Episode 4.11 The War of 1813

[Transcript]

Hello, and welcome to America’s First Ladies. I’m your host, Risa Weaver-Enion.

Episode 4.11 The War of 1813

Okay, so the title of this episode is just a little joke. There is no War of 1813, but the War of 1812 drags on through the entirety of 1813 and 1814. One reason I’m spending so much time on the war is that it’s very neglected in American history. If we learn anything at all about it in school, it’s that the British invaded and burned down the White House. But there’s a lot more to it than that, and it is the last time a major foreign war was fought in America. So we’re going to spend the rest of this week’s episode learning even more about it.

But first, Madison’s second inauguration, which was held on March 4, 1813. Marines, artillery, and cavalry escorted the President to the Capitol, where he delivered his inaugural address and was sworn in. The Russian minister was present in full dress regalia, but the French minister stayed away. There was an inaugural ball that evening, followed by a second ball the next night hosted by the Russian minister. 

About 10 days earlier, a message had arrived from Russian Czar Alexander. He offered to broker a mediation between the U.S. and Britain. Our young friend from season 2, John Quincy Adams, was serving as U.S. minister to Russia, but James needed to make further appointments to the mediation commission. He chose a Federalist Senator, James Bayard of Delaware, and then surprisingly added his Treasury Secretary, Albert Gallatin, to the group. 

Gallatin had been serving as the head of Treasury for 12 years at this point, and he had just successfully negotiated loans to pay for the war at least through the end of the year—no small feat. He was ready for something new. The plan was for Gallatin to continue technically serving as Treasury Secretary while in Europe but for Navy Secretary William Jones to serve as acting Secretary of the Treasury in Gallatin’s absence, which, considering how long it would take to get to Europe and back, could easily have been well over a year.

Also in need of something new was Dolley’s son Payne. He was now 21, but college did not seem to be in the cards for him. He had not performed well enough in school in anything other than becoming a dilettante. He spent his time gambling, drinking, and attending parties. Honestly, that sounds a lot like how Dolley spent her time, except she was the one throwing the parties. James decided to send Payne with the mediation commissioners. Also joining them would be Gallatin’s 16-year-old son, and another young man around Payne’s age. They all departed on April 21, 1813.

Meanwhile, the war was still progressing badly. In February 1813, Britain implemented a naval blockade of the U.S. East Coast, closing ports from New York south. They left the ports of New England alone, to encourage the secessionist movement there. In March and April British squadrons entered Chesapeake and Delaware bays. Rear Admiral Sir George Cockburn was in charge of the British fleet in America. Remember that name, because it’s going to come up again later. 

Although Cockburn was not yet in a position to threaten Washington, he burned Fredericktown and Georgetown (not the Washington, D.C. neighborhood, but a town on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.) Dolley wrote to a friend of the “fears and alarms” that were circulating through Washington. She had news that a Swedish ship in the Potomac had been boarded by the British but “our informer was too frightened to wait for further news. …One of our generals has discovered a plan of the British—it is to land as many chosen rogues as they can about fourteen miles below Alexandria, in the night, so that they may be on hand to burn the President’s house and offices. [Admiral Cockburn has] sent me word that he would make his bow at my drawing-room very soon. …[T]hough a Quaker,...[I] always have been an advocate for fighting when assailed.”

The incompetence of the army’s commanders reached new heights when General Dearborn in New York complained to the President that his army was at a standstill because the quartermaster had not provided the necessary equipment. And who was in charge of the quartermaster’s department? Why, none other than General Dearborn himself.

There was some slight good news in April when Dearborn’s troops successfully attacked the capital of Upper Canada, a city called York, which is today Toronto. The British troops defending York were badly outnumbered, so they destroyed the fort and dockyard and then retreated. The American militia troops burned the legislative building and looted and vandalized government buildings and citizens’ homes. 

Congress was called into special session that spring (remember—usually Congress only sat from around October until around February or March) to deal with the necessity of levying taxes to pay for the war. They managed to approve a number of new taxes on salt, licenses, spirits, carriages, auctions, sugar refining, and stamps. 

But when it came time to approve James’s appointments to the diplomatic mediation commission, the Senate balked. James Bayard was approved quickly, but the Senate refused to allow Gallatin to serve as both diplomat and Treasury Secretary. In fact, it was likely unconstitutional. Newly elected Senator Rufus King of New York called it executive usurpation. In the end, Madison lost this battle, and the only way to get Gallatin (who, I should mention, was already in Europe by then) confirmed as a member of the mediation commission was to let him go as Treasury Secretary. 

In the midst of all this, James became deathly ill in the summer of 1813. Federalist Congressman Noah Webster, no friend of Madison’s, saw him early on during the illness and reported, “I did not like his looks any better than his Administration.” He was attempting to present some resolves of the House of Representatives, so he showed up at the President’s House day after day, recording Madison’s lack of progress. “Madison still sick…I went…to the Palace to present the Resolutions—the President was in his bed, sick of a fever—his night cap on his head—his wife attending him—I think he will find no relief from my prescription.” Sixteen days later on June 29, Webster reported that the President was worse.

In addition to his lifelong attacks of “bilious fevers,” James was likely suffering from malaria. He was being treated with bark, which means bark from the cinchona (sin-kona) tree, which is where quinine comes from. Quinine wasn’t able to be isolated and extracted from the bark until 1820, so up until that point, the tree bark was ground up and combined with liquid, usually wine, to mask its intense bitterness. 

Once quinine was able to be isolated in 1820, it led to the invention of tonic water, which contains quinine, making it an easy-to-transport anti-malarial remedy. Quinine and tonic water enabled the British Empire to expand further into tropical regions without losing large numbers of men to malaria. And that’s how the Gin & Tonic came to be the unofficial beverage of the Royal British Navy. The quinine fought off malaria and the lime prevented scurvy. The gin was just for fun.

But back to James. There was a very real possibility that he would die, and the nation hadn’t faced this sort of crisis since George Washington’s first term. The French minister wrote, “The thought of [Madison’s] possible loss strikes everybody with consternation. His death, in the circumstances in which the Republic is placed, would be a veritable national calamity.”

By July 2, he seemed to be through the worst of it. Dolley wrote, “Mr. Madison recovers; for the last three days his fever has been so slight as to permit him to take bark every hour and with good effect. …Now that I see him get well I feel as if I might die myself from fatigue.”

On July 29, Dolley wrote to Hannah Gallatin, “You have heard no doubt, of the illness of my Husband but can have no idea of its extent, and the despair in which I attended his bed for nearly five weeks! Even now, I watch over him, as I would an infant, so precarious is his convalescence—added to this the disappointments & vexations, heaped upon him by party spirit.”

After spending only two weeks at Montpelier in the prior two years, James determined that his best bet for recovery was some fresh mountain air. On August 2, James wrote to Gallatin, “I have just recovered strength enough…to bear a journey to the mountains, whither I am about setting out. The physicians prescribe it as essential to my thorough recovery and security against a relapse at the present season.”

The Madisons left Washington for Montpelier on August 9, and spent the entirety of August and September there, throwing parties, entertaining family and friends, and enjoying their mountain air. Just before they left to return to Washington in late September, word arrived of a victory at Lake Erie. Captain Oliver Perry defeated the British, causing them to pull back from Detroit and Fort Malden. 

General Harrison, with fresh militia troops from Kentucky, pursued the British into Canada, defeating them on October 5, and killing their key Native American ally, Tecumseh. As Ralph Ketcham writes in James Madison: A Biography, “This ended British and Indian power in the Northwest and drove their forces back to the Niagara frontier, something Madison and the country had expected from General Hull fifteen months earlier.” Better late than never?

The news from the St. Lawrence area was less good. Back in the spring, James had appointed a series of new major generals and brigadiers. Among them were the “insubordinate and incompetent James Wilkinson.” Those are Ralph Ketcham’s words, not mine. Colonel Winfield Scott called Wilkinson an “unprincipled imbecile,” so it seems he was just really bad at his job. 

Secretary of War Armstrong was in the region with General Wilkinson and General Wade Hampton, and they were arguing over whether Montreal or Kingston should be their objective. Through a variety of mishaps, they accomplished nothing and ended up retreating to winter quarters, just as General Dearborn had the year before.

In his year-end address to Congress, James once again focused on the good news from the war and tried to gloss over the bad news. He hadn’t heard from the mediation commissioners in over six months, so he had no news to report on that front. He was cheered by the U.S. economy’s response to the war though. Domestic manufactures were up, and government expenditures on strengthening the army and navy were having some effect. James concluded his message to Congress by saying, “[T]he war, with all its vicissitudes, is illustrating the capacity and the destiny of the United States to be a great, a flourishing, a powerful nation, worthy of the friendship it is disposed to cultivate with all others.”

Shortly after Madison’s annual message, Congress decided to pass another embargo, shutting all U.S. ports to foreign commerce. In reality, this affected only the disloyal New England ports, because the British blockade had effectively shut all ports south of New York. 

Early in 1814, James received multiple important pieces of news. First, Napoleon had been defeated in October 1813 at the Battle of Leipzig. It had been the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars, and Napoleon had lost badly. This, on top of his retreat from Russia, had Napoleon on the ropes. He withdrew to France. The implications of this for our story revolve around the fact that Britain would now have a large number of troops and ships available to turn their attention to the war with the U.S., now that they weren’t being tied up in fighting France.

The other piece of news was that the British had rejected Russia’s offer to mediate peace between the U.S. and Britain. The British Foreign Secretary referred to the war as a “family quarrel where foreign interference can only do harm.” He suggested that the U.S. and Britain negotiate peace directly, either in London or in Sweden. James accepted the offer and appointed peace negotiators. He appointed the three men who had been appointed to the mediation commission: John Quincy Adams, James Bayard, and Albert Gallatin, all of whom were still in Europe. And he added Henry Clay and Jonathan Russell.

James knew that peace was going to be an uphill battle. Britain still didn’t see the U.S. as an equal partner, continuing to view it as a collection of unruly colonies. James informed the Foreign Minister that the U.S. would negotiate only “on conditions of reciprocity consistent with the rights of both parties as sovereign and independent nations.”

James also had to reshuffle his Cabinet at the beginning of 1814. The post of Treasury Secretary was still vacant, so James appointed Senator George W. Campbell of Tennessee. According to Ralph Ketcham, Campbell “had no particular talent for finance and was in ill-health.” So yeah, another quality appointment by James Madison.

He also replaced Attorney General William Pinckney with Richard Rush, after Pinckney refused to actually live in Washington. Rush was a close political ally of Madison’s, so it was a good appointment from that standpoint, but he didn’t have a lot of courtroom experience, so it wasn’t a great appointment. Congressman Nathaniel Macon remarked, “That Campbell and Rush are equal to Gallatin and Pinckney is not, I imagine, believed by anyone who knows them.”

Secretary of State James Monroe and Secretary of War John Armstrong were also at each other’s throats. Monroe wrote to Madison, “if continued in office [Armstrong] will ruin not you and the Administration only, but the whole republican party and cause.” But James left Armstrong in place, while promoting and reorganizing several army commands. I won’t bore you with all the names, but one in particular stands out. Young Andrew Jackson, who had recently won a victory against the Creek tribe in the Southwest, was made a major general and sent to New Orleans. 

James and Dolley made a rare spring getaway to Montpelier in 1814, but it was so rainy that they had loads of trouble getting there, and James had difficulty receiving messages from Washington. When he did receive news, it wasn’t good. Napoleon had abdicated on April 6, after a coalition of Allies (Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and several smaller German states) had entered Paris after defeating Napoleon in battle. A peace treaty was signed on May 30, and the Bourbon monarchy was restored in the person of Louis XVIII, who was the brother of the beheaded Louis XVI.

This meant nothing but trouble for the U.S. because Britain could now turn its full attention and fighting force against America. Gallatin wrote to James from London, “A well-organized and large army is at once liberated from any European employment, and ready, together with a superabundant naval force, to act immediately against us. How ill-prepared we are to meet it [is well known]; but, above all, our own divisions and the hostile attitude of the Eastern states (note: he means New England) give room to apprehend that a continuance of the war might prove vitally fatal to the United States. The hope [in Britain], not of ultimate conquest, but of a dissolution of the Union…throw impediments in the way of peace.”

On the war front at home, Madison ordered forces at Detroit to recapture Mackinac Island, but that failed. He ordered the army at Niagara to cross the river and campaign toward York, which the British had retaken shortly after the Americans captured and burned it in 1813. The Americans did manage to invade Canada across from Buffalo, New York, and fought some non-losing battles against the British, but they didn’t make any real progress. And tens of thousands of British soldiers were on their way from Europe to Canada, so the chance of the Americans making any progress in the north was rapidly disappearing.

As the summer of 1814 progressed, things began to heat up, literally and figuratively. Dolley wrote to Hannah Gallatin that the city of Washington had been “in a state of perturbation for a long time—the depredations of the Enemy approaching within 20 miles of the City and the disaffected making incessant difficulties for the government. Such a place as this has become I cannot describe it. I wish (for my part) we were at Philadelphia. The people here do not deserve that I should prefer it—among other exclamations and threats they say that if Mr. Madison attempts to move from this House in case of an attack they will stop him, and that he shall fall with it. I am not the least alarmed at these things, but entirely disgusted, and determined to stay with him.”

James finally had to deal sternly with Secretary of War Armstrong. It had come to his attention that Armstrong had been hiding news from him, undermining his orders, and reorganizing Army regiments, which was the president’s prerogative. James would have liked to fire Armstrong, but with the British only a handful of miles from Washington, it was not the time for major disruptions. Instead he read Armstrong the riot act to get him to fall into line.

The Cabinet met on July 1 to discuss the defense of the East Coast, and especially Washington. Armstrong argued that Baltimore was more strategically significant than Washington, and that the British were more likely to attack there. Quoting now from Ralph Ketcham,

“Madison understood Baltimore’s importance but was aware as well that the destruction of Washington would better suit British vindictiveness and psychic needs. He therefore created…a special capital military district under General William H. Winder, ordered ten thousand militiamen held in readiness, and instructed that arms be collected and defensive positions established in preparation for the expected assault.

For seven weeks Armstrong and Winder accomplished nothing. The Secretary of War argued with state militia officers and attended to every detail except the defense of Washington, while Winder exhausted himself riding about his district in a frenzy of indecision over the likely place of attack. Though nearly 100,000 militiamen were on the rolls in neighboring states, they were, at Armstrong’s insistence, neither called up nor organized in ways likely to be effective against a surprise attack. Madison watched this bungling anxiously and asked relevant, pointed questions about arms not gathered, troops not positioned, and road blocks not prepared, but received no satisfaction. Unwilling as a civilian to interfere any further in military plans, and perhaps still hoping that, as in the previous summer, the British would bluff and disappear, Madison permitted week after week to pass, knowing full well that the nation’s capital was virtually defenseless.”

On August 17, a British fleet of more than 50 ships, including 4000 troops commanded by General Robert Ross, anchored at the mouth of the Patuxent River, a mere 35 miles from Washington. The news reached Washington the next morning. Secretary of State Monroe rode out on scouting trips. General Armstrong did nothing, still insisting that the British were more likely to attack Baltimore.

By August 22, the British had nearly reached Bladensburg, Maryland, which was 15 miles from Washington, and the only dry land approach to the capital city. James ordered government archives moved to safety and ordered the Virginia and Maryland militias to Bladensburg. He wanted to ride out to personally check on the army, but asked Dolley if she was too afraid to stay at the President’s House alone. She said that she was not afraid for herself, only for him, and that she would make sure no Cabinet papers were lost or destroyed.

James was gone the rest of the day, spending the night in camp with Attorney General Rush, Secretary of War Armstrong, and General Winder. The next morning he sent a note to Dolley saying that the troops were “in high spirits and make a good appearance.” Later that day, after questioning two British deserters, he wrote Dolley again, telling her she should be ready at a moment’s notice to jump into her carriage and leave the city. The enemy was stronger than anticipated and “it might happen that they would reach the city with intention to destroy it.”

James spent the night of the 23rd at home with Dolley, but the dispatches he received throughout the evening and night were not promising. General Winder had spent his time running around like a chicken with its head cut off, accomplishing nothing other than falling into a ditch and injuring himself. Secretary Monroe sent a note that “The enemy are in full march for Washington.” He advised that bridges be destroyed and records be removed to safety. Dolley had a carriage packed with cabinet papers, but there were no wagons available to carry any of their personal belongings. Most of the citizens of Washington had packed up and fled, using every available wagon and carriage to do so. 

Early on August 24, James received a note from General Winder that he had very threatening news and needed speedy counsel, so James rode off to the camp near the Navy Yard bridge. At 10 am a scout arrived with news that the British had broken camp and were marching toward Bladensburg. Madison ordered Armstrong to march to Bladensburg to support General Winder. James and Attorney General Rush also headed for Bladensburg, but they were intercepted by a sentry who informed them that the British had reached Bladensburg before the U.S. forces could, and General Winder was on a nearby hilltop.

Meanwhile, Dolley was still back at the President’s House, looking anxiously through her spyglass toward Bladensburg, trying to discern her husband on his way back to her. Despite the danger and perhaps imminent attack, the household servants were busy setting the dinner table for a party that was scheduled to be held later that evening. She also started writing a letter to her sister Anna that she added to throughout the day.

“I am determined not to go myself until I see Mr. Madison safe, so that he can accompany me, as I hear of much hostility towards him. Disaffection stalks all around us. Since sunrise I have been turning my spyglass in every direction, and watching with unwearied anxiety, hoping to discover the approach of my dear husband and his friends, but, alas, I can descry only groups of military, wandering in all directions.”

They were wandering because the U.S. forces were in total disarray. The British regular army troops had pushed into the militia, driving them off the field of battle. The untrained American militiamen dispersed in all directions, leaving the road to Washington wide open.

Throughout the late morning and early afternoon, Dolley had been visited by friends urging her to leave the city. The mayor of Washington stopped by twice to beg her to flee, but she refused to leave without James. Her sister Anna sent a slave messenger with a note, “Tell me for God’s sake where you are and what [you are] going to do…we can hear nothing but what is horrible there—I do not know who to send this to—and will say but little.”

Dolley told all of the house staff and servants to leave town. Only the head servant Jean Pierre Sioussat, and two slaves, Paul Jennings and Sukey, remained with Dolley. In her running letter to Anna, Dolley wrote, “I have pressed as many Cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transportation.” 

As Dolley finally prepared to leave the President’s House around 3 pm, she passed by the large Gilbert Stuart painting of George Washington that hung in the dining room. As Bruce Chadwick writes in James & Dolley Madison: America’s First Power Couple, “In a flash, she saw the painting as symbolic of all that America stood for—the revolution, independence, equal rights, prosperity, and democracy. That stirring painting of George Washington, the father of the country, of her country, could not fall into the hands of the dastardly British. If they captured George Washington, they captured America. She could not let that happen.”

She ordered the servants to remove the painting, which was no easy task. In her letter to Anna, she wrote, “Mr. Carroll has come to hasten my departure and is in a very bad humor because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall.” The large wooden outer frame had to be broken apart to get the painting out. It was apparently carried out of town intact, inside its smaller wooden frame.

Dolley entrusted the General’s painting to two men she knew who were passing by the President’s House during the melee of evacuation. She supposedly shouted to them, “Save that picture! Save that picture if possible. If not possible, destroy it. Under no circumstances allow it to fall in to the hands of the British.”

Jacob Barker, one of the men entrusted with the painting, carried it off in a wagon with his personal belongings. Bruce Chadwick writes, “In letters, diaries, and journals, many Washingtonians later wrote that they saw the painting sticking up from Barker’s furniture as he rode slowly out of town with everyone else. It seems that everybody except the British saw the portrait that day.”

With the painting secured, Dolley finally left Washington. Mr. Carroll evacuated her in his carriage, along with several of his family members, to his home in Georgetown, about five miles from the President’s House. The last thing Dolley did before leaving was to ask Jean Pierre Sioussat to take her beloved pet macaw to Octagon House, which was owned by friends of hers and currently inhabited by the French minister to the U.S. She knew the bird would be safe there.

A little while after Dolley’s evacuation, James arrived back at the President’s House with Monroe and Rush. They found the house empty, and the dinner table still set for a dinner party that would never happen. James sent a note to Secretary of the Navy Jones, who was busy destroying the stocks at Navy Yard so they didn’t fall into the hands of the British, that everyone should meet at the nearest Potomac River crossing. When they got there, there was no sign of Dolley or the Carroll family, so James crossed into Virginia.

Shortly before 8 pm, the British entered Washington, virtually unopposed. General Winder had told his few remaining troops that it was futile to make a stand in the city because they were so badly outnumbered. The British troops commanded by Admiral Cockburn reached the Capitol Building first. They entered into the House of Representatives chamber and fired rockets at the ceiling, expecting it to catch fire, not realizing that it was made of metal. So instead, they piled up all the wooden furniture and set it ablaze. Within 30 minutes, the bonfire had engulfed most of the building. The flames could be seen for miles. One Washington resident who had not evacuated wrote, “You never saw a drawing room so brilliantly lighted as the whole city was that night. Few thought of going to bed—they spent the night in gazing on the fires and lamenting the disgrace of the city.”

After setting the Capitol Building on fire, Admiral Cockburn and his troops headed for the President’s House. And if you’ve been paying attention, you know what they found there: a large dining room table set for dinner for thirty people, with food and wine all placed for guests who never arrived. The British sat down and helped themselves to a fine meal at the expense of the President, and then they lit his house on fire.

First, they looted the residence, stealing many items of value, including clothes and jewelry belonging to James and Dolley. They stacked wood in front of the drapes and lit small fires that joined into big fires. They set wallpaper and books on fire. Every room in the house was ablaze within a short period of time. The troops went out into the street to watch the President’s House burn, but to their chagrin, the outer sandstone walls did not catch. So the structure itself did not burn to the ground, but the interior was completely destroyed.

Once finished with the President’s House, the troops then turned to the Treasury Building next door and burned it down too. They were going to burn down the War Department offices, but their superiors rejected that. William Thornton met the troops outside the Patent Office and begged them not to burn it. He told them it would be like “the soldiers who burned the legendary library at Alexandria.” The argument worked, and the British left the Patent Office standing.

Across the Potomac River in Virginia, President Madison watched the flames light up the night sky. Attorney General Rush later recalled, “[We saw] columns of flame and smoke ascending throughout the night…from the Capitol, the President’s house, and other public edifices, as the whole were on fire, some burning slowly, others with bursts of flame and sparks mounting high up in the horizon. …If at intervals the dismal sight was lost to our view, we got it again from some hilltop or eminence where we paused to look at it.”

Dolley and James kept missing each other as they each stopped at various places of safety that night. They would not be reunited until the following day.

And that’s where we’ll pick up our story next week, and we’ll finally bring to a close the War of 1812. In 1815.

Thanks for listening to this episode! It was produced by me, and the music is by Matt Dull.