American Treasures by Stephen Puleo

Author:Stephen Puleo
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781466872745
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2016-11-23T05:00:00+00:00

14

“Such Destruction—Such Confusion…”

Thursday, August 25, 1814

The next evening, shivering and exhausted, the president’s wife pounded on the wooden door of a tavern, seeking refuge in an establishment whose angry occupants had denied her entrance just an hour earlier. They were angry because they blamed President Madison for thrusting the United States into the war with England; with him absent, Dolley became the target of their ire. Twilight had arrived and with it the resumption of the furious thunderstorms and hurricane-force winds that had raged all day and turned the dusty roadways into barely passable mud-clogged swamps. Dolley Payne Madison and her companions, drenched, needed food and a warm fire.

Dolley had traveled sixteen miles from Washington in the miserable weather, fleeing just ahead of the rumored onslaught of British soldiers. She’d faced harrowing danger over the past two days. With enemy troops advancing on Washington, she had remained at the White House as long as she could, desperate for James to return from the front lines so they could seek safe harbor together. The president had left three days earlier on horseback to join American militiamen marching to confront British soldiers who longed to capture Madison and destroy the White House. James and Dolley both believed the president’s presence would steel the resolve of the American troops. Before his departure, James had chosen this tavern as a meeting place if Dolley were forced to evacuate the president’s house before his return.

Although James had penned an initial letter to her two days earlier, declaring that American troops were “in high spirits & make a good appearance,” the situation deteriorated rapidly. She received two additional dispatches from James by messenger, each written in pencil; the second she found “alarming, because he desires I should be ready at a moment’s warning to enter my carriage and leave the city; that the enemy seemed stronger than had been reported and that it might happen that they would reach the city, with intention to destroy it.”

She had acted swiftly after that, filling trunks with cabinet papers and other government documents, including her husband’s voluminous notes from the Constitutional Convention of 1787, which virtually no American knew existed. She decided that all the trunks should fit into a single carriage and thus made the decision to sacrifice their personal property. Late Tuesday night, she vowed to remain in the White House until James returned and could accompany her. She feared for his safety, not just from British soldiers but from disgruntled Americans angry about the war with the British and now the humiliating invasion of Washington. “I hear of much hostility towards him,” Dolley had written in a letter to her sister. “Disaffection stalks around us.”

With the exception of her steward, John Pierre Sioussat, or “French John,” and a few other White House servants and staff members, Dolley was alone in the White House Tuesday night. “My friends and acquaintances are all gone,” she wrote, and even a contingent of 100 troops left behind to guard her and the house had fled.

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