President James Madison, along with his attorney general and secretary of state, had fled to safety across the Potomac River. Battle-hardened redcoats had overwhelmed and scattered the largely untrained and poorly led American militiamen and regulars deployed to stop them from reaching the capital. All burned ferociously, as did the structures housing the War and the State departments. On the evening of August 24, 1814, British troops torched the Capitol, the Treasury, the President’s House (not yet called the White House). One by one, the buildings at the heart of the American government went up in flames.
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