The Burning of the White House

by Jane Hampton Cook

  Finally, the British would launch an attack on the U.S. capital city, and Cockburn would help lead it. No matter that he was an admiral and that this was a land assault, he had what he wanted. Sure, he would defer to Ross, who had top authority while on land. But Cockburn secretly knew that he had Ross in the palm of his hand.

  Leaving a company at Upper Marlborough, the rest broke camp “and bivouacked before dark about five miles nearer Washington.”

  They were heading toward a town called Bladensburg, a village on the left bank of the Potomac’s Eastern Branch in Maryland. This hamlet was seven miles from the White House. Filled with so much delight, Cockburn could almost taste one of Dolley Madison’s cakes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  Spyglasses

  “We feel assured that the number and bravery of our men will afford complete protection of the city,” wrote Joseph Gales.

  A spirit of optimism guided Gales as he set the type on the August 24 edition of the National Intelligencer. His confidence was in the patriotism of the men who had arrived from Baltimore and camped near Bladensburg.

  He noted that the influx of the men at Bladensburg was separate from General Winder’s troops. “The Baltimore troops, about 2500, completely equipped, have arrived in our vicinity, and last night 700 men reached the city from Virginia. These, and reinforcements every moment expected, added to our other forces, will secure the safety of the metropolis.”

  Soon the destination of the British would be clear, as Gales shared with his readers. “In a few hours we believe the enemy’s object will be developed and the issue perhaps determined.”

  What he didn’t anticipate was just how much his business would soon be in the line of fire.

  Around sunrise on August 24, 1814, President Madison, who had returned to the White House the night before, received a pressing message addressed to Secretary Armstrong from General Winder. Madison opened it and, seeing the message’s urgency, immediately sent it to Armstrong’s residence a few blocks away.

  Because Winder had requested a meeting and speedy counsel, Madison quickly dressed and left the White House. Accompanied by a free African, James Smith, the president rushed on horseback to Winder’s current camp at the Navy Yard along the Potomac River’s eastern branch.

  As one of Washington City’s original residents, Madison knew the history of the Navy Yard first hand. In 1799, the government designated Washington City to become one of six new shipbuilding sites in the United States. The federal government established the yard along 7th, 8th, 9th, and M streets.

  Soon it became a robust manufacturing site. The Navy Yard featured a commandant’s house, brick guard buildings, wooden wharves, a canal, and timber sheds. Commandant Thomas Tingey often purchased barrels of whisky for breaks of refreshments. Second only to such grog for construction workers was the use of derrick cranes, the latest in building technology employed in London but not in the United States until the creation of the Washington Navy Yard. Workers used derrick cranes soon to erect the tall masts on seventy-four-gun ships.

  As Madison well knew, what stood out the most at the Navy Yard was its gate, a work of art and architecture. No one who visited the site could miss this distinguished double gate, which included northern and southern ends separated by forty feet, covered by a hipped roof, and connected by double rows of columns. Benjamin Latrobe designed the gate, which was completed in 1806.

  The north end featured two columns topped by a sculpture featuring an eagle holding an anchor in his talon as well as a Greek-style frieze. The south end was a Greek arch that rose from ground level. Once again, Latrobe drew on Greek symbolism for the new republic.

  Madison was well aware of Latrobe’s gate critics. William Thornton, the capitol’s original architect and a rival to Latrobe, called it a “monument to bad taste and design” and called the eagle “more like a fat goose.” He said the anchors were “fitter for a cock boat than a gun boat.” He also made a prediction that “not until the extinction of time will such an arch ever be made again.” Thornton was wrong. Latrobe had started a trend that became known as Greek Revival style architecture. His was the first design in the United States in that style. Hence, even a manufacturing site sought to symbolize, through its architecture, the ideals of the United States.

  Madison’s cabinet needed all the inspiration they could get that day from the Navy Yard’s gate. Soon Monroe, Navy Secretary Jones, and Attorney General Rush arrived at their meeting point. Debating what to do, they had been deliberating for an hour when Treasury Secretary Campbell, who was ill, joined them. Conspicuously missing was Armstrong. What could be keeping him? They all suspected the answer. Indifference.

  By 10 a.m. a messenger arrived with news. The British were coming, advancing to Bladensburg. With great urgency, Winder immediately left for Bladensburg and ordered his troops, some of whom were still straggling in from their nearby homes, to follow him.

  About this time, Secretary Armstrong arrived. Unhappy with his tardiness, Madison didn’t hide his displeasure, as he later reflected. “The latter [Armstrong] had been impatiently expected, and surprise at his delay manifested.”

  Madison and his cabinet told Armstrong of the enemy’s march to Bladensburg. The president described the scene matter-of-factly. “He was asked whether he had any arrangement or advice to offer in the emergency. He said he had not; adding, that as the battle would be between militia and regular troops, the former would be beaten.”

  What should they do? To Madison there was no other choice for him and his cabinet. They must all go to Bladensburg and by their presence show support for the fighting men. As they left the building to mount their horses, Secretary Campbell pulled Madison aside. Because Campbell resided in the same boardinghouse as Armstrong, he had had several opportunities to observe the war secretary’s behavior and demeanor. He was greatly concerned about Armstrong’s aloofness. Madison later wrote that Campbell “was grieved to see the great reserve of the secretary of war . . . who was taking no part on so critical an occasion.”

  Campbell identified Armstrong’s reserve as rooted in the selection of General Winder to corral the troops. He recommended that the president encourage Armstrong to offer his military knowledge and experience to the crisis at hand as a way to engage the indifferent and dour war secretary.

  Madison, while keeping his outward demeanor cool, was inwardly hot. He couldn’t believe that Armstrong had mistaken his duties, especially after he had put them in writing just weeks earlier in that August 13 memo. “I could scarcely conceive it possible that General Armstrong could have so misconstrued his functions and duty as secretary of war.”

  With urgency guiding him as much as anger, Madison approached Armstrong and expressed his concern and surprise at his reserve over the situation at Bladensburg. “I hoped he had not construed the paper of instructions given him some time before, so as to restrain him in any respect from the exercise of functions belonging to his office.”

  Armstrong replied that he had no such construction from those paper instructions. Pressing his point with teacher-like orders, Madison said, “At such a juncture it was to be expected that he should omit nothing within the proper agency of secretary of war towards the public defense.”

  He suggested that Armstrong ride ahead to join Winder and offer him advice. Agreeing, the war secretary mounted his horse and rode toward Winder on the road to Bladensburg from Washington.

  Ill and unable to go to the battlefield, Campbell handed Madison his dueling pistols and holder. The president at first resisted and then, recognizing the practicality and wisdom of the gesture, accepted them. Madison and Rush, along with Jim, decided to ride over to the marine barracks before heading to Bladensburg.

  When Madison arrived at the barracks, he discovered Commodore Barney, who, unlike Madison, was unable to conceal his anger. Chafing and cursing at being relegated to doing something a lower-ranking corporal could do, Barney explained his dilemma. Instead of going to Bladensburg to fig
ht, he had been ordered to stay put and blow up a bridge.

  Recognizing that Barney could be more useful in battle than staying behind, the president made an immediate decision. Overruling the ridiculous orders, he ordered the patriot and his flotilla men to the battlefield.

  Then the president and his entourage headed to Bladensburg.

  With a population of fewer than 200 according to the 1810 census, Bladensburg, Maryland, was not known for much before 1814, except for the infamous dueling grounds on the town’s western edge along the road to Washington. Another road nearby on the western side was the path to Georgetown. Both roads converged at a wooden bridge, which spanned a few yards over a narrow segment of the Anacostia, the eastern branch of the Potomac River. The village of Bladensburg was immediately to the east of the bridge.

  Blazing blood heat blanketed Bladensburg the morning of August 24. One British officer described it this way: “The sun beat on us in full force; the dust, without a breath of air to disperse it, occasioned the greatest inconvenience both to eyes and respiration. Never did I suffer more from heat and fatigue.”

  The temperature was so oppressive that Ross ordered his men to stop and refresh themselves at a creek halfway to Bladensburg. The break wasn’t quite enough. A few of them, including one of Ross’s aides, collapsed from sun stroke before they arrived near noon on the east side of Bladensburg.

  The 85th Regiment led the way, followed by the 44th and 4th infantry plus Cockburn’s marines. Cockburn and Ross rode on horseback and concealed their position behind the redbrick houses dotting the streets of Bladensburg. Both pulled out their spyglasses and surveyed the Americans across the creek. What they saw was far more impressive than they had expected. The ground west of the bridge was a hill dotted with fences and bushes. Lines of Americans filled the terrain.

  “On reaching which the place, with the advanced brigade, the enemy was discovered drawn up in force on a rising ground beyond the town,” Cockburn described of the American position.

  They saw General Stansbury’s brigade of 1,400, who had marched from Baltimore. Stansbury had arranged his men in arc-shaped lines about a quarter of a mile west of the town’s bridge. Their defenses featured cannons, including two eighteen-pounders. Attached to Stansbury’s brigade were Colonel Pinckney’s riflemen, who had taken positions among bushes. Joining them were the Baltimore 5th, a unit of 800, and another battalion of 800 from Annapolis.

  Though their spyglasses gave them a good view, what Ross and Cockburn couldn’t yet see was just how disorganized the Americans were behind those arc-shaped lines. They didn’t know that General Winder had given his men an instruction. When they retreated, they were to use the road to Georgetown, not Washington. The mistake was on the word when, not if.

  Francis Scott Key accompanied General Smith to Bladensburg. They were part of the advance group of militias, the rest of whom had gone back to Washington the night before and were now hurrying to the battlefield under the orders of General Winder.

  Smith and Key discussed where to form the militia. Ever the advocate, Key offered to represent General Smith to the commanding general. When General Winder arrived on the road near noon, Key approached him and offered Smith’s opinion that “several troops coming from the city could be most advantageously posted on the right and left of the road near that point.”

  But Winder lacked a battle plan. Though he had spent the past two months surveying the different locales within the tenth military district of Washington, he had failed to war game or draft contingency plans. He didn’t have any preplanned instructions of how to form battle lines if the British came to Bladensburg. Now all was haste with no time to waste.

  Winder told Key that he would defer to Smith’s judgment on where to locate the militia. But the disorganization was so great and communication in such disarray that General Stansbury on the front line didn’t even know that Smith’s militia had formed lines behind him near the road to Washington.

  Monroe also weighed in on the arrangements. He relocated Sterrett’s regiment, the Baltimore 5th, to an orchard, which was nearly a quarter of a mile from where the regiment originally formed. At the orchard they were too far away to cover the lines more exposed to the enemy. Colonel Beall’s 800 men from Annapolis also arrived so hastily that they were unable to identify a strategic position for aiding the main line.

  Despite his frailties and sickly tendencies, James Madison was a master horseman. On the road to Bladensburg, he quickly recognized that his horse was going lame. He had no choice but to dismount while someone brought him another horse. The delay didn’t cost them much time.

  Soon Madison, Jim, and Rush arrived on the western side of Bladensburg. Their immediate goal was to find General Winder. Cheers rang out as his party rode past the troops and militia that had formed their lines and taken their positions on the hill.

  What Madison didn’t realize at that moment was the location of the British Army and Navy. He began riding toward the town’s bridge with an intention to cross it. On the other side, General Ross and his men were making plans and forming their lines.

  “Mr. Madison! The enemy are now in Bladensburg,” an observant American sentry shouted and watched in horror as the president sped toward the bridge with an obvious determination to cross.

  Stunned, Madison stopped his horse. Then he called out, repeating the words to his party with Paul Revere–like urgency. “The British are now in Bladensburg. The British are now in Bladensburg.” And with that, this skilled horseman turned his horse around and headed for the hill with Rush and Jim following him.

  Finding both General Winder and General Armstrong, Madison quickly discovered that the secretary of war hadn’t followed his command of offering advice to Winder. Hot from the blatant disobedience and sweating from the heat, Madison ordered Armstrong to immediately advise Winder. The president watched as Armstrong approached Winder.

  Before he could overhear their conversation as he intended, however, his horse became unruly. By the time he had soothed the animal, he missed listening to Armstrong’s and Winder’s conversation. Instead, Madison approached Armstrong and asked if he had offered any suggestions to improve the military arrangements on the field.

  “He said that he had not; that from his view of them they appeared to be as good as circumstances admitted.”

  If Madison’s unruly horse was any indication, the circumstances were chaotic at best.

  One way that Madison had shown his love for Dolley when they were apart from one another in the past was to indulge her with tidbits of the social world. For example, while she was in Philadelphia recovering from her knee problem in 1805, he wrote to her, “I have no news for you; unless you wish to know . . . that the Tunisian Ambassador is expected soon from Norfolk.”

  Sometimes he was not as successful, as when he wrote, “I can give you no city news. The wedding of Mr. Simmons’ has produced a round of parties; but I have not attended one of them.”

  Why didn’t he go? Though business matters provided an excuse, he likely didn’t want to attend without Dolley. She was everything to him. A reserved, introverted man, he was married to the most popular extrovert in town. Life was certainly not the same without his wife, especially when he met a memorable foreign visitor.

  “We are to have as a guest an ambassador from Tunis who is on board one of the frigates arrived from the Mediterranean,” he once wrote.

  The North African diplomat’s name was Sidi Suleiman Melli Melli. He most likely gave Madison a Tunisian saber as a gift. In the seventh century, the Bedouin, a nomadic desert tribe of Arabia, migrated to North Africa. Bedouin women in Tunisia performed sword dances at weddings. The ability to balance the sword symbolized carrying their husband’s honor. Likewise, Middle Eastern men often danced with swords to show strength and military power. If Melli Melli gave Madison a sword or saber, he understandably might have conveyed some of its symbolic meaning within his culture.

  When Dolley first heard in 1813 that Cock
burn wanted to take his bow in her drawing room, she vowed to protect herself with the Tunisian saber. That day had come. Staying at the White House was a way to protect her husband’s honor, as well as the nation’s symbolic architectural masterpieces. Now the possibility of Cockburn visiting grew with each passing minute.

  About the time Madison arrived in Bladensburg on August 24, Dolley’s letter continued with a timestamp for her sister. She shared her increasing concerns about James.

  “Wednesday morning, twelve o’clock. Since sunrise I have been turning my spyglass in every direction and watching with unwearied anxiety, hoping to discern the approach of my dear husband and his friends.”

  Directing her glass through the upper windows of the White House had given her expansive views of the small city and the sprawling lawns. She saw no sign of James’s return. What she did see disturbed her.

  “But, 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!”

  Even the mayor of Washington City had called on her twice. Though he asked her to leave the White House, and while even the men guarding her home had left, she refused to abandon her post. Why leave when she had the spirit of the Tunisian saber and her husband’s honor to inspire her?

  There was one thing that she needed to do, however. After all it was Wednesday, the day of the week frequently devoted to her weekly open-house parties. The president and his officers were sure to be hungry once they returned victorious from the battlefield. It was time to fire up the spits.

  To Cockburn’s dismay, Ross began to hesitate after seeing the lines of Americans because he couldn’t determine the depth of the American front.

  “On the opposite side of the river,” Ross reported, “the enemy were posted on very commanding heights. Artillery covered the bridge over which the British army had to pass.”