Transcripts For CSPAN3 Burning Of Washington 20140831

Youll also notice this evening there are cspan cameras around. They are here broadcasting. Those watching will also be no stranger to anthony pitch. Many of his programs have been taped for broadcast by them before. We are very lucky to have him tonight. Ladies and gentlemen, mr. Anthony pitch. [applause] thank you very much for coming. It is raining outside, so i am very glad to see a lot of people out tonight. I want to tell you a few years ago i escorted somebody into the white house. His name was major ed ross, the same name the general robert ross who burned the white house. He was a descendent. One can see the scorch marks i told him were there. They are under the front door. There is a big stone archway where you can see massive scorch marks from the fires set by the british in 1814. The pastry chef who has his offices close by could not stop giggling. He thought here is a man who has come to finish the job. [laughter] i like to write stories that are epic, true, and sad. People ask me, why dont you write something funny . I really like to write epic stories. Vietnam is one. Then i wrote the burning of washington, which is certainly a roller coaster of a story. The city is in flames. The National Anthem comes out of it. You have Andrew Jacksons retreat all in the same campaign. When my book was reviewed by the Times Literary Supplement in england, the reviewer described what happened as this amusing little incident. Because he did not realize the british suffered the greatest defeat in the long annals of the valiant history of military conflict at the hands of americans. Had that happened before the peace treaty was signed, i think we might have controlled canada today. Winston churchill described this as not a war of independence. He denied it was a war of independence. Who am i to argue with that great man . But fortunately, he is not with us today so i can challenge him. If your ships are bordered on the high seas by an enemy and forcibly haul sailors and you dont do anything, you are surrendering your sovereignty. It is an affront to the dignity and sovereignty of the nation. That is why i call it without question a war of independence. Now let me tell you what washington was like in 1814. It was a village, a mere embryo of what it aspired to be. There were only 8000 residents. 1 6 were slaves. The attorney general described it as a meager village with a few bad houses and extensive swamps. A british diplomat lamented in his posting what he called this sepulcreous hole. One wrote home to his mother, luckily for me i have been in turkey and am quite at home in this primal simplicity of manners. That was the best quote i got. Why would they want to target the small village that had no Strategic Value . They wanted to humiliate and demoralize the americans. If they could seize the capital during wartime, it might lead as a bonus to them to the breakup of the united states. The british commander of forces in north america wanted to give the americans a complete drubbing. This was in part payback for american excesses in canada where they burned and plundered some of the public and private buildings, most recently in york, now called toronto, and the villages on the niagara. The countries had been at war for years because britain and france had been at war for years, each time targeting the others trade with neutral america. Thousands of british troops deserted to the americans for better pay and conditions. Many of them took out citizenship. In six years leading up to 1810, the british hauled off about 5000 british sailors from american ships. 1500 were later found to have been born in america. For years, americans have tolerated this. Until 1811, the new breed was elected to congress. Men like henry clay of kentucky who had been born after the declaration of independence. What was tolerable for the older generation was insufferable for the new generation, the younger generation. War for them was the only answer. The man who led the crusade against war was from virginia, representative john randall from roanoke. He argued, how can you take up arms against people who share the same line which, blood, religion, habeas corpus, representative government, and even the works of shakespeare and newton . Calhoun was not going to have any of this. He did not share any of randolphs emotional attachment to the former colony. He replied great indeed must be the reason for going to war if so much bound us together in the past. In the summer of 1812, a bitterly divided Congress Declared war on britain. For two years, it was a distant rumble on the canadian frontier. If you lived in washington and did not read the newspaper, you might not have known was a war going on. But in 1814, napoleon fell. Anxious american diplomats in europe warned James Madisons government to free up thousands of additional troops for the war against america. But the capital remained undefended. The secretary of war, john armstrong, was one of those characters that history throws up time and time again, people that believe their judgment is best for everybody else, even when reality to the contrary stares them in the face. He was one of those. He was a former minister to france, a Major General. It was said of him that nature and habits forbid him to speak well of any man. [laughter] he was that kind of person. Cocksure, stubborn, selfassured. When the fleet of british warships came up the Chesapeake Bay in the summer of 1814, the frantic head of the d. C. Militia went to see armstrong. But the secretary of war dismissed him. He said they would not come with such a fleet without meaning to strike somewhere, but they will certainly not come near here. What the devil would they do here . Baltimore is the place. So you see, this is a lesson to be learned from the war of 1812, the attack on washington. If you put intelligence in the hands of one man or a small group of people, youre asking for trouble because it does not have the analysis the greater inspection would have a greater number of people. That is the lesson to be learned. I dont think it has been learned. But that is the greatest lesson. Armstrong was the most reviled man in the country afterwards. He quit his job when people tore off their epaulets and refused to serve under him. He was dismissed with graffiti on the ruined capital describing him as a coward. He was the wrong person in the right job at the wrong place. That was armstrong. He dismissed Major General in those words. He was not the kind of person who could see they were going to attack baltimore washington, even though their own president speculated they would attack baltimore, philadelphia, or washington. The british sailed up and disembarked 5000 troops at benedict on the 19th of august, 1814. The path to the capital was clear. The capital was like tethered prey. As the british began their march inland, fear in washington turned to terror. Terror gave way to pandemonium. It was the hottest summer in memory. It had not rained in three weeks. The dusty roads were clogged with desperate refugees with carts and wagons. Washingtonians fled to the surrounding woods of maryland and virginia preferring paradoxically the security of the wild to the insecurity of their own homes. That is what it was like. I dislike books that give a dry recitation of facts. That is not how it happened. These were real people with emotions reacting to different circumstances. This is what i tried to portray, what happened to the people involved rather than a dry list of statistics. Many of the Government Agencies remained stark because most of the clerks were over 45 and exempt from call up to the militia. But in the basement of the house of representatives, nearly all the offices were empty because most of the clerks were young people. Only j. T. Frost, a newcomer, remained at his desk. He was over 45. In this moment of unparalleled crisis, a man a scant experience and Weak Authority is now burdened with the need to make rapid decisions of national importance. He was sorely in need of the guiding hand of the clerk of the house, but he had been ill for months. He had finally taken his doctors advice to leave town at this moment to help restore his health at mineral spas. That is how history operates around one man. Nobody was around to advise poor frost on how or when to save the papers of the house from enemy vandals. I use this word enemy vandals with care. It is denigrating the british, but there is no other word that would fit what they did later. There was a colleague of his called samuel birch. He tried hard to reason with his superiors. He too had been marched out of the city to meet the enemy. He was stood down three days before the british hoisted the union jack on capitol hill. Looking for transfer the following day, it was too late. Most of the wagons have been grabbed by the military and were piled high with the goods of civilians in flight. In desperation, he ordered three messengers to scour the countryside for transport. They came back with one cart and four oxen taken from a man who lived six miles outoftown. They drove nine miles into the countryside where they deposited him in safety. They returned to the capital to join the general exodus before the british arrived on sunset, wednesday, august 24, 1814. Frost was frustrated beyond measure. Both knew they could have saved all the papers of the house and content of the library of congress if only they have been able to seize more transport. The library of congress in those days faced the western edge of the wall of the mall. The western edge of the capital. It was a large room about 86 feet long with timbered ceilings, so it went up like a tinderbox. All 3000 books were destroyed. Ironically, many were printed in britain and some of them were on british parliamentary procedure. You know about Thomas Jefferson offering his private library as the nucleus of a new library of congress. 6487 books. He said it would take about two weeks for the wagons to arrive in washington. They had a fire in the middle of the 19th century. You can see what remains of them in bookcases at the library of congress. It is incredible. This renaissance man, every subject you can think of is there. Archaeology, history, art, farming. It is all there in different languages. That was Thomas Jefferson. Two days before the british arrived, the commandant ordered his navy clerk to get hold of transport to take 124 barrels of gunpowder out of the navy yard to the safety of virginia. He crossed into georgetown where he saw a wagon outside a store. He told the owners he was impounding it for the department of the navy. This is wartime. Some citizens who might normally have buckled under to bureaucratic pressure bristled when the power possessors began chasing off the officials with abuse and profanities. This is what happened. In a chronicle written two weeks after the departure of the british, he described what happened next. It has my fingerprints all over it at the National Archives. I dismounted and followed them into the store where they made use of such language which agreed into gentlemen. He did not have backup power. He did not get his wagon. Booth was one of the last to flee the city before the british arrived. Before he did so, he decided to check at the white house to see if anybody was there and get reliable information. When he rode up, he saw an american colonel on horseback near the front door. The colonel dismounted, walked over to the locked front door of the white house, pulled on the bell rope, and banged on the door shouting out the name of the chief of staff. All was silent as a church. Only then did this poor navy clerk realize the metropolis of our country was abandoned to its horrid fate. You can almost hear his howl. He represented america at that moment. A note arrived from james monroe who was on horseback spying on the British Advance east of washington. He ordered his staff to secure the precious National Documents and departmental records. One of the clerks, stephen pleasonton, remember that name. This is one of the bravest man i will talk about tonight. He and others, he described himself as chiefly instrumental in this, very gently put the originals of the declaration of independence, the constitution, international treaties, and George Washingtons correspondence into bags he had made up into book bags. They were linen. While this was being done, the secretary of war passed by. Armstrong rebuked him for being alarmist and thinking the british were on their way to washington. Pleasonton was not intimidated. That is amazing. He stood up to the secretary of war and said, it is more prudent to try and protect the documents of the revolutionary government. He loaded them onto carts, crossed the Potomac River, and drove two miles upstream to georgetown where he put them in an abandoned mill. He immediately had second thoughts. He was opposite the largest manufacturer of munitions and sure to be targeted by the british. A spy could easily lead the enemy to the nearby hiding place. He went further into virginia, got wagons, came back, loaded them up, and drove 35 miles west to leesburg, virginia. Put them in an empty house, locked the door, and gave the key to the collector of internal revenue. Then he checked into a hotel. That night, the residents of leesburg went into the streets and they could see the fiery glow over the abandoned city of washington. Pleasonton was not amongst them. He was too tired and fast asleep. I know this happened because 39 years later, excuse me. I have a slight sinus problem. 39 years later, pleasonton thought he was going to lose his job because he did not know anybody in the incoming administration. In those days, you had to know people. He wrote a letter to his imminent friend James Buchanan who became president just before lincoln and outlined everything he had done on that memorable 24th of august, 1814. He said i could have been rewarded by thousands of pounds sterling by the british if i had given them the documents, and i did not. The letter is in buchanans papers in the library of congress. I was always upset by the condition of pleasontons grave. I had been to the cemetery behind the capital. It was at an angle. You could not read his name well. I held a fundraising walk to restore the tombstone. We walked from the capitol to the white house. As we passed the National Archives, i was telling stories all the time from the war of 1812. I said if it were not for stephen pleasonton, you probably would not be able to see those documents in the National Archives today. Of course, i raised the money. We got an expert to restore the tombstone. It is up right now. The man has got credit that is so long overdue. I want to tell you about a woman who was equally as brave and fearless and disregarded the safety of her own life. Her name is dolley madison. She is without doubt the most beloved first lady ever to live in the white house. Jackie kennedy was admired, but dolley was beloved. People said when she wore her jewelry, it was outshone by her personality. She was a marvelous woman. Look at how she risked her life or captivity to save a painting. None of us would do that. I certainly would not. But she did. It is not surprising people paid calls to her until her death. New years day in particular, people used to pay courtesy calls on her from the president downwards. Gilbert stuarts fulllength portrait of George Washington held in the west wall of the large dining room. It had been acquired by the federal government for the white house at a cost of 800. At that moment, two new yorkers, friends of hers came into the white house and asked if they could do anything to help. According to an historian who interviewed them later, she said save that picture. Under no circumstances allow it to fall into the hands of the british. When she saw her slave was taking too long to unscrew the giant frame from a long, she told him to break the wood and take out the linen canvas. Fortunately at that moment, french john came in. Now becomes murky. Did french john tell jennings to stop and with dolleys approval cut the fabric from the frame . 95 inches long and 35 inches wide. Or did dolley tell the slave to break it from the wood and take it out . We dont know for sure. The conservators did not find any cut marks on the canvas, so we are not quite sure. It is a bit murky. They gave it to barker, one of the new yorkers who started to roll it up until he was stopped by the frenchman for fear the pain would crack. He put a flat in the wagon and drove through georgetown into the countryside and left it with a farmer he lodged with overnight. A few weeks later, they returned it to dolley. Today it hangs in the east room of the white house. When the president is giving a press conference or awarding medals of honor, you will see it behind his shoulders. When my book came out, i was invited to lunch at the white house. They took me to a room that is offlimits. We passed through the map room, socalled because there is a map of europe over the mantelpiece. It shows the swastika symbols which plot the nazis advance through world war ii. There is a medicine chest nearby. It has holes for vials of medicine. You can pull out the drawers. In 1939, a canadian wrote to president roosevelt. His name was archibald kanes. He said my grandfather was the paymaster aboard the british warship devastation which came up the Potomac River at that time and laid siege to alexandria and oversaw the rating of the warehouses of the cultural produce. I checked it out. Thomas kanes was the paymaster of the devastation. But none of the crew set foot in washington. So either he exchanged booty with another briton or archibald kanes, the canadian, is mistaken, as is the white house. We then went to see the portrait of George Washington. They took away the rope that keeps people about 20 feet away. For the first time, i saw the artists amazing mistake. In the painting, George Washington is facing you. There is a table next to his right leg. Under the table are books. The title painted on one of the books reads laws and constitution of the united sates. Can you believe it . Gilbert stuart made a spelling mistake. [laughter] extraordinary. When the british arrived on capitol hill, they were confronted by the buildings of the senate and house linked by a 100foot covered wooden walkway. As they entered, they expected to find signs of duplicity. Instead they found evidence of monarchal splendor. I go into detail of what the building was like because it was not a normal building. It was like the great cathedrals in Medieval Europe built with a lot of money by the finest artists. They wanted to glorify something. So it was with the u. S. Capitol. It represented the hopes of the u. S. Republic. When restored, it would represent the resilience and unity. Of course, a beacon of democracy. They saw this. They had created a colossus of formidable beauty. It could compare with any of its counterparts in europe. There were no sculptors of note in america. So you went to the land of michelangelo and da vinci. When he found two worthy tuscans, he hired them. They began to sculpt the columns. He was so exasperated with the slow pace that when he finished the first one, he called it an artist of firstrate excellence. The sculptor began modeling a bald eagle until he was stopped for fear he did not resemble a bird of prey. Latrobe did not want any criticism from congressman in the western states who knew what the bird looked like. He wrote a letter to the imminent artist Charles Wilson peale asking for a drawing of a bald eagle. With a stagecoach arrived with mail from philadelphia, latrobe was surprised. He opened his package to fund the perfect representation of a bald eagle. The cover letter said he shot the bird of prey to look at its feathers. He worked in meticulous detail. He would not live a year beyond the departure of the british. But he poured all of his Creative Energy into this. If you ever created anything, quilting, gardening, a book, anything, you know what i am talking about. When he finished, latrobe marveled. He called it the finest eagle in the history of sculpture. It had a wingspan of over 12 feet and was hoisted high above the speakers chair in the awesome hall of the house of representatives. But now sadly, it had been destroyed along with all of the other works of art over the objections of Junior Officers in the british army who said we dont mind the storing ammunition and weapons and everything like that. But why artwork . Well, they followed orders. The british bonfires were furniture. When they could not find enough, they hacked doors and window frames. The flames were so great that night that i had correspondence that you could see it in baltimore. You could even see it in a ships logs the british warships on the Potomac River 50 miles east. That is extraordinary. That is what they did in the u. S. Capital. Now, 100 soldiers and sailors, that is all. The rest remained at headquarters. 100 soldiers and sailors in orderly columns tracked down the broad quiet of pennsylvania on the way to burn the white house. On either side were row of trees planted by Thomas Jefferson. Slaves scurried ahead wanting the remaining residents to flee the city because the british were on their way to bring the white house. Excuse me while i have a sip. When they got to the southeast owner of pennsylvania avenue and 15th street where the Visitors Center stands today, there was a low brick building run as a boarding house. Major general robert ross commanding land forces entered under the low door and began to tease the woman saying we have come to sup with you. The terrified woman tried to recommend another house. He said he wanted her boarding house. The frightened woman went in the back to scald chickens for unwelcome guests who would return after midnight after they burned the white house. The british were exhausted. The day began with a sevenmile forced march to bladensburg. When they fought an hourlong battle in the heat so intense that 18 men dropped dead from heat exhaustion. They marched six miles southwest to the capital, burned the capital, and tramped almost a mile down pennsylvania avenue to where they were now. They were famished and thursday. But when they entered the white house, they found a table laid for 40 because dolley was expecting the cabinet and military leaders for dinner. Admiral cockburn was the driving force behind the assault on washington. His superior, Major General robert ross, had second thirds and wanted to return. Coburn forced him to proceed. He said we have come so far we have to continue. He had been recognized by none other than admiral Horatio Nelson because coburn had been a sailor from his preteen years and nelson acknowledged his ability and courage and zeal. He was thought of so highly by the british admiralty that he was chosen to take the great napoleon into exile on the island of st. Helena. I got hold of his diary. He said this man, napoleon, sometimes wants to play the sovereign. I wont allow it. That is the fiber of the man who grabbed an american who was innocent. He grabbed him and took him into the white house as a british bandit. He wanted him to represent america. And the man he selected was roger wightman, a bookseller, recently married, and he had become the mayor of washington. He grabbed him. Coburn was in a freewheeling moon. He taunted him in the manner of a common sailor. He tweaked the arm of wightman with relish. He said, take a souvenir. Wightman looked for something valuable. He said no, that is being delivered to the flames. Take something of useless value. He took something that had no value at all. Then coburn said i will take a souvenir for myself. He selected a hat probably belonging to the president. The british drink. They poured the wine into cut glass. They drank to the success of his majestys forces. When one of the men found a ceremonial hat belonging to the president , he raised by the tip of his bayonet and said if they could not capture the little president , madison was only 54, they would paredes had in england. That night, they burned the white house and treasury. The following morning, the war department. There were clouds of choking black smoke over the city. The rooms were a telling commentary on the scale of the citys degradation. That is the scene as they left the capital. In these flames, they came on wednesday night. On thursday at 2 00 p. M. , there was a twohour storm that may have been a hurricane. It was so fierce it lifted heavy weekend is and things like feathers and drop them at random. It spreadeagled horses. Britons were terrified. Locals had never seen anything like it. It is mythological to say that storm may have extinguished the flames. I have correspondence from a number of sources that say the flames burned for several days after the storm. Now you have this terrible site. But that is not the end of americas humiliation because washingtonians in this moment of catastrophe were the ones who did most of the looting. Many waited for the streets to be empty, houses deserted, and the military out of sight. Now they were free to steal and run. No one was around to protect private property and enforce law and order. Poor jennings, madisons s lave, had been told to go to 40th street to get his carriage. His slave would later recollect a rabbi taking advantage of the confusion ran through the president s house, that is what they called a white house, and still lots of silver and whatever he could run off with. The British Limited their looting to souvenir hunting and isolated cases of robbery for which thieves paid dearly at the hands of their own. Time and again, commanders reassured the residents they would be safe as long as they did not take up arms against the Occupying Forces. These were not empty forces. He appointed soldiers to patrol the streets to protect private property. They performed so honorably that americans would remember them respectfully or years afterwards. Extraordinary an Occupying Force behaving like that. Excuse me while i take one more sip. That is what happened while washington was being occupied. It was only three weeks later that the british forces, the same british forces, descended on baltimore. This was a city now bulging with more than 15,000, many who had come in from surrounding counties and pennsylvania and virginia. History has a way of taking a humiliating moment like that and turning it into glory. This is what happened. It was raining hard. Even though the men were wet, tired, and hungry, they were itching for payback for what happened in washington. The general in charge of the british, Major General robert ross, road far ahead of the bulk of his troops. At breakfast, he rashly predicted, tonight i will sup in baltimore or help. He never made it to baltimore. We dont know whether you made it to heaven or hell, but a snipers bullet tore through his arm and lodged in his chest. His body was taken over a bumpy road to the ships. By the time he got there, demoralizing everybody along the route, he was dead. They took his corpse aboard hms royal oak and immersed him in ru m where he would swish and sway in the dark spirit until his internment in nova scotia. Arthur brooke took about an hour to overwhelm an inferior force of mostly militiamen. Meanwhile, british warships had pounded fort mchenry was shells weighing over 200 pounds. If they could bludgeon it into submission, baltimore was theirs and philadelphia was probably next. Even though there was no cover and the pounding went on for a day and night, nobody ran. Nobody flinched. That is the extraordinary heroism of fort mchenry. The british had planned a combined naval and land attack in the dead of night. The naval force would drug offenders away from the fortified Eastern Hills so the british infantry would be able to charge through an capture the city. Towards midnight, the naval commander sent a message to his land commander that he would not be able to help. He said his force could not penetrate the channel between fort mchenry and the lazareto where americans had scuttled ships. The land commander was devastated. Into his diary he later groaned, in a moment, all my hopes were blasted. If i took the place, i should have been the greatest men in england. But if i failed, my military character was gone forever. The stakes were terribly high, incredibly high. There was a lady called Phoebe Morris in philadelphia, which was next on the list probably. She wrote to her father, the american minister to spain. She said we may have to swear allegiance to the British Crown in three months. That is how high the stakes were. There was a hostage on board called Francis Scott key. He went to hostage this way. When the british withdrew from washington, they only remained 24 or 26 hours because they were afraid of dean cut off and attacked on their way back to the ships could they need not have cheered, but that was the feared. They left quickly and burned logs on capitol hill to make it appear they were still there. This is what they did to deceive the americans. Some of them were captured stragglers. One escape and brought british troops back. They captured a friend of Francis Scott key. His name was dr. William beanes. They took him away on board a ship as hostage. Key got madisons permission to board the ship and plead for his friends release. When he boarded the ship, the british commander said both of you know our targets and the strength of our forces. Once we have captured baltimore, we will release you. That was how Francis Scott key came to witness what happened next. At sunset, he had seen this gigantic flag flying over fort mchenry. What so proudly we hailed at the twilights last gleaming. It was 42 by 32 feet and had been raised over by the commander, Major General george armistead. It was an act of defiance. He was saying if you want baltimore, you first have to lower this flag. That is how key got to see what was happening. He paced the deck of the ship in the darkness hoping the explosions would continue because if there was silence, it might mean the fort had capitulated. In the darkness before dawn, there was a lowland the firing. Key did not know whether it was a signal of submission or whether the british proposed a ceasefire. Gradually, the morning mist began to clear. O say can you see by the dawns early light. Once more, he made out the stars and stripes still flying above the fort. Never before had he looked with such reverence upon the symbol of his country. Never before had the flag had such a sheen to its glory. In his ecstasy, theres no other word, in his ecstasy, he took a letter out of his pocket. On the back of it, jotted down words, phrases, anything that tumbled through his mind while the intensity of the moment lasted. Three days later, the british withdrew. They could not take it. The americans fired a parting shot as a cheeky rebuke from the improbable survivors. Key was allowed to land. With minor revisions, his poem was published and set to the tune of a popular song in those days. Five days later, congress met in the undamaged Patent Office in washington. They put the congressmens chairs and desks up to the window sills but could not accommodate everybody. But there was one advantage. They did not have to shout like they had to do in the Previous Assembly where the acoustics were so bad. They debated the motion that would move the capital to philadelphia or elsewhere to save the cost of rebuilding the ruined city. Imagine. The northerners wanted it at least 100 miles north, closer to the canadian warfront and to satisfy creditors. Southerners dug in their heels. They said no. The original language establishing washington as the Nations Capital described it as the permanent seat of government. To do anything else would be to a front the dignity of George Washington who himself had selected the site. It was approved. But when it was put into legislative form, it was narrowly defeated after long debate in which one of the congressman from North Carolina warned once you set the seat of government on wheels, there is no saying where it will stop. On Christmas Eve 1814, in ghent, now belgium, commissions from both countries met at the castle to sign the treaty that ended the costly war between two exhausted nations. John quincy adams, leader of the american delegation, went to bed that night having prayed this would be the last great war between the two great English Speaking countries. But it took a long time for word to cross the atlantic in those days. Too late for armies squaring off at new orleans. Andrew jackson had assembled a rack pack army of frontiersmen, ruffians, pirates, and militiamen. He put them behind a makeshift rampart of wood and mud. Facing him was the mighty british army forged through centuries of warfare. Later that year, it would include the downfall of napoleon. The british were impatient. They were led by the brotherinlaw of none other than the man who had defeated napoleon at waterloo, the great duke of wellington. They should have waited. But instead they charged in a frontal assault over a flat feel of sugarcane stubble. They had no cover and were picked off one after the other by the sharpshooters from tennessee. As the day wore on, the ditch in front of the american ramparts became a pool of uniformed british dead. The battlefield was sticky with blood and heavy with corpses. When it was all over, there were more than 2000 british casualties. There were six american dead and seven american wounded. Britain had never suffered such a lopsided defeat in its military history. I think, i did not speculate in the book but i will now, i think had that battle been fought in advance of the peace treaty, we might be running canada today. [laughter] from that moment, you could rightfully say america have regained its prideful dignity and won worldwide respect and admiration. The war was over and so is my speech. [applause] i finished earlier than i thought. Far earlier. That means much more time for questions. Please, i beg of you, limit them to the extent of my talk because my expertise has to do with washington, baltimore, and new orleans. It is a long war. I am not at liberty to speak with any authority on the rest of the war. So, may we have some questions . Yes, the lady. [indiscernible] would you mind, rebecca . My hearing aid has gone off. Would you mind repeating that question . In the battle of bladensburg, why did the u. S. Troops withdraw their ammunition from the top of the hill . That is a very good question. I will tell you something. There was a poem written after the battle of bladensburg. It was fought at lunchtime on the same day the british arrived at sunset in washington. The british rolled all over the americans. The poem made fun of the americans running. It was called the bladensburg races, and it denigrated those who had fought at it bladensburg, the americans. It is not fair. Most of the people who ran and broke ranks at bladensburg were militiamen. They were not so well trained like regulars, of which the british army were the finest. They were seasoned in the peninsula wars with napoleon. The americans who had been trained, 114 marines, they fought as well as they got. They fought so gallantly. They took 10 casualties, 114 of them. They engage in handtohand combat when they ran out of ammunition. It is not fair to say the americans broke ranks. They were terrified at the beginning of the british. They had been trained so well. They crossed a narrow bridge. They would go forward in lines. If that line fell, the next line would proceed. The americans in baltimore were so impressed, but that is how they had been trained. So it was inevitable the british would succeed. In fact, before the battle began, the secretary of war and the general commanding American Forces pointed out the routes of escape for the americans. A new it was going to be a walkover, and it was. The british were so anxious to engage the enemy that they rush rushed forward without the approval of the british commander. He said, if we only had this man i forgot his name now. He would teach these people who are so anxious to crossover and engage the enemy, he would teach them the value of patience. They were horrified to see this. By then, it was too late. The british were storming through. So it is very unfair to blame the americans. Those who fought, fought as we would expect. There is a myth going around that the commandants home at the Marine Barracks was saved. I did not find any documentary evidence to support the theory that the british were so enamored of the bravery of the marines that they spared that house. I did not find the any documentary evidence to supply that. I do not know whether that is true or not. Thank you for your presentation, anthony. Could you give us some information about the burning of the navy yard . Terrible story none of us would want to go , what the commandant went through that night. Succeeded at the battle, and they were seen to be within the boundaries of washington, they would take action and burn the shipping, supplies, and Everything Else at the navy yard. This is a terrible decision to be within the boundaries of washington, they would take not want thist they did to fall into the hands of the enemy, and so they waited until the last minute, and they came back with the news that, yes, the british had succeeded, and they were pouring into washington, and now they took the decision that horrified them, and they had laid gun power into the buildings where the ordinance was, the any theyn and everything, and set it alight, like not want ths to pyrotechnics, and the people could not believe what they were doing, but they had to carry out orders, and this came from the secretary of the navy. And that is what they did. Labor, and one or two of your ships were saved, but everything was burning. Called marywoman hunter, who was on pennsylvania avenue. The husband and children had gone to safety, and he was going to have to come back, and there were flames coming over. The system was in princeton, and she said, nobody slept that night because of the awful site. And that she was talking about the navy yard and the enemy on capitol hill, brandishing their rockets and flying the union jack. It must have been a terrible moment. Thank you so much for your talk. Fascinating. You alluded to in your talk, the taking of alexandria, which was, as i have come to understand now, a second attachment of the somesh fleet, which had rather amazing treacherous sailing up the Potomac River, and somehow managed to get away. Can you comment on that . From alexandria. That is a good question. This follows up on archibald kane, and the british had hoped that the Pincer Movement would succeed if they had the land forces coming up from benedict, from the east, and the squadron would come up the Potomac River and arrived at washington, and and that had it, not been there before, and they did not realize that there were the cattle bottoms, which were large areas, and so to release the shipping that got caught there, the ships would float time, and aat took lot of the ship got caught in the cattle bottoms, but they came up the Potomac River, and they were at the white house, guns in place onshore, and they were about fort. Miles from this what was it called again . Fort washington. That is right. By captaincommanded samuel dyson, a young man, and he held a conference with some and they said, i think we had better surrender. We had better leave the fort, so without a shot being fired, the word read they retreated from the fort. The british could not believe their good luck. They just could not understand this, and they thought it mustve been a trick, but they destroyed the fort, naturally, and at the moment when the flags should have been flying, it was furled up in the darkness, as the judge advocate general later said in a courtmartial. Was convicted and kicked out of the military. They did not want anybody of that caliber. He said, what is the point of flying the flag of were going to be overtaken anyway . He was the worst kind of commander that you want at a time like that, and so the british to the fort, and then there was nothing between them and alexandria and virginia, so and theyed upstream, laid siege to alexandria. Now, just about everybody from alexandria had been called up, and they had gone to bladensburg and they werees, old and in firm, and they were either too young or too old. They were in no position to defend the city, so a delegation from alexandria went to see spoke to themhe as if they were underlings, and he demeaned them, and he told them that they would be attacked and ransacked if they took action against the forces, but he told them that they were going to raid the warehouses of agricultural produce. That theemanded american ships be raised by the americans. A said they could not do this, so he overlooked that, but they did raid the warehouses, and they did terrible damage, terrible damage. The americans brought some people from baltimore, and rogers, Commodore John to harass the british as they descended down the potomac away from alexandria, and they did a and they literally ran out of ammunition, and they were castigated in the press for that folly. That is the people, the critics of the americans. That is the people, the critics of the americans. And they took away this vast produce from alexandria. One or two w people, americans, they did go on horseback into alexandria. They captured a british sailor, and what was taken at alexandria, they were too terrified, and Dolly Madison was terrified about this. Produceshe said that they shoue city rather than surrender it. She was one of those that said in a situation like that, you dont fly the white flag. You defend the place, or you let it be destroyed, but you do not give it away to the enemy. That is exactly what happened, andhe british sailed away apart from that harassment, they managed to get away. None of their ships were sunk. Try to pursuetish president madison after he left the city . Pursue the they try to president . No. Little president , they would parade him in england, if they could not capture him. Notr than that, they did pursue him, because madison had escaped through the potomac toer into virginia, agreeing meet his wife at a tavern near great falls, and he was 63 years old. , retiring man, brilliant, but he was described he justa schoolmaster, finished whipping in the schoolboys, and he was very different from the other. They did not pursue him at all. A lot of americans did not know where he was either. He stayed in an estate on route 23 south, probably at a tavern,ecommended by Thomas Jefferson falls church, and then he went up to wileys tavern and finally met his wife, and he crossed courthouse,ntgomery which is now called rockville. The expected to find American Army there, but they had already gone off to baltimore to defend it, and so that was friday night, so he rode over east to neighboring thegomery county, off of path of the british. And could not capture him, there were interesting scenes. Lets toican calgary their fires burning by the river and the mill, and brooksville residents pressed their faces , witht the window panes the president in their little at a homend he stayed of quaker friends of dolly, and that building still stands where and by the supreme executive authority, he resided in brooksville at that moment, because washington was in captivity, and that is why the residence described their they were thee capital of the village for the day. Around,e also roaming and they did come back. They retreated on thursday onht, and they came back saturday morning, madison, after british hadtold the left, and it took him five hours to go about 25 miles, and he did not leave any written commentary about what he felt. That really distressed me. I wanted to know what this president thought. There are descriptions of melancholy. That is a word that appears time and again, and shame and embarrassment and graffiti, and it went on and on, but not from madison. He kept his peace. Dolly came back on sunday, the after, and she was disguised in the clothing of another person. She had lost eight of her bodyguards who decided to get her, rather than defend and she ran with one bodyguard, and she even had to ignite your identity with regard to the Potomac River, which he did not want to do, and then she was described by people who saw her as a person who was totally broken in spirit. This was a person who is normally a brilliant ebulient, and she was now distraught, but she was fiery and feisty, and she said if only she had weapons to use, she would have used them at that stage against the enemy, and so they had done what was decided. They wanted to get washington, because he said if you can strike at the heart of an enemy, which is the capital city, you will destroy the morale. That is exactly what he wanted to do. Did not have anything to offer strategically to washington, but he did have the Capital Building in the and it was ause, lightning occupation. It did a lot of damage, and nearly all of the government buildings were destroyed, with the exception of the Patent Office, which was only saved because dr. Thornton was the and he learned that the british were going to destroy it, and he said to them, this is not private property. This is private property. And they say to that building, but they never caught the madisons. Do we know how long it took to rebuild the white house and to capture it after it was burned . Yes. The white house, because it did not have any major additions, took three years. They invited hogan, who had won it, andl for designing if they were redoing the capital, which defied the our lives. Now, the capital was, at that time many people think it was destroyed. That is not true. The flames, which were set by unwittingly they came back towards the british, and the Vaulted Ceilings, which were pioneered as an architectural feature, they managed to act as fire breaks so that the Vaulted Ceilings ,rotected a lot of the capital and a lot of it was saved. If you want to see the parts that were saved, go to the old supreme court, that was destroyed, but you will see in the vestibule columns that are beautifully topped with corncob capitals, designed by carved giovanni andrei, and at the ,op, you will see husks of corn pulled back so that the corn shows. The corn capitals, and those were in the vestibule, and then , youill see in the rotunda will see the places that survived, and there is a worrying now occupied by the , which hasity leader doubled as a room at that time as a committee in the District Of Columbia and an office for the president when he went to the u. S. Capitol, and coburn wanted a souvenir, so he went into this office, which still a coffeend he found table sized book on the table that belonged to madison, and it in cold type,ere president s copy. It was an expenditure of the u. S. Government for 1810, a very boring book, but he wrote on the inside cover, taken by admiral ofkburn on the destruction the capital during the occupation of washington, august him byand given to him to his brother, the governor of bermuda, and the book is secured, and then it resurfaced in philadelphia in 1940, and a rare book dealer authenticated the writing and gave the book to the Rare Book Division of the library of congress. When brian lamb interviewed me for the inaugural airing on book tv, it was in the main reading world in the library of congress. And he asked me, would you like any props, and i said, please, bring me down the book from the rare book vision, and they brought the book down, and they gave me white gloves to handle it, and this is roof of the past, tangible evidence of its happenings, and if you do not react with a heightened sensation, you needed a heart transplant. [laughter] so, you know, it was marvelous. There was so much. I did not think there there was time whentant at the i decided to write this story, and i was amazed that if you deep deep, really deep, and you go for the original documents, not other peoples books i really dislike doing that. Go for the original documents, the affidavits, reports back to which found in the National Archives, and you will find so much that makes this a living testimony of what happened at the time. It was not as it was called today. It was a war that should be remembered by everybody. Gave a speech at fort mchenry before my stroke two years ago. In the National Anthem september, i would go to fort mchenry and give a speech on why and how he wrote the National Anthem, and at the end of it, people would come up to me and say, thank you. I did not realize the story, and i could not believe it, because this is one of the fundamental beliefs of this country, and this is such a momentous occasion, writing the national they did not know the story, and i think it is a , and when i got to fort mchenry, i feel this every time, and when you hear the anthem next, i am sure you will listen to it with a different kind of feeling, because it is not archaic words. It is something that resonates down the centuries. And it is very meaningful. [applause] thank you very much. [captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2014] [captioning performed by national captioning institute] americane watching history tv, all weekend, every cspan3. On to join the conversation, join us on facebook at cspanhistory. A panel of historians talk alcohol andof used other items. Primarily a male problem, while thousands of women were addicted to laudanum. The panel looks at how these addictions were perceived across race and social class. This discussion was part of the society for historians at the early American Republic conference. It is about an hour and a half. Thank you. Welcome, and thank you for coming to the roundtable, with the unwieldy and yet highly evocative title drugs, alcohol, and the gendered and racial experience of addiction in the early republic. I am carolyn eastman, and im pleased to inform you that the subject of this roundtable proved evocative enough that cspan is filming us right now. A fact that gives me an additional opportunity to remind