The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814

The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814
ISBN-10
1557504253
ISBN-13
9781557504258
Category
History
Pages
298
Language
English
Published
2000
Publisher
Naval Inst Press
Author
Anthony S. Pitch

Description

In the hot and humid summer of 1814 British troops completed a fifty-mile march to capture the young American capital, putting to rout along the way pitiful citizen militiamen (some in winter gear, others barefoot) while President James Madison rode out of town to safety. Among those remaining, a realization spread that Washington had been "abandoned to a horrid fate." In no time, British arsonists set off an inferno whose glow was seen fifty miles away and from which burn marks are visible today on original stones of the White House. This attack was one of the defining moments in the coming-of-age of the United States, and Anthony Pitch tells the dramatic story with all the immediacy of an eyewitness account.

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