The Burning of the White House

by Jane Hampton Cook

  “The smoldering fires of the Capitol were spices of the phoenix bed, from which arose offspring more vigorous, beautiful and long lived,” he wrote, tapping the image of a phoenix to explain this phenomenon.

  A phoenix is a mythological bird that lived for hundreds of years before dying on a funeral pyre. After being dusted with embalming spices and ignited by the sun, the red- and gold-feathered bird resembling an eagle rose from its ashes with renewed vigor to live another epoch.

  Literature is rife with phoenix symbols and references. “And glory, like the phoenix ’midst her fires, exhales her odors, blazes, and expires,” wrote English poet Lord Byron in 1809. Thomas Watson proclaimed in a sonnet in 1582: “O golden bird and phoenix of our age.” Theologian John Wesley wrote in 1775: “He seems to think himself a mere phoenix.” Early Christians used the story of the phoenix as a culturally understandable image to help Romans accept the resurrection of Christ.

  Many in America would soon rise—not just one, not two, but a phoenix multitude.

  Madison was the first to rise up with renewed vigor. He started by doing something he should have done months earlier. On August 29 the president mounted a horse and rode with all due speed to the living quarters of General John Armstrong. This weak-looking president arrived with an unmistakably robust spirit. They held a frank face-to-face conversation “on the state of things in the district, then under apprehensions of an immediate visit from the force of the enemy at Alexandria.”

  When the British arrived on ships at Alexandria, the people agreed to capitulate in exchange for a promise that the enemy wouldn’t burn their houses. The result was mostly a ravenous display of looting. The British wiped out warehouses of supplies and other goods. With Alexandria under the enemy’s mercy, the residents of Washington City rightfully feared a return visit.

  After discussing these threats, Madison got right to the point with Armstrong: the fallout over the destruction of Washington City. “I observed to him that he could not be unaware of the great excitement in the district produced by the unfortunate event which had taken place in the city,” Madison wrote of the conversation.

  Indeed. Madison then explained that the excitement was now personal. “That violent prejudices were known to exist against the administration, as having failed in its duty to protect it [the city], particularly against me and himself as head of the war department.”

  Threats of personal violence toward the president were strong, but not nearly as strong as the threats coming from the troops against the war secretary. Madison had just “received a message from the commanding general of the militia informing me that every officer would tear off his epaulettes if General Armstrong was to have anything to do with them.”

  The president noted that Mr. Monroe was an acceptable alternative and had filled in for Armstrong during his previous absences from Washington City, including when Armstrong went to Canada in the fall of 1813.

  Madison wanted to know Armstrong’s thinking on his future, of “what was best to be done. Any convulsion at so critical a moment could not but have the worst consequences.”

  Armstrong responded that he was “aware of the excitement against him; that it was altogether artificial, and that he knew the sources of it . . . that the excitement was founded on the most palpable falsehoods.”

  Yet, the disgraced war secretary knew he could no longer stay in Washington and was willing to resign.

  Concerned with the timing and wanting to give Armstrong an honorable exit instead of strong boot, Madison suggested “that a temporary retirement . . . was on the whole less objectionable, and would avoid the existing embarrassment.”

  The war secretary wasn’t finished, however. Believing the charges against him were groundless, Armstrong defended himself. He claimed that “in relation to the defense of the city . . . there had been no deficiency on his part.”

  Madison agreed that some of the specific charges against Armstrong were unfounded. Yes, Armstrong had issued orders to Winder and others. The problem was the secretary’s aloofness. His attitude indicated that “he had not taken a sufficient interest in the defense of the city, nor promoted the measures for it.”

  The president also rebuked Armstrong by agreeing with the war secretary’s critics: “I could not in candour say that all that ought to have been done had been done and in proper time.”

  Once again Armstrong defended himself, arguing “that he had omitted no preparations or steps whatever for the safety of the place which had been enjoined on him.”

  Madison disagreed strongly: “That it was the duty of the secretary of war not only to execute plans, or orders committed to him, but to devise and propose such as would in his opinion be necessary and proper; that it was an obvious and essential part of his charge.”

  The president was puzzled, too, because he knew from personal experience that Armstrong had not only responded to military suggestions for other war fronts, such as Canada, but had also frequently initiated and recommended his own. In fact, he’d presented so many plans to his generals that he’d sometimes confused them on what the final plan was.

  Madison was frank, saying that he “had never appeared to enter into a just view either of the danger to the city . . . or of the consequences of its falling into the hands of the enemy.”

  The president accused Armstrong of never proposing or suggesting “a single precaution or arrangement for its safety, everything done on that subject having been brought forward by myself.” In fact, their differences seemed to lead Armstrong to make minimal arrangements. Not even the precautions discussed in cabinet meetings had been fully implemented, especially acquiring weapons.

  Madison took no pleasure in speaking this way, but the urgency of the situation drove him to it. As he later wrote, “I had selected him for the office he filled from a respect to his talents, and a confidence that he would exert them for the public good; that I had always treated him with friendliness and confidence.”

  Aware that his presidency would end in two years, Madison proclaimed that his greatest desire now was “leaving my country in a state of peace and prosperity.” His second wish was to preserve harmony among his cabinet.

  Armstrong agreed that he would leave town the next morning and return to his family in New York, where he could think about his future. The war secretary didn’t need that long. By the time he reached Baltimore, he had made his decision and sent Madison his resignation letter. The president accepted it.

  Suddenly the president who had once been too deferential to his wayward cabinet member was now the most decisive man in Washington.

  At the same time that Madison and Armstrong held their frank conversation, the British force reached Benedict, Maryland, and boarded their ships. There, Admiral Cochrane contemplated their next move. The question was simple: Which American city should they attack next?

  The answer soon became a secret, hidden even from Cockburn.

  Commodore John Rodgers took up his pen at ten p.m. the night of August 29, 1814. With the news of Washington weighing on him like a dozen anchors, he wrote a letter from his post in Baltimore to Navy Secretary Jones, who had returned to Washington.

  It began, “I have received your letters of yesterday’s date, and would to God it had been in my power to have reached Washington in time to have aided in its protection.” This heavy-hearted man lifted his spirits by looking at the positive and observing the spices of the phoenix. “The people now begin to show something like a patriotic spirit: they are fortifying the town by all the means in their power, and those who direct their exertions, are pledged to me to defend the place to the last extremity, otherwise I should have been at Washington before this could reach you.”

  Not to be outdone, he was willing to send a detachment of his men to Washington “more with a view to guard the executive, than anything else.” Why? A seasoned military man, he knew that looting and other uncivilized acts often tormented a town after it had been sacked.

  But Rodgers�
�s heart was heavier for his native state. This was understandable because his mother’s home had been partially burned by Cockburn’s men at Havre de Grace. He, along with General Samuel Smith and General Armistead, knew that Baltimore was a desired prey of the British lion.

  The buzz in Baltimore had whipped up a frenzy of fear. “It is believed here that, after a short pause, the enemy will attack this place.” If the British took Baltimore, they could easily find success in Philadelphia, which was up the road.

  As such, Rodgers preferred to stay in Baltimore to prepare defenses: “Consequently I could wish to remain, until the place is better fortified and there is more certainty of my being able to render essential service elsewhere at any rate.”

  But always a patriot, he offered his brawn and brain anywhere Jones wanted him to go. “I shall be ready to march with all my strength at a moment, wherever you may think our services can be of more benefit, for believe me, that I would cheerfully spill the last drop of my blood to revenge my injured country.”

  Rodgers couldn’t let the British win. He would do whatever it took and go wherever Jones ordered. “I repeat again, that I am ready at a moment’s warning, to direct my course to any other point, where you may deem our services of more importance.”

  He wasn’t the only one determined to go home.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  Phoenix Multitude

  With his property now a pile of bricks, his typeset stolen, and his collection of international newspapers burned, what was Joseph Gales to do?

  He tapped his resourcefulness. Though a southerner by adoption, Gales turned to Yankee ingenuity. Gales borrowed a set of type from another source. Sure, it wasn’t enough to print a two-to-three-page newspaper each day, but it was a start, enough for one page a day. He began publishing the National Intelligencer again on August 30, six days after the destruction of his business by Admiral Cockburn.

  He explained his paper’s absence. “After an intermission of several days owing to the unfortunate events hereinafter noticed, we have it in our power to issue a paper in the present reduced form, which we hope in a day or two to change to its usual shape and condition.”

  He published copies of letters from General Winder chronicling the events of the past few days and notices about the president’s actions. By doing so, Joseph Gales become one of the first in Washington to show a patriotic, phoenix-like spirit. He wasn’t going to let the British destroy freedom of speech or press—the reasons his family had come to America in the first place.

  Another phoenix to rise from the ashes of Washington lived in neighboring Georgetown. The news that Richard West brought Francis Scott Key, on September 1, 1814, was distressing.

  West lived in Upper Marlborough, where the British force had camped on its march to Bladensburg. His friend and neighbor Dr. William Beanes had allowed Ross and Cockburn to use his house as their headquarters. In exchange for preserving his home, Beanes, a noncombatant, pledged to be peaceful.

  When the British army marched back to Marlborough en route to their ships after destroying Washington, several of them became disorderly. Fearing theft and arson, Beanes arrested a straggler. Furious that Beanes had broken their agreement, Ross ordered him arrested. Under the cover of night and without allowing him to change from his bedclothes into proper attire, British soldiers seized Beanes from his home.

  West had recently taken a letter from Maryland’s governor on Beanes’s behalf to British headquarters. Ross was unbending. Realizing that he needed an attorney’s skill for advocacy, West then rushed to Georgetown to see Key, his brother-in-law.

  What should they do? General John Mason, who was responsible for prisoner-of-war exchanges, was aware of Beanes’s plight, as was Secretary Monroe. Beanes needed an advocate, one skilled in fighting for others using the weapons of logic, persuasion, and diplomacy.

  Perhaps Georgetown’s Federal Republican newspaper rested on a table that day as West and Key talked in Key’s Federal-style multistory house. That morning, editors for the Federal Republican gave their readers a surprise. Instead of bashing Madison and his war as they’d done numerous times—this same newspaper in Baltimore was so against the war that its editorials had played a role in the Baltimore riots that broke out after the war started—the editors printed an editorial called “Peace.”

  Though still desiring a quick end to the war, they acknowledged that Americans now faced a new plight. Previous objections to the war and party preferences needed to be set aside. “The country must be defended, the invaders must be repelled. Infinite distress and misery, still deeper disgrace, will befall us, if the force sent to our shores, is not overpowered.”

  Like the Federal Republican, Key wasn’t pro-war. He had recently written his mother and bemoaned the fact that the war wasn’t going well publicly and was also hitting him personally in the pocketbook. “The expenses of living here are enormous and the practice much lessened,” he explained to his mother.

  He had been thinking of joining his parents, who farmed and sold wool, in rural Maryland. “I really think I shall try to purchase a small flock of sheep in the spring, and if the war last on, I shall be obliged to leave this. I can come up to Pipe Creek and turn shepherd,” he’d suggested.

  For the time being, however, he would remain a lawyer, not a herder: “I have not determined upon anything but to stay here and mind my business as long as I can.”

  With this mindset, he had stayed in Georgetown throughout 1814. Now, after the fall of Washington, what good was his law practice or farming if the British continued to burn and pillage American cities? Maybe he could do something by finding a way to help Dr. Beanes.

  As the Federal Republican newspaper had printed that day, the time had come to take up the mantle of the American Revolution. “It is absolutely necessary, unless the country is to be abandoned by the people . . . that every man should awake, arouse, and prepare for action,” the editors wrote.

  Sorting out what led to the burning of Washington could come later. Now was the time for action.

  In case any of their readers were shocked at their sudden change, the Federal Republican editors reassured them of their principles. Political discussion and a free exchange of ideas and opinions were essential rights. Those were now at stake as long as the British occupied the East Coast in any form. They’d received, from a reliable source, news that Admiral Cockburn and other officers were planning to attack again.

  “The admiral has said distinctly ‘we must prepare for another severe struggle’ not meaning a single battle, but a series of hard contested fights. He says, that every assailable point on our sea coast will share the fate of Washington, and that there is no other place which will experience the same moderation and clemency.”

  Instead of capitulating like Alexandria, each sea coast city needed to prepare to defend its citizens. It was time to “omit no sacrifice, spare no expense, to save the country. It is seriously threatened, and can only be saved by extraordinary exertions, such as our fathers made before us.”

  The editors’ words reflected West’s and Key’s attitudes and concerns. “No man who is mindful of what he owes his country and his own character, can advocate submission, where resistance is practicable. The fight will now be for our country, not for a party.”

  Key and West came up with a plan. Key would answer the call of his country. He wouldn’t directly take up arms, but would hold a flag of truce to advocate for Dr. Beanes. He knew where to start. Fortunately, the man he most needed to talk to was now living with one of Key’s friends, former Congressman Cutts.

  That same day, September 1, 1814, Madison’s pen continued to flow with vigor. He issued a proclamation to the American people. “Whereas the enemy by a sudden incursion have succeeded in invading the capital of the nation,” he began, noting the lack of militia to defend it, “they wantonly destroyed the public edifices . . . some of these edifices being also costly monuments of taste and of the arts, and others depositories of the publi
c archives.”

  He observed that all nations create memorials and monuments of historic value that should be respected. Madison let the American people know that Fort Washington, which guarded Alexandria, had been destroyed. His administration had also received a letter from Admiral Cochrane that he’d written before the burning but Monroe didn’t receive until afterward.

  “Whereas it now appears by a direct communication from the British commander . . . to be his avowed purpose to employ the force . . . ‘in destroying and laying waste such towns and districts upon the coast as may be found assailable,’” he continued, observing that the British claimed they burned Washington in retaliation for alleged destruction in Upper Canada by the U.S. Army. To Madison, this was merely a pretense, an excuse.

  Perhaps more than anything, Madison was angry that the British had violated “principles of humanity and the rules of civilized warfare” during a crucial time, “at the very moment of negotiations for peace, invited by the enemy himself.” The president was determined more than ever “to chastise and expel the invader.”

  Showing leadership, Madison continued by “exhorting all the good people thereof to unite their hearts and hands in giving effect to the ample means possessed for that purpose.” He asked all civil and military members to execute their duties and “be vigilant and alert in providing for the defense.”

  He appealed to Americans’ patriotic devotion, so that “none will forget what they owe to themselves, what they owe to their country and the high destinies which await it.”

  He also reminded them of “the glory acquired by their fathers in establishing the independence which is now to be maintained by their sons with the augmented strength and resources with which time and Heaven had blessed them.”