Burning of Lewiston

On the evening of 24 August 1814, British forces entered the capital of the United States unopposed. Over the following hours, they systematically burned the principal public buildings of the American government — the Capitol, the President’s House, the Treasury, the War and State Departments, an arsenal, and a dockyard. It was, and remains, the only occasion since the American Revolution on which a foreign power captured and occupied Washington.

The Chain of Causation

The burning of Washington cannot be understood in isolation. It was the culmination of a cycle of destruction and retaliation that began with the American invasion of Canada — and the responsibility for initiating that cycle lies with the invaders, not the retaliators.

The chain runs as follows. In April 1813, American forces raided York (present-day Toronto), the capital of Upper Canada, and burned the parliament buildings — the seat of government for the province. In December 1813, retreating American forces under Brigadier General George McClure burned the town of Newark (Niagara-on-the-Lake), turning approximately 400 civilian families out of their homes in midwinter. At York, the burning was directed at government property. At Newark, it was directed at a civilian community in freezing temperatures.

Andrew Lambert, in The Challenge, draws the direct connection: the British government considered the burning of York an act of war requiring a proportionate response. The burning of Newark — a civilian atrocity by any standard — intensified the demand for retaliation. When Ross’s Peninsular veterans entered Washington in August 1814, they carried explicit orders to destroy American public buildings in retaliation for American destruction of Canadian public buildings. The orders were specific. The retaliation was calculated. And the chain of cause and effect runs in one direction.

The Advance from Benedict

Major General Robert Ross landed his force of approximately 4,500 Peninsular War veterans at Benedict, Maryland, on the Patuxent River on 19 August. These were not colonial garrison troops — they were hardened soldiers who had fought under Wellington at Salamanca, Vitoria, and Toulouse. Ross himself was an experienced and aggressive field commander.

The advance from Benedict to Washington covered approximately 50 miles in five days — a brisk pace through the heat of a Maryland August. Ross’s objective was the American capital itself. The decision to target Washington was both military and psychological: a demonstration that the United States, having invaded Canada and burned its capital, could not protect its own seat of government.

Bladensburg: The Road Opens

Brigadier General William Winder’s defence of Washington collapsed at Bladensburg on 24 August in what became known as “the Bladensburg Races.” An American force of approximately 6,500 — with numerical superiority — was routed by 4,500 British veterans. President Madison, Secretary of State Monroe, and other officials fled. Only Commodore Barney’s flotillamen offered serious resistance.

Donald Hickey’s assessment is measured but unsparing: “Bladensburg was not lost because American soldiers lacked courage — Barney’s flotillamen proved that. It was lost because the American government had failed to prepare adequate defences for its own capital, had relied on untrained militia to oppose Peninsular War veterans, and had placed the defence in the hands of a general who was manifestly unequal to the task.”

Lambert’s analysis reinforces the point from the British perspective: the defeat at Bladensburg was not caused by American cowardice but by systemic failure — inadequate preparation, reliance on militia against professionals, and a command structure wholly unequal to the situation.

The Burning: Discipline and Retaliation

The city that Ross and Rear Admiral George Cockburn entered was largely deserted. The government had fled. Dolley Madison had supervised the removal of the Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington before leaving the President’s House. The British found the table laid for dinner in the abandoned mansion.

What followed was conducted with a degree of discipline that has been insufficiently acknowledged in American accounts. Ross and Cockburn directed the destruction specifically at government and military property:

The Capitol was burned, including the Library of Congress. The President’s House was gutted. The Treasury and departments of War and State were destroyed. A dockyard with a frigate under construction was burned. An arsenal at Greenleaf Point was destroyed (an accidental magazine explosion there killed approximately thirty British soldiers — the only significant British casualties of the entire operation).

Private dwellings, commercial buildings, and churches were left standing. The Patent Office was spared after its superintendent argued that its contents constituted private intellectual property. When looting was discovered, it was punished. Several contemporary American witnesses — residents who remained in the city — recorded their surprise at the restraint shown toward non-government property.

Lambert emphasises the deliberate nature of the distinction: “The burning of Washington was not an act of vandalism. It was a precisely calibrated act of state-level retaliation, directed at the institutions of government that had authorised the invasion of Canada and the destruction of Canadian public property. That private property was spared was not an accident — it was policy.”

Jon Latimer, in 1812: War with America, draws the direct retaliatory connection: “At Newark, American forces had burned a civilian town in midwinter, leaving hundreds of families homeless in freezing temperatures. At York, the parliament buildings of Upper Canada were put to the torch. When British officers entered Washington, these acts were fresh in their minds. The retaliation was proportionate, targeted, and, by the standards of the age, restrained.”

Jeremy Black, in The War of 1812 in the Age of Napoleon, places the episode in the wider context of the Napoleonic Wars: burning an enemy’s public buildings while sparing private property was consistent with European practice of the period. The British conduct at Washington was notably more disciplined than, for example, French conduct during the Peninsular War. This context is rarely acknowledged in American accounts, which tend to treat the burning as an exceptional act of barbarism rather than a conventional act of war.

The Storm and Withdrawal

On the evening of 25 August, a violent thunderstorm struck Washington. Some accounts describe tornado-force winds. The storm extinguished some fires and made conditions miserable for the occupying troops. Ross, having achieved his objective, ordered withdrawal that night. The British departed as quickly as they had arrived, marching back to their ships.

The Political Consequences

The burning of Washington embarrassed the Madison administration, energised the anti-war Federalist movement (which would convene the Hartford Convention in December 1814), and created a sense of national crisis. It also generated a surge of patriotic sentiment — the defence of Baltimore three weeks later was fuelled partly by the rage and shame of Washington’s fall.

In the longer perspective, the burning demonstrates a truth that American popular memory has been reluctant to acknowledge: the United States initiated this war with the invasion of its neighbour, burned the capital of Upper Canada, destroyed civilian communities in midwinter, and then found itself unable to protect its own capital from retaliation. The chain of cause and effect runs in one direction, however uncomfortable that direction may be for the American narrative.