The burning of Washington
Subtitle: the British invasion of 1814
By: Anthony S. Pitch.
Publisher: Naval Institute Press
Published: 1998
Place of publication: Annapolis, Md.
Language: eng
Format: Hardcover
Number of pages: 298
ISBN-13: 9781557506924
Subjects: Washington (D.C.) -- History -- Capture by the British, 1814.
Other titles: Washington
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.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [273]-283) and index.
Table of contents: title: War; title: Target Washington; title: A village for a capital; title: Invasion; title: Pandemonium; title: The juggernaut rolls on; title: The Battle of Bladensburg; title: The capital abandoned; title: Washington in flames; title: A lightning occupation; title: A flag furled in darkness; title: Refuge among Pacifists; title: Alexandria surrenders; title: Baltimore defiant; title: The Battle of North Point; title: Bombs over Baltimore; title: The Birth of an anthem; title: Epilogue