Existing comment:
Bridge on Fire:
The next day, the British captured this end of Long Bridge while the Americans held the Virginia side. After a fierce thunderstorm crippled the drawbridge mechanism, each army set its end of the bridge on fire, reducing the Potomac crossings to either the Georgetown ferry or Chain Bridge, five miles upstream.
In the summer of 1814, the United States had been at war with Great Britain for two years. Battlefronts had erupted from the Great Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico. On August 24, following their victory over the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg, Maryland, British troops marched on Washington with devastating results. |