The Burning of the White House

by Jane Hampton Cook

  At that 1803 dinner, when the food was ready, President Jefferson had asked to take Dolley’s hand to escort her to the table instead of Mrs. Merry’s. Why? She may have been the closest woman to him, making it easy to take her hand, but she had also often served as the widower Jefferson’s hostess. Everyone else had taken the first seat they saw, leaving Mr. Merry to escort Mrs. Merry to a seat at the table. This every-man-and-woman-for-themselves approach had been such a sharp contrast with the formalities of dining in a royal court that the Merrys had been highly insulted. They’d taken such offense that Mr. Merry complained about the matter to his superiors in England.

  Madison had the Merrys to dinner a few days later. Still smarting from Jefferson’s snub, Mrs. Merry had described the meal as “more like a harvest-home supper, than the entertainment of a secretary of state.”

  According to a favorable account written decades later, Dolley had stood up for herself and her country and replied that “she thought abundance preferable to elegance.” She had explained that circumstances created customs, which led to preferences for food and drink. America wasn’t a replica of England and took pride in avoiding repugnant foreign customs. Their customs “arouse from the happy circumstance of the superabundance and prosperity of our country.” Dolley would give up the delicacy of European style cooking and clothing in exchange for plainer but more abundant Virginia food and customs.

  Soon, however, the Madisons realized that the Merrys had been so insulted that the problem was leading to a rift in foreign relations with England. What to do? Madison had encouraged Jefferson to put into writing his new form of etiquette, which was based on the principle that all were equal when it came to sitting at the table. Madison had also written letters to try to smooth the ruffled feathers of his English goose and gander.

  What did Dolley do? She had reached out to Mrs. Merry by inviting her over for intimate social chats and perhaps by giving her small gifts or tokens. Mrs. Merry had never been warm to America. She had often kept to herself and rode on horseback alone. But over a two-year period, Dolley had developed enough of a relationship with her that Mrs. Merry called upon Dolley. One incident showed Mrs. Madison’s ability to be cordial in the face of animosity.

  “The other evening she [Mrs. Merry] came in high good humor to pass three hours with her patient, as she styled me,” Dolley shared with her sister Anna in a letter. Then one of the servants had called and “mentioned that the General [French diplomat] and his family were walking near the house.”

  Though she had been there three hours and had enjoyed the time, Mrs. Merry didn’t take the news well. “Mrs. M instantly took the alarm said they were waiting for her to depart in order to come in, seized her shawl and in spite of all I could say marched off with great dignity and more passion, you know when she chooses she can get angry with persons as well as circumstances.”

  Many women shunned Mrs. Merry for her strange behavior, but not Mrs. Madison. The overdressed, dripping with diamonds Mrs. Merry had acted like a prized show horse among plain working mares. Dolley had handled her well. Her genuine love of people and her ability to both laugh and love had brought great good to her husband’s reputation and to her country.

  Rear Admiral George Cockburn also knew the Merrys quite well. He had escorted them to America on his ship in the autumn of 1803. When his ship needed repairs for its return voyage, bankers in New York had refused to grant him credit, because he was an officer in the Royal Navy. They forced him to pay cash. Worse, some of his men deserted and claimed U.S. citizenship. Finding their hiding places, he forced them to return to his service. After all, he needed a crew to sail with him and didn’t have the authority or desire to recruit Americans for his next mission, escorting hard money or specie from New York to India for later deposit into the English crown’s treasury. The money was payment from America to England stemming from the peace treaty ending the American Revolution decades earlier.

  Though he wasn’t as easily insulted as the Merrys and had a good sense of humor, Cockburn believed the bankers and authorities concealing the whereabouts of his deserters should have treated him better. Thus, his first trip to America hadn’t been a good one and hardened his anti-American views. The intervening eleven years had not softened Cockburn, as his raids in 1813 had shown.

  After spending the winter in Bermuda, Cockburn returned to Lynnhaven Bay on February 23, 1814. Though this rear admiral had borne confidence on his shoulders as easily as epaulettes, one of his subordinates, Captain Robert Barrie, had little hope in Cockburn’s ability to fulfill any bold initiatives. The reason? The British admiralty had confined the rear admiral’s mission in 1814 to raids, not full-scale attacks. “I fear he is cramped in his orders,” the captain wrote to his mother. Barrie had been successfully holding down the fort, or the sea as it were, in Cockburn’s absence. From September 1813 to December 1813, Barrie’s squadron captured or destroyed seventy-two U.S. merchant vessels trying to slip past the British blockade of the East coast.

  Upon his return to the Chesapeake, Cockburn kept a low profile by sending out crews, such as Barrie’s, to survey rivers and take the war pulse of the Americans. He also scouted Tangier, an island in the Chesapeake Bay, to set up British headquarters. Dutiful diligence to details was important to earning the admiralty’s respect.

  But without a robust commander in Admiral Warren, Cockburn had little hope of doing much more than casting nets and poles to fish for fun and burning a few American homes here and there. Though he was supremely confident in his own capabilities, he was frustrated at his superior admiral’s lack of bold initiatives. Warren seemed to want nothing more than to go home to England. How Cockburn longed for a bigger strategy, one that would culminate in a large-scale attack, and a better commander.

  “Have you quite forgotten me? I would not write a second time could I imagine for a moment that you received my letter from Washington,” Mary Latrobe wrote Dolley again from her new Pittsburgh home. She referred to the letter that she had sent during James’s illness the previous summer.

  “I wrote a few hasty lines previous to our removal . . . to acknowledge the many, many proofs of kindness I had received from you,” Mary explained. Despite Mrs. Madison’s snub, Mary gave her the benefit of the doubt and still wished Dolley well. She knew her favorite time of the year was about to start.

  “Your winter campaign has again commenced, I think of you every Wednesday evening particularly! I see you surrounded by friends and enemies! How undeserving are you of the latter!”

  Upon her return to Washington, Dolley needed to make amends with friends like Mary whom she had ignored or understandably snubbed while James was ill. Her outreach reflected her renewed desire to foster goodwill for her husband and his presidency. Another lady who needed Dolley’s attention was Ruth Barlow, whose husband had died while serving as Madison’s top diplomat to France. Dolly wrote Ruth a letter in December 1813.

  “My husband desires to be presented to you in the kindest manner,” she passed along. Best of all, James was doing much better. “His health is more perfect than ever, but his cares and confinement, I fear will soon impair it.”

  Ruth responded, swiftly confessing, “Having met with such severe affliction and needing so much the tender consolation of my friends that, not receiving a line from dear Mrs. Madison, led me to fear I had been so unfortunate as to lose her friendship.” Ruth added, “to know that is not the case, and that she still regards me with affection is very solacing to my wounded heart.”

  Dolley’s campaign to soothe ruffled feathers among prominent ladies was working. She had another reason to rejoice that winter. Her married sisters, Anna and Lucy, had joined her for the social swirl. In 1812 Lucy had married a Supreme Court justice, Thomas Todd, and moved to his native Kentucky. Married to former congressman Richard Cutts, Anna trekked back and forth from Maine, which was part of Massachusetts, to their home in Washington City. Cutts, who had lost his seat in the last election, now served as superintend
ent general of military supplies.

  With her husband’s health improved, Dolley turned her attention outward. The year of 1814 would provide opportunities to influence others in ways she never expected or wanted. She would also soon welcome the most uninvited guests ever to step into the White House. In doing so, this lady of many firsts would have a hand in determining her own destiny.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Noses for News

  In the spring and summer of 1814, rumors and news turned Washington City inside out.

  “Armstrong was decided to have his just weight in the cabinet, or to throw up his office,” Senator King wrote of the secret information he’d received. “That an understanding with the Federalists in Congress was his wish; that he desired nothing on their part in respect to himself.”

  Sympathetic to Armstrong’s preference of New England over the South, King wasn’t completely surprised at Armstrong’s recent proposition to him. “That he was willing to co-operate against Virginia, leaving men and things to take their course when the Presidential election comes on.”

  When Armstrong arrived in Washington from the New York–Canadian war front after the new year began in 1814, he’d brought with him the reality of defeat. For months he and Wilkinson had argued over whether to target Kingston first and then Montreal or to skip Kingston and target Montreal directly with the aid of General Wade Hampton’s troops. Finally, in mid-October 1813, they had abandoned plans for Kingston and determined to strike Montreal. In early November, Wilkinson led a force down the Saint Lawrence River while Hampton moved from Lake Champlain. This uncooperative pair sent each other testy letters questioning each other’s authority and supply lines. The result was disastrous. Wilkinson lost a battle at Chrysler’s Farm on November 11, 1813, which ended the campaign to take Montreal. The British reoccupied York, Canada, and ravaged Buffalo, New York. Hampton blamed Wilkinson, while Wilkinson blamed Hampton, who resigned in protest. Wilkinson wrote Armstrong: “What a golden glorious opportunity has been lost by the caprice of Major General Hampton.”

  Armstrong had had enough of both men, both of whom had been born in the South. Wilkinson hailed originally from Maryland, while Hampton was a wealthy plantation owner in South Carolina. Armstrong was tired of dealing with southerners, especially Secretary Monroe, who had fulfilled some of Armstrong’s duties in Washington City while Armstrong was away on the Northern frontier. By the winter of 1814, enough was enough.

  The war secretary made a key decision, but he had to be careful. So he sent an intermediary, Colonel Swift, to hold several conversations with another intermediary, Jeremiah Mason of New Hampshire. Mason relayed their conversation to Rufus King, who recorded what he learned about Armstrong’s determination in his diary: “Their tenor was that the Virginia dynasty must be broken; that state must not furnish the next president. The policy has been to divide the Eastern States, to exclude from every public office of distinction Eastern men.”

  Armstrong had become so distrustful of President Madison and Secretary Monroe that he was willing to secretly join forces with the Federalists to make sure that Monroe or any other Virginian or southerner did not win the presidency in 1816. As Swift relayed, General Armstrong “speaks respectfully of Mr. King, wishes to open himself upon these topics to the Federalists.”

  Armstrong called upon Mr. King in a few days. He was ready to rid the military of his disappointing generals.

  “Wilkinson and Hampton will be brought to trial and crushed,” Armstrong assured King.

  Armstrong’s unauthorized plan for drafting 60,000 men soon failed in Congress. Instead, lawmakers decided to increase the size of bounty offerings, making them five times higher for recruiting volunteers. They also funded war operations at the same level as previous years and authorized borrowing to cover any differences between money coming in and expenditures going out.

  King was pleased with Armstrong’s decision to break with the administration and support someone from New York or the North in the next presidential election. Yet the outcome from Congress wasn’t what he wanted. King wanted peace and an end to the war. Nothing else would do.

  Gossip was the news that most concerned Dolley Madison in January 1814. Needing to quell it, she wrote to former President Jefferson’s daughter, Martha Jefferson Randolph, about the social swirl of the winter of 1814. Up first was flattery. She invited her cousin Sally Coles and one of Martha’s teenage daughters to come for the social season, saying if “you could possibly spare Ellen, it would delight us to receive her—S. Coles (who is a lovely girl) would be her companion, and together they would enjoy a large and enlightened society.”

  Dolley knew that the New Year had started off well. She had heard others say so. Mrs. Seaton, the sister of the Mr. Gales the newspaper editor, wrote of the sparkling New Year’s Day open house at the White House. As usual, foes and friends alike came. Mrs. Seaton explained that “everybody, affected or disaffected was truly regal towards the government, attended to pay Mrs. Madison the compliments of the season.”

  Dolley especially had caught Mrs. Seaton’s eye. “Her majesty’s appearance was truly regal—dressed in a robe of pink satin, trimmed elaborately with ermine, a white velvet and satin turban, with nodding ostrich plumes and a crescent in front, gold chain and clasps around the waist and wrists.”

  Mrs. Madison was clearly back on her game. Her feathers stood high and tall, which made it easier for guests to spot her from a distance. Though the social season was off to a good start, the politics needed help.

  Dolley continued her letter to Jefferson’s daughter by explaining the latest political problem. “The members of Congress seem a good deal occupied at present in dispute about French influence, some of them desire to impeach the president, in order that he may come forward and manifest his innocence of the charge.”

  She then arrived at the real reason for her letter. Fishing for news from Martha, she added, “They have a report among them that your dear father has consented, again to tempt the ocean for the great object of making a peace.”

  Was it true? Was Thomas Jefferson planning to go to Europe to negotiate a peace treaty with the British? Dolley doubted it but needed to send a signal for her husband nonetheless. Mr. Jefferson need not insert himself in the mix of peace. Madison hadn’t given up hope that Mr. Gallatin and the others might still negotiate for peace, even though the Russian mediation was off.

  “Should Mr. G. remain with Mr. Bayard [in Europe] he would still make the third negotiator,” she told Martha.

  If the rumor was true, Dolley’s dabble in politics worked. Martha got the message about her father. Jefferson did not go to Europe.

  President Madison, however, issued good news in February 1814. He resubmitted Albert Gallatin’s name to the Senate as a peace commissioner because the peace process was officially back on track. The president couldn’t have been happier.

  England had offered to negotiate directly with the United States. Eschewing Russia’s mediation offer, one English lord considered the conflict a family quarrel, a matter between brothers. The British government proposed a meeting in Europe, perhaps in Sweden, between a British delegation and an American one. No third party was allowed.

  Because Gallatin was still in Europe and had been absent from America for eight months, it was fruitless for him to continue to hold his cabinet post. Declaring the Treasury secretary position vacant, the Senate confirmed Mr. Gallatin as a peace commissioner. They again approved James Bayard and John Quincy Adams. This time they also named Speaker of the House Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell to the team.

  Now, Madison’s job was to give instructions to his peace team. Crafting diplomatic directions was very much like a dance. He had to give enough form and structure to conform to the rhythm and rules of the dance, while also providing his emissaries with enough flexibility to improvise. Because communication was slow and time-consuming, he must strike just the right tempo.

  His commissioners agreed. At a dinner before he
left for Europe, Clay best expressed his boss’s expectations and strategy in a toast: “The policy which looks to peace as the end of war—and to the war as the means of peace.”

  Not long after this, on February 25, Secretary Armstrong gave Senator King the news or gossip that he most wanted to hear about Madison’s instructions to the commissioners. As King recorded: “Armstrong said that there would be peace; they would give up everything.”

  Giving up everything meant that the reasons for the war—ending England’s abusive trade policies and stopping impressment—would be tabled in favor of peace on any terms. Victory would mean ending the war, not gaining any progress on why the war was fought in the first place.

  The news left King a little puzzled. By giving up the moral reason for the war, going to war in the first place seemed even more senseless. He had to wonder, was Armstrong correct? Was Madison willing to give up everything?

  He also had to wonder whether Madison would give away land to acquire peace. It was one thing to give up the reason for the war and to let go of a desire to gain new territory in Canada. But would Madison give up existing U.S. territory or give away America’s right to fish in the waters between Canada and America? Would he let go of the right to sell goods along the Mississippi River or claims to the land around it? What could the president do to keep this from happening? Many questions remained as Armstrong continued to intrigue with King and plot against the administration he served.

  Cockburn couldn’t believe his eyes as he read the news in his hands. He had a new boss. Gone was Admiral Warren, dismissed from his command by the admiralty in London. Replacing him was sixty-two-year-old Admiral Alexander F. Cochrane, a veteran of the American Revolution on the British side.

  Cockburn was as surprised as he was pleased. Maybe, just maybe, Cochrane would give him what Warren could never fully provide: energy and resolve. Warren lacked passion and authority to prosecute an attack on the Americans with utmost vigor. Cockburn respected enthusiasm, especially Cochrane’s orders: “You are at perfect liberty as soon as you can muster a sufficient force to act with the utmost hostility against the shores of the United States.”