Ross also refused to accept Cockburn's recommendation to burn the entire city. He "never dreamt for one minute that an army of 3,500 men with 1,000 marines reinforcement, with no cavalry, hardly any artillery, could march 50 miles inland and capture an enemy capital", according to CBC News. He had recommended Washington as the target, because of the comparative ease of attacking the national capital and "the greater political effect likely to result". Rear Admiral Cockburn accurately predicted that "within a short period of time, with enough force, we could easily have at our mercy the capital". Cochrane suggested attacking Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia. On June 25, he wrote to Cochrane stressing that the defenses there were weak, and he felt that several major cities were vulnerable to attack. Rear Admiral George Cockburn had commanded the squadron in Chesapeake Bay since the previous year.
Īdmiralty House, Mount Wyndham, Bermuda, where the attack was planned He planned to carry the war into the United States by attacks in Virginia and against New Orleans. Early in 1814, Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy's North America and West Indies Station, controlling naval forces based at the new Bermuda dockyard and the Halifax Naval Yard which were used to blockade US Atlantic ports throughout the war. The commanders were under strict orders, however, not to carry out operations far inland, or to attempt to hold territory. It was decided to use these forces in raids along the Atlantic seaboard to draw American forces away from Canada. The Earl of Bathurst, Secretary of State for War and the Colonies, dispatched an army brigade and additional naval vessels to the Imperial fortress of Bermuda, from where a blockade of the US coast and even the occupation of some coastal islands had been overseen throughout the war. However, with the defeat and exile of Napoleon Bonaparte in April 1814, Britain was able to use its now available troops and ships to prosecute its war with the United States.
Reinforcements were held back from Canada and reliance was instead made on local militias and native allies to bolster the British Army in Canada. The initial British strategy against the United States focused on imposing a partial blockade at sea, and a maintaining a defensive stance on land. The war against France took up most of Britain's attention and military resources. The United Kingdom, was already at war with Napoleonic France, when the Americans declared war in 1812. Following the storm, the British returned to their ships, many of which required repairs due to the storm. Bentley's house, known today as the Madison House, still exists. President James Madison, military officials, and his government evacuated and were able to find refuge for the night in Brookeville, a small town in Montgomery County, Maryland President Madison spent the night in the house of Caleb Bentley, a Quaker who lived and worked in Brookeville. The occupation of Washington lasted for roughly 26 hours, and what the British plans were beyond the damage are still a subject of debate. Less than a day after the attack began, a heavy thunderstorm-possibly a hurricane-and a tornado extinguished the fires. forces had burned and looted its capital the previous year and more recently had burned buildings in Port Dover. The attack was in part a retaliation for American destruction in Upper Canada: U.S. That night, British forces set fire to multiple government and military buildings, including the White House (then called the Presidential Mansion), the Capitol building, as well as other facilities of the U.S.
It is the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a foreign power has captured and occupied the capital of the United States.įollowing the defeat of American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross marched to Washington. The Burning of Washington was a British invasion of Washington City (now Washington, D.C.), the capital of the United States, during the Chesapeake Campaign of the War of 1812. British and American movements during the Chesapeake Campaign 1814