BUCK writes:

Just up the road from me there is going to be a huge celebration this weekend. It’s in Brookeville, Maryland, U.S. Capital for a day, 200 years ago yesterday.

I was aware that the anniversary was approaching and have mentioned it occasionally. Some people had no idea what I was talking about. “When was that? The Revolutionary War?” Even people who have driven north up Georgia Avenue many times, over many years, and who had to stop at the odd ninty-degree turn in the road dead center in town, didn’t know the historical significance. Just very old.

President Madison had to flee the White House from the attacking British. The British are the only “foreign” invaders to burn our White House, along with the U.S. Treasury, the U.S. Capital, the Supreme Court, the Library of Congress and the chambers of the House and Senate. They were gentlemen though; they didn’t burn private residences or otherwise rape and pillage. We burned all of our own ships in the Navy Yard. It’s said that you could see the raging fires from 50 miles away.

Madison bailed to Virginia, then out of Virginia, which was suddenly very crowded with citzens angry at him, and he headed to Brookeville, Maryland, a tiny Quaker town of fourteen homes. At the first door knock, the residents rejected the President of the United States. The second house took him in.

Three weeks later, the bombs were bursting in air above Baltimore harbor.

The War of 1812 was the only time that Washington D.C. was attacked and burned. Up to that point, constant efforts had been made to move our capital somewhere more convient and more comfortable. That relocation push ended because of the burning which resulted in a surge of proud nationalism.

(Add your own one-liner here. I deleted mine. Too close to the bone.)

— Comments —

A Grateful Reader writes:

Buck wrote, “The War of 1812 was the only time that Washington D.C. was attacked and burned.” Au contraire! Washington, D.C. was attacked and burned (including parts of Georgia Avenue in the District) in early 1968 – by its own residents, spurred on by activists from other states in the union. In August of 1968 (shortly before the first day of kindergarten for their eldest child), my parents had just moved into a house not far from Brookville, having sold their home not far from those streets ablaze earlier in the year.

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