"To arms! Cockburn is coming!"
The English had landed five thousand men and were marching toward the capital. Washington was in a state of panic. Citizens banded together for defence and marched to meet the enemy. On August 22, President Madison bade farewell to his wife and left for the front. Up to this time Mrs. Madison had been without fear, but now, learning that the American ships had been destroyed and knowing that her husband was in danger, she became very uneasy.
The work of saving records was at once begun. Important papers were piled into wheelbarrows and carts and carried away. At three o'clock, August 24, Mrs. Madison sat anxiously waiting for some word from her husband. She refused to leave the White House until a large portrait of General Washington was saved, and time being too short to admit of its being unscrewed from the wall, she gave the order to have the frame broken with an axe and the canvas taken out. It was sent in a carriage to a woman living beyond Georgetown, who afterward returned it to Mrs. Madison. It now hangs in the White House again.
A hurried note from the President bade her be in readiness to leave in a carriage at a moment's notice, for it was feared the British would destroy the city. Soon her worst fears were realized, for sounds of approaching troops were heard. Two gentlemen rushed into the room, exclaiming:
"Fly, madam! At once! The British are upon us!"
Mrs. Madison suddenly remembered that the Declaration of Independence, which was kept in a case separate from other documents, had been overlooked when the other papers were sent away. She turned, and notwithstanding the protests of her friends, ran into the house, broke the glass in the case, secured the Declaration, and then jumped into the carriage, which took her to the home of a friend in Georgetown.
Washington could be rebuilt and many valuable articles which were destroyed could be replaced, but the Declaration of Independence once gone would have been lost forever.
That night, few people in or near the city of Washington slept. Instead, they watched the flames destroying the beautiful city, for the British had set fire to the public buildings, the President's house, the new Capitol, the Library of Congress, the Treasury Buildings, the Arsenal and Barracks, besides many private buildings, and the wind from an approaching storm fanned the flames, thus completing the fearful destruction.
Before daybreak, Mrs. Madison left her retreat and traveled to a small tavern, sixteen miles from Washington, where her husband met her. Shortly, word was brought to them that the hiding place of the President had been discovered, and that the British were even then in pursuit of him. Mrs. Madison induced him to retreat at once to a small house in the woods, while she started for Washington, first disguising herself, for the English had said that they were going to capture the beautiful woman and take her to England.
President Madison, however, learning that the British had evacuated Washington, returned to the city that night. His wife had also reached there in safety. The burning of Washington filled the hearts of Americans with indignation, and even in England many condemned the act of Admiral Cockburn, saying that it was "a return to barbaric times."