USA Fumbles Its Forces Defending Washington. DC

The President, Monroe, and Rush, who soon followed, were prevented only by an accidental piece of information from riding straight into Bladensburg, where the enemy had already arrived.

Continuing British Burns Washington, D.C.,
with a selection from The History of the United States of America by Richard Hildreth published in 1880. This selection is presented in 3.5 easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in British Burns Washington, D.C..

Time: August 24, 1814
Place: USA Capital City

At the first alarm of the appearance of the British fleet, Winder had sent of his requisitions for militia; but, even had the quotas of Virginia and Pennsylvania been embodied and ready to march, and had the swiftest expresses been employed instead of the slow course of the mail, it was already too late for effectual aid from that quarter. The District militia, summoned to arms, marched to a point some eight miles east of Washington, where they were joined by the regulars, who fell back from a more advanced position which they had occupied for some time at Marlborough.

As the British column, on the third day of its uninterrupted advance, approached Barney’s flotilla, the boats, agreeably to an order from Armstrong, were blown up, Barney himself hastening with his men, some five hundred in number, to Winder’s camp, where some pieces of heavy artillery from the navy-yard were placed under his command. That camp presented a scene of noise and confusion more like a racecourse or a fair than the gathering of an army about to fight for the national capital. About midnight, the President, with Armstrong, Jones of the Navy Department, and Rush, the Attorney-General, arrived. Monroe was there already; Campbell, the Secretary of the Treasury, was busy with contrivances for replenishing the exhausted finances, proposals having been made out that very day for a loan of six million dollars, of the getting of which there was, however, but very little prospect.

The President, full of doubts and alarms, and disturbed by a thousand contradictory rumors, reviewed, the next morning, an army of three thousand two hundred men, with seventeen pieces of artillery, but as doubtful, hesitating, and consciously incapable as himself. Shortly after, Winder departed to reconnoiter; from the length of his absence it was feared that he had fallen into the hands of the enemy, but toward evening he returned, and, dreading a night attack, which was probable, as the British, now but a few miles off, had struck into the Alexandria road, as if to gain his right, he ordered a retreat.

This was made in great haste and disorder, by the bridges over the Eastern Branch, his troops encamping near the navy yard, where they received the alarming news that the enemy’s ships in the Potomac had already passed the shoals by which their ascent had been stopped the year before. That same night some six hundred Virginia militia reached Washington, but without arms or accoutrements, which Armstrong told the commanding officer it would be time enough to serve out the next morning. About four hundred fifty other Virginia militia, stationed on the Maryland side of the Potomac, opposite Alexandria, as a covering party for Fort Washington, remained there, distracted by contradictory orders, and taking no part in the general movement.

Meanwhile another force had mustered for the defense of the capital. Stansbury’s brigade of Maryland drafted militia, fourteen hundred strong, marching from the neighborhood of Balti more, had encamped the previous evening, just in advance of Bladensburg, six miles north of Washington; and the next day, while the President was reviewing the District army, they were joined by a regiment esteemed the flower of the Baltimore city militia, by some companies of artillery, and by a battalion of city riflemen, led by Pinckney, the late minister to London. This Maryland army amounted to some two thousand one hundred men; but the city part, that most relied upon, had little experience in field service, having suddenly changed the comforts of their homes for the bare ground and rations of bad salt beef and musty flour, which they did not even know how to cook.

Stansbury’s forces had already once turned out on a false alarm, when, about two in the morning, he received information from Winder of his (Winder’s) retreat, and orders to fight should the enemy, as was probable, approach Washington in that direction. A council of war, immediately summoned, not pleased with the idea of being thus put forward to encounter ten thousand British veterans — for to that number report had by this time swelled the enemy — began to retire over Bladensburg bridge; and, but for new orders from Winder to stop, and, if the enemy approached by Bladensburg, to fight, the retreat, it is probable, would have continued to Washington.

In the morning, Winder still remaining uncertain what direction the British might take, the President repaired to the navy yard, where a consultation was had as to the best means of destroying the public property there. Monroe and Rush spent the forenoon in riding to and fro between Washington and Bladensburg. Armstrong remained quietly at the war office, not even yet able to believe that the enemy would venture an attack. But, toward noon authentic information came that the British, who had encamped the previous night near the ground lately occupied by Winder, were marching on Bladensburg. Winder thereupon put his forces in motion, except the newly arrived Virginians left behind to complete their equipment, which a very careful clerk still delayed by scrupulously counting out their flints one by one. Barney was to have remained to superintend the blowing up of the bridges over the Eastern Branch, but his remonstrances finally extorted from the President, after a consultation with the heads of departments, all of whom were present on horseback, liberty to march with his guns for the field.

Campbell moodily retired, having first lent the President his dueling pistols — the same, probably, with which a few years before, in a quarrel about the embargo, he had shot Gardinier through the body on the very ground of the approaching battle. With the provision of ways and means on his hands, he had, indeed, a sufficiently arduous task of his own, without aiding in military movements. Armstrong, by permission of the President, on Campbell’s suggestion that his military knowledge might be of use there, had already ridden to the field. The President, Monroe, and Rush, who soon followed, were prevented only by an accidental piece of information from riding straight into Bladensburg, where the enemy had already arrived. The President, on reaching the field, revoking the permission lately given, directed Armstrong to leave to the commanding general the array of the battle.

Richard Hildreth begins here. George R. Gleig begins here.

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