Posted on 08/24/2014 8:55:41 AM PDT by Pharmboy
On Aug. 24, 1814, the British started a fire — and ultimately kindled a capital’s future.
The day began like so many days in Washington, with a painfully long meeting marked by confusion, misinformation and indecision.
The British were coming. They were on the march in the general direction of Washington. The precise target of the invaders remained unclear, but their intentions were surely malign.
James Madison, the fourth president of these young United States, had raced to a private home near the Navy Yard for an emergency war council with top generals and members of his Cabinet. The secretary of war, John Armstrong — conspicuously late for the meeting — had argued in recent days that the British would not possibly attack Washington, because it was too unimportant, with just 8,000 inhabitants and a few grandiose government buildings scattered at a great distance from one another.
“They certainly will not come here. What the devil will they do here? No! No! Baltimore is the place, sir. That is of so much more consequence,” Armstrong had declared.
The British had landed five days earlier near the head of navigable waters on the Patuxent River, southeast of Washington. There were about 4,500 of them — hardened fighters fresh from the Napoleonic wars.
The American forces called out to meet the invaders and defend the capital numbered about 5,500, but most were local militia — farmers and tradesmen with minimal training.
snip...the Enemy was most definitely headed straight for Bladensburg, a town just six miles northeast of the Capitol. This provoked a convulsion of activity. Generals prepared to dash to the field of battle. Madison decided he should go, too. Someone handed him two pistols that he strapped around his waist.
The gunslinging 5-foot-4-inch president galloped on the pike toward Bladensburg.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Indeed. Sorry, I missed it. But still, I think it has been downgraded to a storm of high winds as opposed to the so-called “Hurricane of Providence”. It sent the Redcoats running for dear life.
How dare you insult Herself The Flying Buttress!
If Laura Bush were walking down that WH hallway, she would have stopped, shook hands with our distinguished British guests, and welcomed them to America.
Michelle Obama, can’t say one way or another.
In the tv series revolution it appeared that putting an officers body in a barrel with pickling fluid was how officer’ s bodies were returned to England. Regular soldiers bodies were buried in America.
In the late summer of 1780, General Charles Cornwallis, the British southern commander, gained a strong upper hand following the battle of Camden, which left the patriots in tatters. As Cornwallis marched towards the Waxhaws, a yearlong battle of attrition began. After a small engagement near Waxhaw, Jackson and his remaining brother, Robert, hid in the house of their relative, Thomas Crawford. British dragoons discovered the two–thus beginning a nearly fatal chapter of Jackson's life. Upon discovering the two Jackson boys, the British detachment began to destroy the house, tearing apart furniture and breaking windows.
The prisoners cowered in the living room until the British commander ordered Andrew to clean the mud from the soldiers' boots. Jackson refused, replying, "Sir, I am a prisoner of war and claim to be treated as such." In an angry response, the soldier raised his sword and swung at the boy's head. Jackson managed to deflect part of the blow with his left hand, but he received a serious gash on his hand and another on his head–two scars of British ire that Jackson would bear for the rest of his life. When Robert also refused to clean the boots, he was sent staggering across the room by a blow from the officer's sword.
Jackson was 13 years old in 1780. Read more about his RevWar history at the link above.
The very sovereignty of the U.S. was at stake. We were attacked by a foe which had been defeated on battlefields located in our country just thirty or so years earlier.
Despite the destruction of our property by these invaders, they were driven off and our sovereignty was preserved.
Much as in the Revolutionary War, the Americans understood what was so eloquently stated by General Patton in more recent times; "No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country."
That seemed to be SOP for a commander killed in battle. The Brits did that to their own Lorn nelson, if memory serves. The ordinary soldiers and sailors were left to rot, or were buried at sea.
A badge of honor, I think. The Brits did that with their own Lord Nelson. (just conjecture here) I imagine that sending the commander back "pickled" was a way of making sure that he had not deserted and to settle all insurance claims. The ordinary blokes were left to lay where they died, or were buried at sea. After Lord Nelson was returned to England in a barrel he received a full state funeral.
I don’t mean to besmirch the character of Old Hickory any more than has been done down through the years, but from my bad memory of just that one book, I believe it was his own idea. And further, the man’s wife was actually onboard the ship. I think she had come along to enjoy the slapping down of the pesky and uncouth Americans. Keep in mind that Old Hickory bore the scar on his face from a British officers saber, going back to his youth. When the Brits showed up in their ships, Jackson said, “they will not sleep one night on American soil!”
In the very good book "Undaunted Courage" by Stephen Ambrose, about the Lewis and Clark Expedition, it was recorded by Lewis that the men ate about seven or eight pounds of meat per day (if it was available). They did perform very hard labor, poling the boats. I cannot see how a person could possibly eat that much.
Far more destruction than the British ever dreamed of doing.
And just as a refresher, as we review our illustrious past, and before the SHTF, I would also like to add, about Andrew Jackson, that he was the first of the Democratic Party to adopt the “jackass” as a symbol during a campaign for office. (This morphed into the “Donkey”.) His opponents had called him a jackass, and he adopted it and turned it back on them as a sign of his stubbornness.
Somewhat like Perry and the mugshot. But not really.
I live in a very old house outside of Boston. It had once been home to a Minuteman. It was moved to where it is now in 1840. I found an old coin, actually a “political token”, in the backyard when I had septic work done. The token was dated 1840. It has Jackson on one side, emerging from a treasure chest with a bag of money, and on the other side a jackass. It had something to do with him robbing the national treasury?
The body of our own John Paul Jones was interred in a lead casket filled with alcohol & buried in Paris. More than a century later archaeologists located the coffin, in 1905.
The body was so well preserved that it was positively identified & John Paul Jones got a formal military funeral at Annapolis.
A wealthy Frenchman who had admired Jones paid for the preserving process so that his remains would eventually be returned in honor to the U.S.
When I was in my twenties and single on returning home late at night from work I used to eat two to three pounds of meat and a can of vegetables and some bread before turning in.
One could certainly envision those fellas doing so much activity being extremely hungry. Of course that much would be more than one meal’s worth
He would have to be preserved for the several week voyage back to Britain.
When John Paul Jones was located by the US search in Paris ( 114 years after his death at age 45) during the good Roosevelt’s administration he was found buried in an airtight lead coffin filled with alcohol and was thus preserved.
Upon being brought back to the US aboard the cruiser Brooklyn, when approaching the coast, Jones got escorted by three more cruisers and seven battleships. Would have been worth seeing.
I would guess that it referred to Jackson battling the Bank of the United States. Maybe means wresting the people’s money away from the bankers.
I suppose he is considered worst American President by the Federal Reserve.
“weren’t people shorter in those days generally?”
Yes, with smaller butts too. The 1865 seats in Ford’s Theater are too small for the average American butt today.
Thank you. That would explain the pickling better than the book did. And I’d never heard about the alcohol filled lead casket of John Paul Jones until this thread. A good day.
Yes. I double checked. It was called a Hard Times Token.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hard_times_token.jpg
“Less well known is that local vagrants ran amok in the White House.
“A rabble, taking advantage of the confusion, ran all over the White House, and stole lots of silver and whatever they could lay their hands on,” Jennings reported...”
-Didn’t know the Clintons were around in 1812!
Clearly nobama has been the worse we have seen and is obviously planning worse, but thus far his folks have not burned the city and come very close to destroying America as did the Brits in 1814. I would think that there have been many dark days from which the sufferers thought must be the end indeed and in that gives me hope that again America will overcome this trial too.
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