The Burning of the White House

by Jane Hampton Cook

  He added boldly: “I have no hesitation in saying they have not a place on the seaboard which can hold out any length of time against the force I understand you expect.”

  Cockburn was ready for the arrival of 20,000 reinforcements. He had mapped a plan in expectation. From the scouting of his captains, he was confident that they could find good quarters in Benedict, Maryland, near the river’s mouth, and take advantage of the rich countryside for obtaining supplies and horses. He believed these “advantages might certainly now be obtained without meeting with the slightest opposition or requiring any sacrifice from us whatever.”

  The best advantage was Benedict’s location and close proximity to Washington, a mere forty-five miles away, as he understood it. A fine high road connected them. Cockburn’s eye was squarely focused on the seat of government as the first great objective, as he confidently boasted: “I therefore most firmly believe that within forty-eight hours after the arrival in the Patuxent of such a force as you expect, the city of Washington might be possessed without difficulty or opposition of any kind.”

  The admiral believed that possessing a capital city was “always so great a blow to the government of a country as well on account of the resources, as of the documents and records the invading army is almost sure to obtain thereby.”

  Strongly urging the adoption of his plan over the Eastern cities in discussion, he continued, “As the other places you have mentioned will be more likely to fall after the occupation of Washington, than that city would be after their capture.”

  He anticipated questions from Cochrane. How about Annapolis? No. “Annapolis is tolerably well fortified, and is the spot from whence the American government has always felt Washington would be threatened, if at all, it is natural therefore to suppose precautions have been taken to frustrate and impede our advance in that direction.”

  What about Baltimore? “Baltimore is likewise extremely difficult of access to us from sea, we cannot in ships drawing above sixteen feet, approach nearer even to the mouth of the Patapsco [River] than 7 or 8 miles and Baltimore is situated twelve miles up it, having an extensive population mostly armed.”

  On top of that, Fort McHenry guarded Baltimore: “And a fort for its protection about a mile advanced from it on a projecting point where the river is so narrow as to admit of people conversing across it.” Capturing this brick star-shaped fortress, built by French engineers, would require time and land forces.

  In Cockburn’s assessment, “Both Annapolis and Baltimore are to be taken without difficulty from the land side, that is coming down upon them from the Washington road.”

  Yet, Cockburn knew his place and deferred to Cochrane, at least in writing: “And from the moment of your arrival in the Chesapeake, let the plan adopted be what it may.”

  He also recommended landing the main force in the Patuxent River and sending a bomb ship division up the Potomac to confuse the Americans as to their intended target.

  Unknown to Cockburn at that moment, Cochrane wrote a letter the same day, July 17, 1814, from Bermuda. He gave his assessment to his superior, Lord Melville of the admiralty. “Boston, and New York, and I may add Philadelphia—ought not to be attacked by a force under 12,000 men.”

  Cochrane also wrote that Philadelphia could be reached within fifteen miles by ship, if accompanied by a land attack. Like Cockburn, he also concluded that Baltimore would be difficult to approach by water alone and required land forces.

  Cochrane didn’t disagree with Cockburn that Washington should be a target. He just didn’t think it should be the first one. Washington should be taken after seizing a larger city. “After leaving Baltimore, the army ought to march upon Washington, Georgetown, and Alexandria,” Cochrane told the admiralty.

  Success depended on reinforcements. “If troops arrive soon and the point of attack is directed towards Baltimore, I have every prospect of success and Washington will be equally accessible. They may be either destroyed or laid under contribution, as the occasion may require.”

  Cochrane concluded that large ships couldn’t easily reach Annapolis, but that Richmond in Virginia could be easily destroyed. With the right lightweight ships, North Carolina could also be attacked with ease. The next day he issued general orders to all of the British commanders in North America. “You are hereby required and directed to destroy and lay waste such towns and districts upon the coast as you may find assailable.” Specifics would come soon.

  Armstrong was aware of criticism coming his direction. He’d recently received a letter from William Tatham, who had created topographical maps of the region and accompanied General Winder on his visits to different Chesapeake locales.

  “My belief is we cannot defend Washington, because Congress have such a mistaken notion of public economy that they will not allow us the wherewithal!” Tatham had confided in Armstrong. His fury was unmistakable. “Thus, I foresee, if they are in a condition to make a push from the enemy’s fleet, as policy will direct them to do if we are not the peculiar favorites of heaven, the result will be that, we shall fail.”

  Tatham’s most stinging jab was directed squarely at the war secretary: “And popular clamor will shelter the real pitiful cause, by an abuse of John Armstrong, for being less than on to it.”

  Once the United States won a large victory in Canada, Armstrong knew all of this talk of an invasion of Washington would disappear. Regret would take hold. Wasn’t Winder Madison’s choice? Wasn’t it up to the commander in chief to follow through? Worse, wasn’t it Monroe who was whispering in the president’s ear? Armstrong’s hands were washed of responsibility for the Chesapeake. If it was Monroe who was behind it, it was Monroe who should take any fall.

  General Armstrong also received a letter from General Philip Stuart of the Maryland militia. Stuart told of a specific instance of Cockburn visiting a household on one of his raids. “He consoled the suffering individual, whom he had stripped of his property.”

  Stuart believed the moment provided insight that Armstrong should be aware of “by an assurance that he should not visit him again, as the reinforcement so long expected, had arrived and he should proceed on against Washington.”

  Armstrong didn’t doubt Stuart’s sincerity or accuracy of the incident. He just doubted the intent of the British. Yes, British reinforcements would come, but why would they land in the Chesapeake? Canada was much more valuable to them. Wasn’t it?

  If the Americans could take Kingston or Montreal, then they would have every military advantage and a strong position at the peace table. He must prosecute the war with vigor, not defend a region of little military value to the British. New York and Boston, northern cities, were more symbolic and valuable for their large populations.

  If the British sent a large force to Canada, 22,000 or more, and won, wouldn’t they march southward city by city? Armstrong knew that people like Van Ness considered him indifferent. He was myopic, focused on the initial strategy of the war.

  Besides. Washington City was sandwiched between two southern states, including the one Armstrong most loathed, Virginia, the birthplace of three of the first four presidents.

  Thus, under these circumstances, Armstrong’s fate was sealed, while others would try to take out Madison.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Hanging Madison

  The time had come to hang James Madison. Yet, an ordinary noose of rope wouldn’t do. Something else—something more feminine—was in order.

  “One day a lady drove up to the President’s House, loosened her long beautiful hair and standing up in her carriage, shouted that she’d be happy to let someone cut it off and hang the president,” Dolley’s niece later reflected of the most unusual war protestor that Washington City had yet seen.

  Admiral Cockburn, it seems, was not the only one who longed to witness the president’s execution. James Madison’s political foes could be nearly as vicious.

  “We have been in a state of perturbation here, for a long time—The depredations of the
enemy approaching within 20 miles of the city,” Dolley confessed to Hannah Nicholson Gallatin, wife of Albert Gallatin, on July 28, 1814, of her concerns over threats against James. Not having any new reports from Europe, she conveyed her worry about Washington City to her friend.

  Perhaps she had in mind the woman with the long hair who’d threatened James’s life when she added, “And the disaffected, making incessant difficulties for the government.”

  Even her sunny side saw a cloud over the nation’s capital. “Such a place as this has become I can not describe it.”

  Then she made a startling confession, especially for the wife of the former congressman who had helped secure the Potomac River as the site of the nation’s seat of government.

  “I wish (for my own part) we were at Philadelphia. The people here, do not deserve that I should prefer it.”

  Knowing that her desire to leave Washington City might surprise Hannah, Dolley shared some of the worst rumors, the ones most threatening to her and her husband: “Among other exclamations and threats they say if Mr. M. attempts to move from this house, in case of an attack, they will stop him and that he shall fall with it.”

  Courage isn’t the absence of fear, it’s the presence of determination in spite of the unknown. Dolley put it this way: “I am not the least alarmed at these things, but entirely disgusted, and determined to stay with him.”

  Mindful of her need to be a leader and defuse others’ fearmongering, she also revealed her confidence in the military, writing that “our preparations for defense by some means or other, is constantly retarded but the small force the British have on the Bay will never venture nearer than at present 23 miles.”

  In that letter to Hannah, she also had a job to do on behalf of James. She had to reprimand her friend for stirring up alarm in New York. “I desired Mr. Astor [the banker] to tell you the strange story they made, about your having received a letter from Mr. G. full of alarming information, such, as his having no prospect of making peace and urging you for your personal safety to quit New York and reside in Philadelphia.”

  Dolley was worried that if Hannah kept talking, Gallatin’s advice for her to evacuate would launch a panic in Washington as well as New York. “It had a distressing effect on our loan and threw many into consternation for awhile but we were able to contradict and soften consequences.”

  How did Dolley soften the consequences? Perhaps she’d called on several friends, which was part of her habits, and calmed their nerves over a cup of afternoon tea. Maybe she told them of her husband’s efforts to call up 10,000 militiamen to protect the district. Whatever she said or did, she took a leadership role among women on behalf of her husband. The ladies must show a brave front, no matter what happened.

  The president was hot at General Armstrong. As Madison had recently discovered, perhaps from the whispers of Monroe, the war secretary had failed to communicate with him on many occasions even though the law required the president’s approval for specific military decisions, especially major ones.

  While Madison was at Montpelier in May 1814, Armstrong had concealed information from him. He’d written unauthorized dispatches to urge General Harrison—one of America’s greatest war heroes—to retire. He’d also made it look like the president was blocking a promotion for General Andrew Jackson, when, in fact, Armstrong was the one blocking it. Despite Madison’s instructions, the commanding officers were sending all of their correspondence to Armstrong, and not to Madison. Without consultation, Armstrong had also reorganized army regiments, which by law was the president’s responsibility.

  Realizing that he was learning more about Armstrong’s activities and decisions from newspapers and his cabinet members than from Armstrong himself, Madison decided to take action. As if reprimanding a wayward student, he took on the role of schoolmaster yet again and sent Armstrong another memorandum on August 13, 1814.

  It began, “I find that I owe it to my own responsibility as well as to other considerations, to make some remarks on the relations in which the head of the department stands to the president, and to lay down some rules for conducting the business of the department.”

  First he outlined the offenses. Armstrong had consolidated regiments “without the knowledge or sanction of the president.” This infuriated him because it was “subsequently made known to him otherwise than through the publication of the act in the newspapers.” No leader appreciates being embarrassed in this way, especially a president.

  By issuing several new rules to follow, Madison was as stern as he was methodical. The war secretary was to communicate to him on all orders relating to dismissing and transferring officers, consolidating corps, requisitioning militia, instructing officers about military operations, and changing the boundaries of military districts.

  He wasn’t done. Spymaster was part of the president’s job. “All letters giving military intelligence or containing other matters intended or proper for the knowledge of the president will of course be immediately communicated to him.”

  Madison had been too trusting for too long. He’d deferred to Armstrong’s judgment too often. While the war secretary was blinded by the glory that victory in Canada would bring, the president had failed to see the consequences of Armstrong’s contemptuous attitude. He was trying to take charge of his rebellious subordinate, but would it be enough to make a difference before it was too late?

  The First Amendment right to free speech is a cherished principle in our country, but it can also create dilemmas in controversial situations. For example, what if America’s enemies twisted American citizens’ opposition to a war as justification to oppose the U.S. government? This is precisely what happened during the War of 1812.

  Senator King was a prime example of someone who opposed the war and President Madison at every chance he got. The British Parliament used the sentiments of American Federalists like King to its advantage by showing people in England that America wasn’t united and, thus, that the war should continue.

  In August 1814, Senator King was hotter than the summer sun beaming on his Long Island estate. He had just read reports from Europe about Albert Gallatin’s letters, which accused the British government of using American Federalists’ opposition to the war as justification to the English people for continuing the war instead of making peace.

  King was so angry that he penned his thoughts as robustly as if preparing a rebuttal for a case before the Supreme Court. The question was a tricky one for a government based on representation, not royalty.

  “The charge that opposition encourages the enemy and injures the cause, has at all times been made as an excuse for the failure and defeat of a weak administration,” King wrote.

  Albert Gallatin had complained in a letter that the English people didn’t have all of the facts. They’d falsely believed that Madison was on Napoleon’s side. The people in England had only been given one side of the story. Some government-run newspapers served as propaganda. “That such opinions should be almost universally entertained here by the great body of the people is not at all astonishing,” Gallatin had fumed.

  The British government had help from reliable sources: Federalists like Rufus King. Gallatin explained: “To produce such an effect, and thereby render the American war popular, the ministerial papers have had nothing more to do than to transcribe American Federal speeches and newspapers.”

  King responded to Gallatin’s assertions by defending his right to speak against Madison’s policies: “If war suppresses opposition, the public liberties could not endure.”

  He was angry and explained that: “Neither the administration, nor its supporters will doubt, what no one can do, that the friends of peace, including the Federalists . . . have as much honor and integrity and as deep a stake in the preservation of the liberties and just rights of their country, as any other description of citizens.”

  King believed that those who “have no confidence in the measures or the ability of the present weak and dangerous administration
” were just as willing to shed blood for their country as those who supported Madison’s war.

  Gallatin believed that the Federalists had been too publicly vocal in their opposition. He thought their views had hurt America as a whole. If the Federalists “have not brought a majority of the American people to their side, they have at least fully succeeded here [in England], and had no difficulty in convincing all [in England] . . . that we had no cause of complaint, and acted only as allies of Bonaparte.”

  In contrast, King believed that Madison’s preference for France had led to war with England. He concluded that embargos and trade restrictions had done little to inflict harm against the enemy and more to ruin America’s prosperity.

  King believed the conquest of Canada had backfired and preferred a different strategy, one focused on defending America’s shores and waters. “If you prosecute the war. . . . You must abandon the project of free conquest, and preparing to defend your frontiers, cast your whole strength upon the ocean: here, if anywhere you will make your power felt.”

  Gallatin believed the Federalists were plotting to secede from the Union. He wrote, “A belief is said to be entertained that a continuance of the war would produce a separation of the Union, and perhaps a return of the New England States to the mother-country.”

  Though King opposed secession, many Federalists supported it. The contrasting views of Gallatin and King show the challenges that this new republic faced during war. For the first time, Americans wrestled with the dilemma of supporting free speech, which included opposition to the war, in the context of needing to show a united front against an enemy. This was the first generation to grapple with such questions of liberty. It was also the first to confront a terrorizing enemy on U.S. shores.