that the British target was Annapolis:
Having, therefore, already accomplished one great object of the expedition—the destruction of Commodore Barney’s flotilla—if [the enemy] was not in a condition to proceed further into the country, Annapolis offered him a place in all respects such as he would desire. It brought him to a fine port, where his ships could lie in safety; it afforded abundant and comfortable quarters for his men; magazines and storehouses for all his stores and munitions of every description; was capable with very little labor of being rendered impregnable by land and he commanded the water.57
Indeed, it wasn’t until the early hours of August 23 that the British themselves had decided on Washington as their target. Rear Admiral George Cockburn, leading the British naval forces, and Major General Robert Ross, leading the land forces, had received orders to retreat to their ships. They had done enough, their high command told them. But in a predawn conversation, the headstrong admiral persuaded the more cautious general to disregard the orders and make a strike on the American capital.58 An event that would be long remembered in American history was thus the result of a spur-of-the-moment decision.
If the British weren’t sure of their target until dawn on August 23, it is hard to blame Armstrong for being in error about it that afternoon, but his general attitude was inexcusable. When Brigadier General Walter Smith, commander of the Washington and Georgetown militias, approached him with a note seeking permission for a Colonel George Minor to head for Washington with seven hundred Fairfax County militiamen, Armstrong, so Smith later reported, “treated the matter with great indifference and in a very unsatisfactory way declined to give any order.” Armstrong was no doubt reluctant because of Madison’s telling him on August 13 to check with him before giving instructions “relative to military movements or operations.” But the commander in chief was right there, and Armstrong could have consulted rather than being dismissive. Smith went to the president, who issued the order for Minor to proceed.59
Before he left Old Fields, Madison concluded that Armstrong was likely in error and that he, the president, had been right in the first place about the British targeting Washington. He penciled a note to Mrs. Madison sounding alarms. “The enemy seemed stronger than had been reported,” he told her, and “it might happen that they would reach the city with intention to destroy it.” She “should be ready at a moment’s warning to … leave.”60
Chapter 17
TRIAL BY FIRE
ON AUGUST 23, the last day that the Madisons would spend in the White House, the bell at the north entrance clanged repeatedly. One visitor after another desperately wanted to see the president. At twilight, it was Colonel George Minor of Fairfax County reporting that he had brought seven hundred men to fight the British—but they had no weapons. The president sent him on to John Armstrong, trusting that the secretary would understand the urgency of arming Minor’s men, but when the colonel arrived at Armstrong’s lodgings by “early candle light,” the secretary told him that nothing could be done that night. He did bestir himself to pass on the name of Colonel Henry Carbery, whom, he said, Minor could contact in the morning.1
One of the next callers was General William Winder, whom Madison was surely surprised to see. Concerned that his troops at Old Fields would be attacked at night, when their artillery would be of no advantage, the commander of the Tenth Military District had led his men, about twenty-five hundred now, in a fast retreat toward Washington. They were encamped, exhausted, near the Eastern Branch Bridge over the Potomac, which Winder intended to secure. He believed it the most likely entry point into Washington for the British. Meanwhile, another part of Winder’s army was gathering to the north. Responding to his urgent militia calls, more than two thousand Maryland troops had gathered at Bladensburg, Maryland, where there was another bridge over the Eastern Branch and a turnpike leading directly to Washington. The Marylanders thought the British would choose that route to the capital.2
At midnight a messenger pulled the bell at the White House door, bringing a note to the president from Secretary Monroe. “The enemy are in full march for Washington,” it read. “Have the materials prepared to destroy the bridges.” And then in a postscript, “You had better remove the records.”3
Early the next morning a note from General Winder arrived. It was intended for Secretary Armstrong, but the president opened it and found that the general was urgently requesting advice. After sending the note on to Armstrong, Madison headed for Winder’s quarters near the Eastern Branch Bridge, where he was soon joined by Secretary of State Monroe, Secretary of the Navy William Jones, and Attorney General Richard Rush. The group learned that the British course was now certain. They were marching on the capital by way of Bladensburg. The president dispatched Monroe to the Maryland village, and Winder readied his troops to march. Cavalry had just found hay for their horses, and it was no easy task to persuade them to mount the hungry animals rather than feed them.4
Secretary Armstrong was as slow to join the rest of the cabinet as he had been to recognize the danger to Washington. When he finally arrived, the president asked him if he had any advice to offer. Armstrong said he did not, Madison wrote in notes he was keeping, but the secretary did venture a singularly unhelpful assessment—that American troops, being militia, would be defeated by the British regulars.5
As the group mounted their horses outside Winder’s quarters, Secretary of the Treasury George Campbell, who stayed in the same boardinghouse as Armstrong, expressed concern to the president about the secretary of war’s “great reserve.” Campbell thought that Armstrong’s behavior was due to his believing that General Winder was in charge, but in the present emergency, Campbell said, he shouldn’t hold back, particularly given his military experience: “No considerations of delicacy ought to jeopard the public safety.” The president agreed and had a conversation with Armstrong. He certainly hoped, he told the secretary of war, that he wasn’t holding back because of the August 13 instructions. According to Madison’s notes, he told Armstrong that “he should proceed to Bladensburg and give any aid to General Winder that he could.” Should there be “any difficulty on the score of authority,” Madison said, he would be “near at hand to remove it.”6
Armstrong’s diffidence might not have been the only reason Madison wanted to be at Bladensburg. He could also have had in mind the blow that Jefferson’s reputation had suffered when he had fled the British. There is no record that he gave thought to what would happen if he were killed or captured, although he must have considered it, and, indeed, at the end of the five-mile ride to the scene of the impending battle he made a miscalculation that could have been costly. Thinking that American forces were defending the town itself, the president and Attorney General Rush, who was accompanying him, passed by American artillery and riflemen and headed toward the bridge leading to Bladensburg. Fortunately, a scout warned them off. The British had entered the town, and the Americans whom Madison had passed were preparing to defend the near bank. Had the president proceeded on his course, he would have found himself in the middle of a British advance party.7
American troops were still arriving as the enemy came in sight, and they were hastily deployed into three lines. The president and Rush, in the company now of Monroe and Armstrong, held a quick meeting behind the first of the lines. “I asked General Armstrong whether he had seen occasion to suggest any improvement in any part of the arrangements,” the president reported. “He said that he had not; that from his view of them they appeared to be as good as circumstances admitted.” Congreve rockets, inaccurate but terrifying weapons, began to fly overhead, the British pushed forward to the bridge, and the president took himself and his cabinet to the rear, “leaving the military movement to the military men.”8 If the rear was a less heroic place to be, it was also more sensible, not just for Madison, but for the country.
American artillery fire created carnage among the enemy troops advancing on the bridge, and the British briefly fell back. They, like the Americans, were fatigued from marching in the August sun, but they came again, faster this time, and were soon across. The American lines began a quick collapse, and at about 2:00 p.m., “when it became manifest that the battle was lost,” the president wrote, “I fell down into the road leading to the city and returned to it.”9
Riding the dusty turnpike back to Washington, militia and civilians fleeing past, perhaps he heard that one part of the American force had demonstrated true heroism. It would have raised his spirits to learn that Commodore Joshua Barney and the marines and flotilla men under his command had stayed their ground and fought the British with great bravery until they were out of ammunition and Barney was severely wounded. One of the last things Madison had done before leaving Washington was countermand orders that would have left Barney and his men defending the Eastern Branch Bridge instead of fighting at Bladensburg.10
• • •
DOLLEY MADISON waited nervously at the White House. She had stuffed as many cabinet papers as she could into trunks and sent them off in a carriage. She had watched her friends flee the city and the hundred-man security guard around the president’s house leave. She had discouraged Jean-Pierre Sioussat, the White House doorkeeper as well as chef, from spiking the cannon at the gate and sprinkling a trail of powder into the president’s house, which he planned to light at the approach of the British. And all the while, she looked for James. Since sunrise she had been directing a spyglass out various windows, hoping to see him approach, but, she wrote, “Alas, I can descry only groups of military wandering in all directions, as if there was a lack of arms or of spirit to fight for their own firesides.”11
At three o’clock, a rider came galloping toward the president’s house. James Smith, a free black who had been with the president at Bladensburg, was waving his hat in the air and shouting, “Clear out! Clear out!” Wrote Mrs. Madison to her sister, “I must leave this house or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take.” Charles Carroll, a wealthy friend from Maryland, stopped by to urge her onward, but she had a few last things to take care of. Determined that the full-length portrait of George Washington, proudly displayed in the dining room, would not become a British souvenir, she ordered “the frame to be broken and the canvas taken out.” When it, most of the silver, and her beloved crimson draperies had been sent away, she consented to leave.12
The president arrived not lo
ng after she departed, and soon he, too, left. As the French minister, who stayed in Washington, described it, Madison “coolly mounted his horse, accompanied by some friends, and slowly gained the bridge that separates Washington from Virginia.”13
Riding along the Virginia side of the Potomac, the president and his party could see the fires as the British burned Washington. Richard Rush, accompanying the president, described “columns of flame and smoke ascending throughout the night … from the Capitol, president’s house, and other public edifices, as the whole were on fire, some burning slowly, others with bursts of flame and sparks mounting high up in the dark horizon.” Occasionally, the road dipped down, and “the dismal sight was lost to our view,” but “we got it again from some hilltop or eminence, where we paused to look at it.”14
Mrs. Madison could also see the flames of the burning city. Her plans to meet her husband had gone awry, but she had found lodging at Rokeby, the Virginia estate of her pretty friend Matilda Lee Love, the niece of Light-Horse Harry Lee. Rokeby was just above the Little Falls of the Potomac. A mile and a half farther up the road was Salona, the handsome redbrick home of the Reverend William Maffitt, where, tradition has it, the president spent the night of August 24. Close by as the president and Mrs. Madison might have been, neither knew where the other was, and their anxiety must have been considerable. The next day, as he took shelter from a fierce summer storm, Madison learned that she had gone on to Wiley’s Tavern, near Great Falls, and he headed there, accompanied now by Mordecai Booth, a navy yard clerk, who had made it across the Potomac with several wagons full of gunpowder and was eager to get instructions about where to store it. The intrepid Booth, who had also helped burn the navy yard before the British could capture it, escorted the president to a spot near Wiley’s Tavern, where Madison spent some hours with his wife. Intent on joining General Winder and as much of the army as remained, Madison rode off for Maryland at midnight.15