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Star-Spangled Banner National Historic Trail
Fiery Destruction
"[The British] put a slow match to the [Sewall] house … and those rockets burst until … they made the rafters fly East and West."
-- Enslaved African American diarist and eyewitness, Michael Shiner.
As the British marched along B Street (today's Constitution Avenue) on August 24, 1814, to burn the U.S. Capitol, they passed this house, owned by Robert Sewall. Suddenly shots rang out. Two British soldiers were dead, several were wounded, and Major General Ross's horse was shot out from under him. the British rushed into Sewall's house but found no snipers. In retaliation, they set fire to the house, one of the city's finest. When the invasion ended, Sewall's was one of the few private structures destroyed by the British. The family rebuilt here after peace returned.
Torching the Capitol
After burning Sewall's house, the British resumed their march to the Capitol. There they planted the Union Jack and set fire to the not-yet-complete structure.
British troops entered Washington from the east following their victory at Bladensburg. After burning the Capitol they continued west and burned the President's House. Their route is marked in red on this 1802 map. The map shows streets planned for the city, but not all of them existed in 1814.
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.
The Star-Spangled Banner Historic Trail reveals sites of the War of 1812 in Washington, DC, Virginia and Maryland. Visit ChesapeakeExplorerApp.com or download the Chesapeake Explorer App. |