In this general devastation were included the Senate-house” - the Capitol - “ the President’s place, an extensive dock-yard and arsenal, barracks for two or three thousand men, several large storehouses filled with naval and military stores, some hundreds of cannon of different descriptions, and nearly twenty thousand stand of small arms.”Ī spirit of righteous retribution moved the British in their sack of Washington, for earlier in the war American troops had gratuitously torched British government buildings in York, Canada. “All thoughts of accommodation were instantly laid aside the troops advanced forthwith into the town, and having first put to the sword all who were found in the house from which the shots were fired, and reduced it to ashes, they proceeded, without a moment’s delay, to burn and destroy every thing in the most distant degree connected with the government. “You will easily believe that conduct so unjustifiable, so direct a breach of the law of nations, roused the indignation of every individual, from the General himself down to the private soldier,” George Gleig continued. But the bearer of the flag was fired upon from a window of a house, and his horse was killed beneath him.
The British commander, General Robert Ross, sent a flag of truce from the edge of Washington.
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