“Having just returned from Hampton, where I made myself acquainted with all the particulars of British outrage, whilst that place was in their possession,” the reporter began in his letter to the editor in Richmond. “That the town and country adjacent was given up to the indiscriminate plunder of a licentious soldiery, except perhaps the house where the headquarters were fixed, is an undeniable truth.”
Stripping windmills of their sails, the British looted the homes of local residents. They also plundered stores, pharmacies, and churches.
“Several gentlemen informed me that much of their plunder was brought into the backyard of Mrs. Westood’s house, where Sir Sydney Beckwith and Admiral Cockburn resided.”
Dr. Colton shared his story with the investigative reporter. After British soldiers destroyed his private property, he approached Cockburn and Beckwith. Instead of taking responsibility for their men, Cockburn and Beckwith blamed Colton for daring to leave his house.
“‘Why did you quit your house?’ they replied. ‘I remained in my house,’ answered Doctor Colton, and have found no better treatment.’”
The investigative journalist also reported the horrible murder of a senior citizen, Mr. Kirby, by British soldiers, who also shot his wife and dog. The British claimed this was payback for Craney Island and “revenge for the refusal of the militia to give quarters to some Frenchmen (Canadian Chasseurs).”
The atrocities were so great that some in Hampton were afraid to share their experiences with the reporter. One woman’s “story was too shocking in its details to meet the public eye.”
By explaining that he wanted the public to know the whole truth “to do justice even to an enemy” and also “electrify my countrymen with the recital of her suffering,” the reporter convinced her to share her story. And so she did—anonymously.
“This woman was seized by five or six ruffians—some of them dressed in red, and speaking correctly the English language—and stripped naked.
“Her cries and her prayers were disregarded, and her body became the subject of the most abominable indecencies.”
At one point the woman escaped and ran into a nearby creek but was caught: “Whence she was dragged by the monsters in human shape to experience new and aggravated sufferings. In this situation she was kept the whole night, whilst her screams were heard at intervals by some of the Americans in town, who could only clasp their hands in hopeless agony.”
Another woman came to Hampton to visit her husband, who was one of the captured American militia. Soldiers, who were dressed in green not red, took her and her daughter, in spite of their screams.
“They had previously robbed them of their rings and attempted to tear open their bosoms. A Mrs. Hopkins, who was not in town when I was there, obtained assistance of an officer and rescued the woman from her ravishers; but not until one had gratified his abominable desires.”
This same Mrs. Hopkins testified to similar treatment of at least two other women, but would not give up the names of any of them to protect their privacy.
The green uniformed soldiers also stripped another man, Mr. Hope, age sixty-five, of his clothing and pointed bayonets at his breast. They spared him from further torture after realizing that a woman had taken refuge in his house. “They followed her into the kitchen, whither she had run for safety.” Then “Mr. Hope made off amidst her agonizing screams, and when he returned to his house, he was told by his domestics that their horrid purposes were accomplished [against the woman who’d taken refuge]—this I had from him.”
Such testimonies led the investigative reporter to draw a clear conclusion: “But the enemy are convicted of robbery, rape, and murder.”
Though the reporter didn’t know it at the time, the culprits were part of the green-uniformed Canadian Chasseurs or Chasseurs Britanniques. They were not Canadians as their name suggested. Instead they were French prisoners who chose to enlist in the Royal Army rather than rot in prison. They had given the British officers trouble from the start by threatening mutiny upon occasion.
The reporter ended his newspaper account with a call to arms and a plea. “Men of Virginia! Will you permit all this?—Fathers and brothers, and husbands! Will you fold your arms in apathy, and only curse your despoilers?—No—You will fly with generous emulation to the unfurled standard of your country.”
He wanted people to support President Madison and solicit the enemy “wherever he dares to show his face.” He called on them to put aside civil pursuits, such as making a living, to oppose the enemy instead.
“And devote yourselves, to the art and knowledge of which the enemy has made necessary—You will learn to command; to obey, and with ‘Hampton’ as your watchword—to conquer.”
While U.S. government agents also investigated what happened at Hampton, the governor of Virginia formally protested the soldiers’ actions to Admiral Warren. Did he take responsibility? Hardly. Warren claimed the acts at Hampton were revenge for the American militia who shot at helpless British troops floundering in the mud at Craney Island. Dismissing the assaults against women as meaningless and blaming the French Chasseurs as wayward, Warren only admitted that some plundering had taken place.
Lieutenant Colonel Charles Napier, who was a British officer and part of the attack on Hampton, years later confessed that “every horror was perpetrated with impunity [by our troops]—rape, murder, pillage—and not a one was punished.”
Two days after Hampton, on June 27, 1813, King and Armstrong met face to face, but not to talk about invasions or terrorism or even military strategy. Politics topped their priorities.
Perhaps they shared some ale at a boardinghouse tavern or took an afternoon stroll along the banks of the Potomac and the green concourse near the Capitol that would one day become the National Mall.
Though they shared a bond as New Yorkers, they’d chosen different political parties and affiliations. But that didn’t stop Armstrong from revealing sensitive political information to his boss’s fiercest opponent in the Senate.
“Armstrong said Daschkoff, Gallatin, and Parish intrigued to have Gallatin appointed to Russia—that Daschkoff had a slice in the loan,” King wrote in his notes of their conversation.
Daschkoff was the diplomat from Russia assigned to the United States. Armstrong suggested that Daschkoff was benefiting financially from the multimillion-dollar loan to fund the war that Gallatin had negotiated with Mr. Parish, a foreign-born American banker and uncle of an assistant to the war secretary. Though Armstrong accused Parish of intriguing to send Gallatin to St. Petersburg, wasn’t Armstrong intriguing or conniving with King? Yes, without a doubt.
King also learned from Armstrong that another U.S. senator had arrived in town. But not to worry. This man wouldn’t vote for Gallatin as a peace envoy. Armstrong also conveyed that Secretary of State James Monroe wanted to become head of the army, a move that Gallatin had supported. Nothing could have disgusted Armstrong more. He complained “that [Monroe] knew nothing of war and was without experience.”
They discussed another issue: Madison’s nomination of Jonathan Russell, who was born in Rhode Island, as an envoy to Sweden. This, too, was critical to the vote on Gallatin. Why? Tit for tat politics. Senator Jeremiah Howell of Rhode Island would vote for Russell, his state’s native son, in exchange for voting against Gallatin.
Oh how King hummed along as he drank in the news and gossip that Armstrong shared with him that summer’s day. He soon just might have what he most wanted before the session ended—embarrassing Madison by blocking Gallatin’s nomination as an envoy, and, eventually, pushing Gallatin out as Treasury secretary. Which did he want more? To damage Madison or to secure peace? Didn’t he long for peace above all else? Wasn’t he undermining peace by leading the charge against Gallatin? He didn’t see it that way. Sometimes the best of minds fail to see reality when ambition blinds them.
Not long after the invasion of Hampton, Sally Stevenson wrote her cousin Dolley and shared her concerns about the health of her br
other, Edward Coles: “Would to Heaven my dear Edward was with you, he writes us that he is rather better.”
Also pressing on Sally’s mind was the fallout from Hampton and its impact on her town. “You can form no idea of the spirit that has been excited in Virginia by the late invasion—it transformed all our young men into heroes. They waited not for the ‘spirit stirring drum’ to call them to their duty.”
Sally explained that her neighborhood had sent a company of fifty volunteers, who gathered over a two-day time period, to defend their shores. Even old men in Richmond were joining the preparations to resist the enemy if they came. “They will find it no easy task to conquer Virginians, even the ladies show a Spartan courage.”
In contrast to many others, Sally understood the stress and demands facing her cousin Dolley. “But I forget how many cares you have to occupy you at this time, soon may they be dispelled by the perfect restoration of your husband’s health.”
What would happen if Madison were to die during such duress? The president needed a breakthrough more than ever.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Dear Dolley
A few days after Hampton’s turmoil, Dolley had great news to report. James’s fever had broken on July 2, as she wrote Edward: “I have the happiness to assure you my dear cousin that Mr. Madison recovers, for the last three days, his fever has been so slight as to permit him to take bark [quinine] every hour, and with good effect.”
The ordeal had nearly killed her. “It has been three weeks since I have nursed him night and day—sometimes in despair! But now that I see he will get well. I feel as if I should die myself, with fatigue.”
Cousin Sally again wrote Dolley after she heard of James’s recovery. “Rumor with her hundred tongues had circulated at least a hundred reports about your dear husband. . . . And most fervently do I thank Heaven for granting to our prayers one who is not only necessary to the happiness of those who ‘love him best’ but to the prosperity and welfare of his country.”
A tall gallant man, John Peter Van Ness had come to Washington in its very early days as a member of Congress from New York. When Thomas Jefferson appointed him to the Washington militia, Congress would not allow him to simultaneously hold two federal offices. Van Ness chose the militia. Over ten years he rose to the position of major general, the rank he held at the time of Cockburn’s raids in 1813. His longevity was the best evidence that he couldn’t have been a better supporter of the militia system. From the days of the revolution, Americans had embraced local militias to protect and defend their hometowns. In an era when the average man relied on firearms for hunting, militias made sense. Van Ness’s loyalty to the militia was a prime example.
His ties to Washington were not only martial, but they were also marital. He had married Marcia Burnes, the daughter of an original landowner in the area. Now a banker who owned a large estate, General Van Ness had the money to be a patron to the Washington theatre and other entities. With money in one pocket and loyalty in the other, he had emerged as a local leader who maintained ties with New York friends, such as Washington Irving.
Though he had settled in Washington City, the forty-four-year-old Van Ness still had something in common with General Armstrong: New York. Would that tie be enough to bridge their opposing views? Only time would tell.
Because of Cockburn’s raids, Van Ness had experienced many encounters with the new war secretary. He’d been more than willing to comply with the War Department’s request to call up part of the militia earlier in the summer of 1813. Because locals had seen the enemy’s ships in the Potomac, the request made sense. Van Ness had complied with promptness, diligence, and urgency.
Soon it was clear that the U.S. government had few resources to help his men. Where were the arms? Ammunition? Camp equipment? Provisions? Constant delay and confusion proved that the militia didn’t have what they needed from the federal government to repel the British from the nation’s capital city. The deficiencies were as obvious as they were painful. When the British ships left the Potomac, instead of making a plan to stand watch, the militia was ordered to disband.
Worried about these inadequacies, Van Ness had approached Armstrong several times. They needed to bolster the incompetent Fort Washington, which was located on the Potomac River’s East bank below the city of Alexandria. Armstrong himself had spoken on the topic. Van Ness and other local leaders had suggested erecting a new battery, one that could seal off the river if the enemy approached again. So far nothing had been done, even though the horrors of Hampton were becoming known.
Once again Van Ness approached Armstrong. With earnestness and urgency, he pressed the issue: What of erecting a battery? Armstrong replied that he “was about to execute it.” He explained that he “was only balancing between several different points which had been proposed or presented to his view, and he believed he must go down himself to reconnoiter and select.”
Though Armstrong said the words Van Ness wanted to hear, something bothered him. Armstrong appeared rather indifferent. The war secretary’s tone conveyed little emotion and no passion. Armstrong then expressed his opinion that the enemy would not come, or even seriously attempt to come, to the district.
Van Ness was as stunned as he was worried. What if Armstrong was wrong? Why was he so certain? Did he possess intelligence that he wasn’t sharing, something that indicated Warren’s or Cockburn’s true intentions? But why wouldn’t the British come to Washington? Though deficient in grandeur and lacking in culture, the seat of government symbolized representation, not royalty.
Van Ness left Armstrong as he always did, with more promises than payoffs.
Soon the president’s recovery was widely known. The chairman of the Senate select committee sent Madison another letter on July 12, 1813. “The committee sincerely laments that your indisposition for some time past has been such as would have rendered it improper to have addressed you upon this subject.” They were glad to learn of Madison’s “restored health.”
Would they now trust his judgment and join with him to accomplish his greatest need and want, peace? All he could do was defer to their decision-making timetable.
On July 19, 1813, the Senate voted on the nominations for a peace mediation with Britain. As the Senate reported, “That the Senate do advise and consent to the appointments of John Q. Adams and James A. Bayard agreeably to their nominations, respectively.” Adams received thirty yeas and four nays. Bayard’s tally was twenty-seven yeas and six nays.
As for Gallatin, the Senate did not “advise and consent to the appointment of Albert Gallatin.” He received seventeen yeas and eighteen nays. That was it. One vote separated Gallatin from approval.
Not only did the Senate vote against Gallatin, but they also reprimanded Madison for nominating him. They didn’t believe the president had the power to appoint envoys during the Senate recess, because these were new positions, not vacancies. They concluded that the president could fill a vacancy during a Senate recess but not create a new position without their consent.
“That the granting of commissions . . . to negotiate and sign a treaty of peace . . . during the late recess of the Senate . . . was not in the opinion of the Senate, authorized by the Constitution, inasmuch as a vacancy in that office did not happen during such recess of the Senate.”
While venerating the authority of the president, the Senate also accused him of exceeding his power. The “rights of the Senate have been infringed.”
The Senate trampled on Madison’s choices and used the moment to embarrass both him and Mr. Gallatin. For all his anger and disappointment at their decision and politicking, Madison had a strong balm. He’d prefer this checks and balances system, the one he designed, over the other extremes: rule by tyranny or a mob.
Elijah Mix tried the torpedo again when the moon was growing dark starting on July 18. After several attempts he finally thought he was in reach of Plantagenet, a British ship. But the tide blew the torpedo and it exploded too soon and too far from t
he ship to seriously damage it. The explosion primarily threw a column of water onto the ship’s deck and blew over a small boat next to it.
“Had you been twenty feet nearer her, she must no doubt had been destroyed,” Latrobe later wrote to Mix about seeing the episode in the newspaper. Mix, the navy secretary, Latrobe, and Fulton were all disappointed with the experiment, but grateful that no American had been killed in the process of trying. The torpedo had yet to come of age.
Mary Sumner Blount wrote to her friend, dearest Dolley, from North Carolina, on July 18, 1813. As with many others before her, she shared her disappointment that Dolley had stopped writing to her.
“If I reproached you for not writing it was not that I wished to hurt your feelings, know that I could never do intentionally? But from my great affection, I felt mortified at being slighted by one I loved so much one that I had cause to look at as a dear friend.”
Though she confessed that she’d felt Dolley had forgotten her—a polite way of saying she felt snubbed—Mrs. Blount expressed understanding that “every hour of your life is and ought to be devoted to your husband, who is one of the best of men.”
She acknowledged that many longed for Dolley’s attention and time. “And that the public have a claim on you also, but still I hoped that you would sometimes write a few lines to one who loved you so much, to let her know you had not forgotten her entirely.”
Mary also had a public safety reason for writing. Along with many families, she was leaving town. “We are in hourly expectation of the British coming up here.” She relayed that one friend had died just from the fright. “Poor Mr. Gaston has had the misfortune to lose his lady, she was so frightened [being in a family way] when she was told the British was coming up the river that she was taken with fits in which she never recovered.”
The Burning of the White House Page 11