This Day in History: Dolley Madison’s Escape

On this day in 1814, Dolley and James Madison prepare for the worst. The War of 1812 is raging: British troops had landed in Maryland, potentially advancing against Washington, D.C.

They were moving against an American flotilla, James Monroe reported on August 21, or perhaps “taking that [flotilla] in their way and aiming at the City.”

The report he sent the next day proved even more ominous.

“The enemy are in full march for Washington,” Monroe wrote. “Have the materials prepared to destroy the bridges.” His postscript surely made Madison’s heart sink: “You had better remove the records.”

Madison was on it. “The papers of all the Offices are under way to retired places,” his return letter noted. Madison departed to meet with his generals in the field, even as Dolley remained behind.

“He enquired anxiously,” Dolley wrote her sister, “whether I had courage, or firmness to remain in the President’s house until his return . . . on my assurance that I had no fear but for him and the success of our army, he left me, beseeching me to take care of myself, and of the cabinet papers, public and private.”

The situation continued to deteriorate. Madison soon wrote Dolley that she should be prepared to leave at a moment’s notice.

“I am accordingly ready,” Dolley wrote. “I have pressed as many cabinet papers into trunks as to fill one carriage; our private property must be sacrificed . . . .”

She may have saved some cabinet papers, but she is most famous for saving a full-length portrait of George Washington that had been hanging in the White House.

Here’s what she didn’t know: The portrait was a copy of the original Gilbert Stuart painting. Even more interesting? If she had known to look for it, she would have been able to tell that it was only a copy: The word “United States” is deliberately misspelled “United Sates” on a book in the painting, for this very purpose.

Saving the portrait was harder than it might sound. “Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure,” Dolley explained to her sister, “and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvass taken out;—it is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York, for safe keeping.”

As she prepared to leave, Dolley’s letter to her sister concluded: “And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it . . . . When I shall again write you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell!!”

The British arrived not too long after Dolley left. They feasted in the White House, using the presidential silverware and china. Then they set fire to the building and abandoned the city.

The British had burned our capital, but their victory was short-lived: They would ultimately fail to defeat the young United States in a conflict that had felt like a second war for independence to many Americans.

P.S. Historians have long used Dolley’s letter as evidence for these events, but recent evidence suggests that the letter was not written in the midst of the escape, as originally thought. Dolley may have reconstructed events at a later date. “While the primary elements and facts of the letter are not disputed, the tone may have changed considerably, and it does pose interesting questions for students of history about what makes a document an original,” the White House Historical Association concludes.

A note for those who are interested: Some of you might know I am running an experiment in history reels. If you are so inclined, check out my YouTube channel and/or subscribe to those HERE. Don’t miss the reel about Annie Oakley that I posted over the weekend.

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Primary Sources:

• James M. Goode, The Evolution of Washington, DC (2015)

• Jessie Kratz, Rescue of the Papers of State During the Burning of Washington (White House Historical Association)

• Letter from Dolley Madison to Anna Cutts (August 23-24, 1814)

• Letter from James Madison to James Monroe (August 22, 1814)

• Letter from James Monroe to James Madison (August 21, 1814)

• Peter Snow, Your Guide to the Three Weeks of 1814 That We Today Call the War of 1812 (Smithsonian Mag., Aug. 21, 1814)

• The White House Historical Association, Saving History: Dolley Madison, the White House and the War of 1812

• Thomas Fleming, When Dolley Madison Took Command of the White House (Smithsonian Mag., March 2010)