Chapter Twenty-seven

Washington D.C. August 24, 1814

President Madison paced the floor of the house on the corner of Maryland Avenue and Constitution Avenue in the nation’s capital. He, Colin, and a small group of Patriots waited for any movement by the British forces near the house. Their aim was to delay the inevitable. The day was the hottest remembered, yet he and his party remained at the ready. Thousands of British soldiers camped a few miles from the house, and they had yet to make a move. The room was filled with men, yet silent.

"I wish they would do something," a man said, his rifle dangled out an open window.

"They will soon enough," the older man next to him, said, "They are probably relishing their victory at Bladensburg." He swatted a mosquito from his face.

The horrid heat and humidity had turned the stagnant swamps surrounding the capital into breeding grounds and hatcheries for the disease-carrying pests. Millions of them plagued the city. The only good thing was the pests didn't care who they bothered. The British marines fought the mosquitoes as well.

Colin waved at mosquitoes, mopping the sweat from his forehead. His shirt stuck to his back. He was not alone. The room stank of sweat.

His friend and employer stepped next to him and gazed out the window. "Hot enough for you, Mr. President?" Colin asked.

Madison stared wearily at Colin. "This infernal heat and these annoying mosquitoes will be the death of us all. The British will have nothing to stop them."

"It's just a minor setback, Jim," Colin said. "We will slow down those pesky marines or allow our force of mosquitoes to attack their flanks."

James Madison swatted a barrage of flying pests squishing one that landed on his arm. "Don't they realize that I am the president of the United States?" He paused before continuing, "The British, not the pests."

"Oh, trust me they know you are in here," Colin peered out the window.

"What will they do to me?" The president placed his hand on his saber. The saber was almost as big as he was.

"My guess is they will do nothing to you. They will march past us with little care. They can squash us as quickly as a mosquito if they choose to do so." Colin rubbed his tired eyes with the tips of his fingers.

"Sir, three riders approach. They carry a truce flag," a private from the corner announced.

"What shall I do?" the president asked Colin.

A shot rang out from an unknown man in the room, missing the British riders, but splitting them apart. They hesitated for a brief moment and rode off.

"Who is the fool that just fired their musket?" Madison demanded.

"Well, that answers your question on what to do. You should find a good seat and watch the World's finest Marines march by. We are no match. We held them off as long as they allowed." Colin’s gaze fell on the obvious person who fired his musket. The man sat in the corner with his face buried in his hands.

Madison slumped into a nearby chair. He cupped his head in his hands, defeated. "I need to get a message to Dolly. She needs to evacuate the city." Madison stared at Colin, his face all a worry.

"I'll go," Colin said firmly.

"I knew you would volunteer," Madison said with a weary smile. "Tell her she is to leave at once, save nothing except the slaves and the servants."

Colin peered out the open window. There was no enemy in sight. He knew it was the time to go. "Yes, sir." Colin inspected his rifle and placed it on the table. “I might be spared if I am not armed.”

"What about your family, Colin? Are they safe? Beth is pregnant with your third if I am not mistaken?"

Colin stared at the British soldiers gallop away. "She is, sir. George is four and Isaiah is six."

Madison appeared piqued as he glared up at Colin, "There is no need to return. Get your family to safety. Warn the citizens as you ride. We all must flee Washington. I dub thee a modern day Paul Revere."

Colin’s sweat-soaked shirt clung to every inch of flesh. The stagnant stink from the swamps turned his stomach. He heard the muffled sound of soldiers marching to a cadence in the distance. He wondered what had become of the president and the handful of defenders in the yellow house.

He found Dolly in the mansion’s foyer scurrying from servant to servant barking out orders of what to save from destruction. She gripped a tray of silverware clutched in her arms.

Colin rushed up the stairs, three at a time. Dolly stopped barking orders and watched. "I have been sent by the president with orders to see that you leave the house at once Mrs. Madison. The British are only a few blocks from the house."  Colin out of breath bent over his hands on his knees.

"Mr. Harcourt, you must realize I cannot leave until all the priceless works of art have been removed and safe," she said matter-of-factly.

Colin glanced around. There were too many valuables to save. A portrait of General Washington still hung on a wall. Someone hung the portrait too high on the wall and would require a ladder to retrieve. "There is no time. I will remain behind and help your colored man save whatever we can," he said, knowing that he could not warn Beth and the children if he stayed. Beth was near term for their third child. He worried if she could handle the stress. "There is a carriage waiting outside, take it and leave at once."

"Please, Mrs. Madison, we gots it under control. Mr. Magraw dun went to fetch a ladder, and your doorman found a wagon," a slave Colin knew as Paul Jennings said.

"I suppose you’re right. Mr. Harcourt will help." Dolly Madison said as servants escorted out the door with the silverware in her arms. Dolly climbed into the waiting carriage. "I will look in on Mrs. Harcourt and the children," she said as the coach whisked her away. Colin smiled and waved as the carriage hurried down the street.

"Masser Harcourt now mights be a good time to get busy." the slave, Jennings, said, pointing to the ladder positioned under the portrait of Washington.

"Wait a minute," Sally said defiantly. "We learned in school that Dolly Madison saved everything when the White House burned. And the president lived in the White House, not an ordinary house."

"Sorry to change your history lesson. First, she didn't have the time to save everything. A slave, Paul Jennings, the doorman Jean, I forget his last name, and the president's gardener, a man named Magraw, and myself saved what we could before we made a hasty retreat. We scarcely had time to leave before the first Marines battered down the door. We learned later that the marines even ate the lunch Jennings prepared for the president and forty guests. And the White House did not become the White House until it was rebuilt after the war." 

“I wasn’t aware that Dolly did not rescue Washington’s portrait either,” Grant said rubbing his beard. “It doesn’t matter who saved it. At least there is truth in the fact it was saved in the nick of time.”

"We snuck out the back door as the advancing Marines started up the walk. We watched from a short distance as the vanguard of the British army reached Capitol Hill. They systematically burned public buildings on the hill. They burned any building even remotely related to our government. The White House was the first to go. There, are you happy, Sally? I called it the White House so as not to confuse you." Sally grinned. "They burned the unfinished Capitol Building and the temporary Senate and House of Representative Building.  He didn’t spare the building housing the Library of Congress. Thomas Jefferson later donated his extensive library to replace the books that were lost."

"What about your wife, your children, and the president? How did they fare?" Anne asked, motioning Sally not to fidget with her petticoats.

"The British satisfied that they had destroyed our government moved on toward Baltimore. I met up with Mr. Madison a few days after that. He told me that the British burnt the yellow house to the ground. He also told me a story about British Rear Admiral Cockburn. The daily paper, The National Intelligence, printed some rather scathing remarks about the Admiral, calling him a ruffian. Well, the story goes that the Admiral who was behind much of the burnings, marched into the newspaper's office intent to burn it to the ground. However, several women, including one very pregnant woman, convinced the Admiral not to burn the building. Instead, he ordered the building torn down brick by brick."

"Was Beth the pregnant woman?" asked Grant.

Colin shrugged his shoulders. "I don't know, she never told me. She said that we both had secrets. However, I doubt it. When I finally found her three days later, she greeted me with a beautiful baby girl that we named Dolly."

"The battle of Washington lasted a little over ten hours. Our side only fired one shot, other than the shot fired at the yellow house. They never reported how many Americans died, but about thirty British died. All the deaths were from accidents or the heat.”

“A young lawyer on board a British man-of-war ship penned a poem he called the ‘Attack on Baltimore.’"

"I've read that poem. ‘The bombs bursting in air gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,’" James said more as a question than a statement.

"That's the one. I only met Mr. Key a few times, but he was a brilliant man. He died way too young." Colin stood, stretching his legs, and rubbing the kinks out of his back before sitting again.

"That poem should be attached to our heritage in some way," Grant stated and poured him more wine. “The words are so haunting. It might make the perfect national song.”

"Francis thought so too. Who knows, maybe someday," Colin said, his thoughts were now on Beth. He thumbed his timepiece from his vest pocket. He stared contentedly at the lithograph of his wife on the inside. "Look at the time. I have a few more thoughts, and then if you don't mind I will retire to bed, I will continue in the morning, for those still interested in my ramblings."

"We will be here, won't we, Mommy?" Sally nestled into her mother’s lap, batting her eyes.

A nod from her mother confirmed the answer. Grant and James said they would return in the morning.

"The Treaty of Gent, ending the war was signed on Christmas Eve in 1814. General Andy Jackson defeated the British in New Orleans in January 1815. He had not heard the news of the treaty. There was strong talk about moving the nation’s capital north of the Mason-Dixon Line. Many cities volunteered, including Philadelphia. Local people in business financed a temporary home for Congress until they could build a better one.

Madison did not seek re-election, and the country voted for James Monroe over New York's mayor, Rufus King. The problem was that Mr. Monroe did not like or believe me. I lost my position when Monroe took office. That wasn't the worst of my troubles. People were questioning my character. They swore I was in league with the devil. It was time to move on."