Insurrection Day by Chris Hauty

Author:Chris Hauty
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Atria/Emily Bestler Books
Published: 2022-01-04T00:00:00+00:00

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ON AUGUST 24, 1814, a force of forty-five hundred battle-hardened British soldiers, led by Major General Robert Ross, entered a mostly unprotected Washington City, marching up Maryland Avenue. The US Capitol was the most noteworthy building at the time and, as such, was the primary target of the British troops. The structure was looted and set to flame by sappers from the Corps of Royal Engineers, starting with the southern annex. The fire spread so quickly that it curtailed the concurrent plundering. The three-thousand-volume collection of the Library of Congress was lost in the conflagration.

Also looted and burned in the twenty-six-hour British occupation of Washington City was the President’s Mansion, buildings for the Treasury and the departments of War and State, as well as the offices of the National Intelligencer newspaper (habitually critical of the invasion’s commander, British Rear Admiral George Cockburn) and the Washington Navy Yard. A matter of historical debate is whether a sudden and very heavy thunderstorm brought an end to the invasion. At the very least, the “Storm that Saved Washington” put out the widespread fires.

Not since that August in 1814 have enemy troops set the Capitol Building ablaze, until this day.

Not since the soldiers of the Fourth Regiment (or the King’s Own Regiment of Foot) have America’s foes plundered documents and treasures from our seat of government.

And not since those desperate hours, more than two hundred years ago, has American blood been spilled in defense of the nation’s principal legislative seat against foreign invasion.

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