It is March 20th. Welcome to Episode 79 of History in a Year. Today, the United States pays a devastating price for starting a war. In the spring of 1814, the geopolitical landscape completely flips: Napoleon Bonaparte is finally defeated in Europe. Suddenly, the full, undivided, and terrifying might of the British military is freed up and sailing directly for the American coastline. We watch the embarrassing collapse of the American militia at the “Bladensburg Races,” the terrifying moment President James Madison rides directly into the line of fire, and the darkest night in the capital’s history as the British Army marches into Washington D.C. and sets the government on fire.
STEPHEN:
Welcome to History in a Year: America’s First 250 Years.
LEAH:
Join us every single day as we journey from the Revolution of 1776 to the 250th anniversary of the United States.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode and join the discussion at PointedWords.com. I’m Stephen.
LEAH:
And I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
It is March 20th. Welcome to Episode 79. For the first two years of the War of 1812, the United States had a massive advantage that they completely squandered.
LEAH:
Great Britain was distracted. They were fighting a massive, apocalyptic war against Napoleon in Europe, which meant they could only spare a tiny fraction of their military to fight the Americans in Canada.
STEPHEN:
But in April 1814, the great French Empire collapsed. Napoleon abdicated the throne and was exiled to the island of Elba.
LEAH:
The war in Europe was over. And that meant thousands of battle-hardened, professional British soldiers who had just spent a decade defeating the greatest military genius on earth were suddenly available.
STEPHEN:
The British packed these veterans onto a massive fleet of warships and sent them directly across the Atlantic. Their mission was simple: Punish the United States for starting this war.
LEAH:
In August 1814, a massive British fleet commanded by Vice Admiral Alexander Cochrane sailed right into the Chesapeake Bay. They dropped anchor and unloaded about 4,000 elite British troops, led by Major General Robert Ross and Rear Admiral George Cockburn.
STEPHEN:
Cockburn was absolutely ruthless. He had spent the previous year terrorizing the Maryland and Virginia coastlines, burning farms and freeing enslaved Americans if they agreed to fight for the British.
LEAH:
Now, this veteran British army started marching directly toward the capital of the United States: Washington D.C.
STEPHEN:
You would think the capital city would be heavily defended. But the American Secretary of War, John Armstrong, was completely convinced the British were going to attack Baltimore, which was a much wealthier, more strategically important city.
LEAH:
Armstrong actually refused to build defenses around Washington, claiming the British wouldn’t bother burning a “sheep pasture.”
STEPHEN:
He was catastrophically wrong. When the government finally realized the British were marching on Washington, they panicked. They hastily threw together an army of about 6,000 men to stop them.
LEAH:
But only a few hundred of them were regular army soldiers or Marines. The vast majority were untrained, terrified local militiamen who had never seen combat.
STEPHEN:
On August 24, 1814, the two armies met at a small town in Maryland called Bladensburg, just a few miles outside of Washington D.C.
LEAH:
President James Madison actually rode out to the battlefield. He is the only sitting Commander-in-Chief in American history to be physically present on a battlefield while actively under enemy fire.
STEPHEN:
Madison, who was 63 years old and weighed 100 pounds, borrowed a pair of dueling pistols, strapped them to his horse, and rode out to review the troops. But there was nothing he could do to save them.
LEAH:
As soon as the battle started, the British fired these terrifying, screaming rockets called Congreve rockets. They weren’t very accurate, but they sounded like absolute nightmares.
STEPHEN:
When the rockets flew over their heads, and the battle-hardened British infantry charged across the bridge with their bayonets fixed, the American militia completely broke.
LEAH:
They didn’t just retreat. They dropped their weapons and ran for their lives. They ran so fast and so chaotically that the battle became a national joke. It went down in history as the “Bladensburg Races.”
STEPHEN:
The American Marines, led by Commodore Joshua Barney, actually held their ground and fought heroically, but they were completely overwhelmed. The road to Washington was wide open.
LEAH:
President Madison and the rest of the government realized the city was lost. They joined the massive, panicked exodus of civilians fleeing the capital on horseback and in carriages, clogging the dirt roads leading out of town.
STEPHEN:
That evening, General Ross and Admiral Cockburn marched their British troops into Washington D.C.
LEAH:
It was practically a ghost town. The British commanders rode right up to the Capitol building.
STEPHEN:
Now, the Capitol wasn’t finished yet—it didn’t have the giant dome we know today—but it was still a magnificent building. The British troops marched inside, piled up all the furniture, and used the books from the original Library of Congress as kindling.
LEAH:
They set the entire building on fire. The heat was so intense it actually melted the glass in the skylights.
STEPHEN:
Then, Cockburn and Ross marched down Pennsylvania Avenue with about 150 men, heading straight for the President’s House—what we now call the White House.
LEAH:
When they walked inside the White House, they found a massive, multi-course dinner laid out on the dining room table.
STEPHEN:
Dolley Madison had ordered the meal prepared earlier that day, expecting her husband and his generals to return victorious. Instead, the British officers sat down in the President’s chairs, drank his wine, and ate his dinner.
LEAH:
After they finished their meal, they methodically went room by room, smashing the windows and piling up the furniture. Admiral Cockburn actually took one of James Madison’s personal hats as a souvenir.
STEPHEN:
Then, they took torches and set the White House ablaze.
LEAH:
That night, the sky over Washington D.C. glowed a terrifying, bright orange. The President of the United States was a refugee hiding in the Virginia woods, watching his own capital burn to the ground.
STEPHEN:
It was the lowest point in the history of the young Republic.
LEAH:
But while the politicians were running for their lives, one person had stayed behind in the White House just long enough to save the soul of the nation.
STEPHEN:
Join us tomorrow for Episode 80. Dolley Madison Saves the Day. As the British army marches on the city, the First Lady refuses to panic. We witness her desperate, frantic effort to save the national treasures, the iconic rescue of the George Washington portrait, and the miraculous, freak act of nature that suddenly unleashes its fury on the British army.
LEAH:
I’m Leah.
STEPHEN:
And I’m Stephen.
STEPHEN:
You can find every episode at PointedWords.com. And this… is our story.