Burning of Washington (1814): When British Troops Torched DC

The burning of Washington took place on 24–25 August 1814, during the War of 1812, when a British force captured the young American capital and set fire to the Capitol, the President’s House and other public buildings. It came hours after the rout of American militia at the Battle of Bladensburg. The raid remains the only time a foreign enemy has captured and occupied Washington, D.C., and it became one of the most humiliating moments in the history of the United States.

Background

The United States declared war on Britain in June 1812, angered by trade restrictions, the impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy and British support for Native American resistance in the West. For two years most fighting took place along the Canadian border, with mixed results. In April 1813 American troops captured York, the capital of Upper Canada (now Toronto), and burned its parliament buildings.

The defeat of Napoleon in the spring of 1814 changed the balance. Britain could now send veteran troops across the Atlantic. Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane, commanding in North America, planned raids on the Chesapeake Bay, where Rear Admiral George Cockburn had already been attacking coastal towns for over a year.

Washington itself was a small, unfinished city of around 8,000 people. Many American leaders, including Secretary of War John Armstrong, did not believe the British would bother attacking it and favoured defending Baltimore instead. Defensive preparations were slow and poorly coordinated.

The march and Bladensburg

On 19–20 August 1814 some 4,000–4,500 British troops under Major General Robert Ross landed at Benedict, Maryland, on the Patuxent River. They marched north while Commodore Joshua Barney’s small flotilla of gunboats, trapped upriver, was blown up by the Americans to keep it from capture.

On 24 August the British met an American force of roughly 6,000–7,000 men, mostly inexperienced militia, at Bladensburg, about 13 kilometres from the capital. The commander, Brigadier General William Winder, had placed his lines badly, and President James Madison and several cabinet members watched part of the action. British Congreve rockets and disciplined infantry broke the militia, who fled in confusion; critics later mocked the retreat as the “Bladensburg Races”.

The main exception was Barney’s force of sailors and marines, who held their ground with heavy guns until they were outflanked. Barney was wounded and captured, and Ross and Cockburn treated him with respect. The road to Washington was open.

The capture of the capital

The British reached Washington in the early evening of 24 August. As Ross approached under a flag of truce, shots were fired from a house, killing his horse; the house was burned. Troops then set fire to the two wings of the Capitol, which also held the Library of Congress and its collection of about 3,000 books.

Ross and Cockburn moved on to the President’s House. According to several accounts, officers ate a meal that had been prepared for the Madisons before setting the building alight. The Treasury was also burned that night.

On 25 August the British burned the War Office and State Department buildings and destroyed the presses of the National Intelligencer, a newspaper that had attacked Cockburn. The Americans themselves had already set fire to the Washington Navy Yard on Captain Thomas Tingey’s orders to deny ships and stores to the enemy. The Patent Office was spared, reportedly after its superintendent, William Thornton, argued that destroying it would harm all of humanity.

Dolley Madison and the portrait

While the President was away with the army, Dolley Madison stayed at the President’s House as long as she could. She had cabinet papers loaded into a wagon and insisted that a large portrait of George Washington, a copy of Gilbert Stuart’s famous Lansdowne portrait, be saved.

The frame was screwed to the wall, so it was broken and the canvas taken out. The steward Jean Pierre Sioussat, the gardener Tom Magraw and the enslaved servant Paul Jennings, who later wrote a memoir of the day, were among those involved. The painting was handed to two New York men, Jacob Barker and Robert De Peyster, for safekeeping. It still hangs in the White House today.

Storm and withdrawal

On the afternoon of 25 August a violent storm, probably including a tornado, struck the city. It tore roofs off buildings, killed several British soldiers and helped put out some of the fires. Earlier that day an accidental explosion of gunpowder at Greenleaf Point, near the arsenal, had killed and wounded dozens of British troops.

Concerned about American forces gathering nearby and the distance from their ships, Ross ordered a withdrawal on the night of 25 August. The army returned to the fleet unhindered. Meanwhile a British naval squadron sailed up the Potomac, and on 29 August the town of Alexandria surrendered and handed over ships and goods to avoid destruction.

Consequences

The loss of the capital caused outrage across the United States. Armstrong resigned, and James Monroe took over the War Department alongside his post as Secretary of State. Congress met in temporary quarters, first in Blodgett’s Hotel and later in a building that became known as the Old Brick Capitol, and debated moving the capital elsewhere before voting to stay.

Thomas Jefferson offered his personal library to replace the lost books, and in 1815 Congress bought 6,487 volumes for $23,950, forming the new core of the Library of Congress. Rebuilding took years: James Hoban reconstructed the President’s House, which the Madisons never reoccupied, and Benjamin Latrobe and later Charles Bulfinch rebuilt the Capitol.

In military terms the raid achieved little. Weeks later the same British force was repulsed at the Battle of Baltimore, where Ross was killed. In Britain, some commentators criticised the burning of public buildings as unworthy of a civilised nation.

Myths and facts

A common story holds that the White House got its name and colour from paint applied to hide the scorch marks. In fact, the stone walls had been whitewashed in the 1790s, and the name was used informally before the war. Another belief is that the whole city was burned. In reality, the British targeted public buildings and largely spared private homes, apart from a few exceptions.

Key people

Major General Robert Ross, an Irish-born veteran of Wellington’s campaigns in Spain, commanded the British army and was cautious about destroying private property. Rear Admiral George Cockburn, who knew the Chesapeake well from a year of raiding, pressed hard for the attack on the capital. On the American side, President James Madison and his cabinet were criticised for slow preparations, while Brigadier General William Winder struggled to organise scattered militia units with little time. Commodore Joshua Barney won praise from friend and foe for his stand at Bladensburg.

Timeline

• 1813, 27 April: American troops capture York, Upper Canada, and burn its parliament buildings.
• 1814, 19–20 August: British troops under Robert Ross land at Benedict, Maryland.
• 1814, 22 August: Joshua Barney’s flotilla is destroyed by its own crews on the Patuxent.
• 1814, 24 August: Battle of Bladensburg; British enter Washington and burn the Capitol and President’s House.
• 1814, 25 August: Further public buildings burned; Greenleaf Point explosion; storm hits the city; British withdraw at night.
• 1814, 29 August: Alexandria surrenders to a British naval squadron.
• 1815, January: Congress agrees to buy Thomas Jefferson’s library.
• 1817: President James Monroe moves into the rebuilt President’s House.

Why it matters

The burning of Washington exposed how unprepared the United States was for war and shook national confidence. Yet the shock also stiffened American resolve, and the defence of Baltimore weeks later and the victory at New Orleans allowed the war to be remembered as a success. The rebuilt Capitol and White House became symbols of national survival.