Transcripts For CSPAN3 Key Capitol Hill Hearings 20140904 :

indeed less dangerous to their interests. the continental system, not this continent but the european continent, was beginning to destroy the economies of other european states. napoleon protected france from the economic war by asset stripping all of the conquered territories. first country to rebel would be russia, napoleon's only serious ally, and a major trading nation with a big export trade geared towards supplying the british market. inside the continental system from 1807 to 1811 russia saw their economy collapse. being part of napoleon's team was very bad for your business. in 1811 the czar of russia, alexander, realized that if he carried on like this his country would be bankrupt and he would follow his father to an early grave. the last time russia had made war on brittain the czar was murdered and they changed the government. basically most of the landowners in russia relied on selling goods to the british to pay their bills. so the czar decided that bankruptcy and debt was slightly less bad than being invaded by napoleon, but only slightly. even as the war of 1812 is to start, the cracks in pa polian's system are becoming quite fundamental but the british haven't yet seen the future. 1811 the long-running interchange of arguments at sea reached a high point with the incident between "u.s.s. president" and "hms little bell" which is the small one with the union flag. a case of mistaken identity according to common door rogers. a case of aggression according to bing ham who commanded the "little belt." they were far too busy doing other things. in 1811-1812 napoleon is beginning to gear up for the invasion of russia. this will be the great campaign that will decide the outcome of the conflict in europe. mr. madison's war depends on the french winning. if russia clapszs back into the continental system, napoleon is utterly dominant in europe, what possible hope have british got of carrying on. they will have to make terms. it will be possible to negotiate with them on a range of issues, but the british wouldn't surrender to napoleon, let alone to james madison. the main british army was fighting successfully in spain against the duke of wellington and the royal navy was protecting global trade. the british simply had no spare ships, men or money to fight a war with anybody else. indeed, during the war of 1812 the british military effort on land and sea was rarely more than 7% of their land and sea forces. they simply didn't have any more to spare. it wasn't a case of choice, that was all there was. so in 1812 and 1813 british strategies, they had the initiative, where to fight and how to fight. as we know, the united states opened the conflict with what should have been a three-prong defensive into what is now canada and a surge of warships and privateers to cut economic life lines. the canadian frontier became the main military frontier. for three years they defended the border. to meet the attacks the british shifted some troops into the canadian theater but they came from the west indecember, not from europe. the british removed no soldiers from the european theater until after the end of the napoleon anything conflict. as long as napoleon remained in power british strategy would be defensive. the border did not move. this was a long-running but ultimately stalemated conflict. this left the madison administration with an alternative strategy, the destruction of british floating trade and the wrecking of brittain's economy. strategy that relied on privateering. the united states was too small. it needed a large number of privately owned and operated licensed predators. the british response to the american declaration of war there is the canadian frontier was the appointment of vice admiral john boulaise warren. a diplomat, highly successful naval operator, he was sent to command the entire theater with powers to negotiate an armistice and an early return to the status quo. that was what the british wanted. are the americans serious about this war? are they not prepared to think about this and just go back to business as usual? warren's job was to do everything but wage war until he knew the americans were absolutely determined on fighting. his command stretched from knew found land to mexico and he would be hammered by inadequate means, poor communications and very limited support from his home government. his defense of british shipping in the atlantic would determine the outcome of the war but only after the americans had declared that they were desperately serious about wagging it. only then could he turn defense into offense imposing a devastating economic blockade that simply treated the united states as another part of napoleon's continental system, something to be blockaded and economically ruined. initially shortage of ships and limited rules of engagement hampered warren's business. but even in late 1812 he began the difficult job of capturing and incarcerating the american private tear fleet. as british prisons filled with american sailors, the private tear effort would begin to falter. mid november some 5 1/2 months after the declaration of war did warren learn that the americans were determined to continue the conflict. he was then tasked with setting up a fully effective convoy system to protect the shipping transiting from the new world to the old, from the caribbean into british ports. by this stage over 150 british merchant ships had already been captured and more privateers were set out. there was money to be made and it was an attractive option in 1812. his masters in london underestimating the scale of a priva privateer threat and rather ignorant of the united states coast line sent him very few resources. what they did send initially were not of the first quality. they woke up when the united states navy won three shattering victories over the royal navy. these successes in the autumn of 1812 made the british government pay attention. here we see constitution taking it to garrier in the wonderful picture which manages to disguise the key fact of the battle. the garrier was only 2gs 3 the sides of the constitution and it had rather less than 2/3 of the crew. the american captain had lost the battle he would have made a very poor showing, indeed, but that's not the story that appeared in the "republican" newspapers. the second battle of macedonia was rather embarrassing. the british captain was blind and a fool. the third frigget captured put up a credible fight against a far bigger american ship. the two defeats of the garrier were neither dishonorable nor disadvantageous. the british quickly got their crew back. the one thing they were short of was their sailors. when the american ships had won the battles, they had to go home for repairs so the cost of winning some glory the americans had ruined their mission. as alfred mahan said, these were strategically irrelevant victories but did provide the united states with a lot to explain with some useful propaganda. the fact that the republican administration had ham strung the navy for the previous 12 years made it all the ironic that it was the navy that rode to their rescue. the british government belatedly ordered general reprize alzheimer's against the united states on the 13th of october 1812. news that didn't reach the new world until the end of november. november 21st the british government imposed a strict and rigorous quote blockade on the chesapeake bay and delaware river. if your congressman voted for war, the british blockaded you and attacked you. if your congressman didn't vote for war, the british left you alone. the british understood the best way to defeat the enemy was divide and conquer, not overwhelm. brittain is a very small country. we have no history of overwhelming anybody. the northeastern ports were providing huge amounts of resource for the britts's war effort. the duke of wellington's army ate american grown grain. american food supplies crossed into british north america. the good people of vermont fed the people of canada for the entire war. to their enormous profit one has to understand. critically the economic blockade was established eight months after the war had begun. it had been a golden eight months in which it was possible to continue to operate peace and war at the same time. ultimately, this blockade would be the decisive strategy. it would break the american economy, bankrupt the state and leave it unable to borrow money or raise credit either internally or internationally. quite simply, the united states would run out of money. as everybody knows, the sinus of war are money, money, more money. when you run out of that, you have to stop fighting. there is the constitution taking the job. i like this picture. this is by a british artist. it gets the scales of the ships -- well, that's actually not quite as accurate as it might be. the java was a little bigger than that, but it does look like the constitution is shooting at a rowing boat. the decisive battle of the war of 1812. the battle of boradino. it's one of the great moments in history. enough to write a vast symphonic work, to inspire a magnificent novel and bring down a great emperor. on this day of battle more russians died than were killed or would die of illness in the whole of the war of 1812 on all sides. this really was a titanic clash of two emporers and two vast armies numbering close on 200,000 men each. the war of 1812 would not be fought by armies of 200,000 men. in fact, it wouldn't be fought by 200,000 men all told. as 1813 began james madison knew that napoleon had lost. his army was in full retreat. indeed, it was in complete collapse. he had taken his country to war on the premise the french would win. they had lost. now what was going to happen? this also took the pressure off brittain and it released naval reinforcements from the british fleet in the baltic which had been keeping it open for trade the previous five years. those ships and key personnel were moved across to the north american station. the british picked out the right ships and the right officers to send to blockade the united states, their best men, many of them proteges of nelson one of whom we will come to. furthermore, with russian trade open, the british didn't need to buy any grain from the americans anymore. the russians had plenty of grain and it was a lot closer to brittain. by the summer of 18 -- 1813 vast british battleships and more numerous friggets were available to blockade new york, boston and the chesapeake. the united states navy would find it difficult to get to sea and the privateers would find it difficult to attack british convoys. among the men who would arrive in 1813, none would be more famous and relevant than admiral george coburn. he was picked out as one of the stars of the future by the great man himself. he was sent over here very specifically to take the offensive onto the american coast and i quote, accelerate the return of peace. we know what he did. these reinforcements allowed him to have a reinforcement pinning american sloops and friggets in boston and new york. this was mainly from a group of privateers. this was safe from american predation. by may 1813 the economic blockade was biting too. new york, the largest american port producing 1/4 of the national revenue from customs dues, was closed. the revenue was drying up because most federal revenue came from import and export dues. it was impossible to pay for the war. it would have to be paid for on borrowing. american governments stopped, failed to sell at sustainable rates. a clear sign that something was fundamentally wrong. as henry adams observed, i quote, the pressure of the blockades was immediately felt. the war seat turned in brittain's favor on june 1st, 1813. first the frig gets, united states and macedonia were driven into london from wince they never emerged and then the "u.s.s. chesapeake" seen here with the stars and stripes under the union jack was captured in a battle that lasted 11 minutes at the most brilliant, brave, and heroic defeat of either navy in the entire war. the fact that captain phillip broker won the battle meant that james laurence captured the chesapeake had captured the wrong enemy. with those three frig gets removed from the american navy's list of ships at sea the american naval threat effectively evaporated. it focused on privateers. they were locked up in south devin which was a particularly unpleasant place to send them. we built it for the french but we ran out of french men so we sent the americans there as well. the british still hoped war would go away. they just wanted the americans to say, you know what, we're sorry. we'll sort of go back and stay quiet. it was on the table from day one till the very last day. that's what the peace treaty was. that's all the british wanted. in 1813 the action got the british excited. here is a contemporary cartoon by george crook shank. it summed up the british view of the war. this was annoying and they rather wished it would go away. 1813 was not about america, it was about napoleon. there was another great battle. september 1813 napoleon lost 73,000 men from an army core of 1 million. his german empire collapsed. he retreated in france. the writing was on the wall of his empire. the british poured money and munitions into england. they did not send money or men to north miracle america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else. america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else. america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else. america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else. america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else. america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else. america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else. america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything else.america. they defended canada but they didn't have any resource toss do anything el in 1813 they damaged property of those who voted for war. at the end of the 1813 the economic blockade was stretched up to maine. new england was blockaded as well, too. this would promote sectional conflict. british options were very limited. in the autumn of 1813 they did something they wanted to do for 20 years, to capture northern belgium, the one place you can invade england from. they sent all the troops you can find to do this. they lost. it was embarrassing. they didn't have the manpower to do anything serious in europe and europe was far more important than north america. the idea they had any offensive plans here is untrue. throughout the war there would be more british troops defending west indies than canada. this was far greater than political interest in canada. west indian commercial interests saw admiral warren replaced by alexander cochran and he, too, will feature in the war. as peace approached in europe the british foreign secretary told the europeans that he would not discuss maritime belligerent rights at a peace conference. blockade, impressment, and he told the americans the same thing. these were the bases of british power. brittain is a sea power, not a land power. control of the seas is brittain's only strong arm. as a strong, weak state it maximized the strength of its navy. british naval power kept the american war and the european war apart and condemned president madison to a solitary conflict. once the americans had taken maritime belligerent rights off the agenda, peace could be discussed again. a town in belgium then occupied by british troops. they might as well have had the treaty in brittain. the americans resorted to some interesting mechanisms to defeat the royal navy but the british were not impressed. not impressed. here's a german cartoon of napoleon. he went from emperor of the world to emperor of elra. here is the main player in our story. this is admiral george coburn's officially commissioned portrait. this is how he wished to be remembered. this isn't accidental. he was telling us about himself. he thought this was one of his more important events. as we know, the occupation of washington and the destruction of the public buildings was a major event, but more important, it sparked a run on the american banks. anyone who had any cash took it out of american banks and put it into canadian banks in british government securities which paid better and weren't defaulting. on october the 4th united states became insolvent. a month later it defaulted on the terms of the louisiana purchase but neither the destruction of washington nor the defeat of plattsburgh had any serious effect on british policy. the british offered status quo ante because they wanted the war you to go away even after the downfall of napoleon. there was not a war here they wished to fight. the peace treaty signed on the 24th of december 1814 at ghent was little more than a recognition of that fact. here is some of coburn's handiwork. here's some more of it. the battle of north point, an interesting event, but far more important signing off the treaty of ghent. by the time the treaty was signed the united states was in default by 3 million pounds. $15 million was outstanding on interest payments. the national debt rose by 200%. little wonder that canada wants impressment and belligerent rights were a ban donald. two more battles, new orleans you all heard of. this one is not in the textbooks. the british captured the "s.s. president" off sandy hook in 1815 in another action in which both captains fought brilliantly but the british captain was more brilliant. it is no accident that headquarters of the royal navy in london is "hms president." if you stop before you get to the bath, you will see four engravings of this battle. this is the one the british remember. this is the war of 1812. this is what 1812 is all about, not interfering in the settlement of europe. the congress of vienna created a system open for business and unlikely to lead for another major conflict. that was brittain's war aim. in the whole course of 22 years fighting the french the british took from the rest of europe two very small islands, one in the mediterranean called malta. the other one called heligoland. that is the entire access of european territory in this war. they gave it all up for peace and stability. then, of course, napoleon came back but not for long. he was rapidly arrested for the man who ran the blockade of new york for the previous two years. when the war was over the republican party did when you've presided over a failure, they've declared it a great success. republican party's speech writers, newspaper men and everybody else declared it a victory. three frig get victories which came down through the years. so arthur scott who understood how to create fabulous stories realized what they had been doing and rather wished they had been taught a more severe lesson. he knew that the american pens would create a victory that had a hue to their swords and he also understood that the endearing legacy of 1812 would be not territory, not maritime belligerent rights but a distinct american culture. the war of 1812 forced the united states to face up to itself and recognize that it wasn't part of something else, it was of itself, it was a country that would have its own culture. it would paint its own pictures. it would write its own stories. it would create an american identity and this war is the start from which that emerged. the war drove america to acquire a distinctive new world identity, one that privileged landscapes, scale, the westward opportunities over the narrow confines and dusty histories of europe. perhaps the fiery destruction was the conflicts's most appropriate metaphor. thank you very much. [ applause ] we now have a short opportunity for some questions and answers, and i will be more than happy to do some questions. please. >> how did the american finances recover after the war? was the resumption of trade duty sufficient to refill the treasury? did we undefault on the loans? >> yes. the economic problems of the united states were ended by the conclusion of peace. it opened up the international money markets to america. it also persuaded american financiers that there was something worth investing in. you've just seen the capital city trashed and the government fleeing. you don't think this country is something you want to invest in long term so the resumption of peace opens up the domestic taps. it also leads to a massive boom in trade. all of that trade that didn't happen from 1812-1815, it happens pretty much as the war ends. news of peace in london trumped every merchant to load ships up with goods that they think will sell in america. this huge ar mad da of trade crosses the atlantic. the east coast ports of flooded with goods. business booms again. there's then an economic set back but it's supposed to rebuild the equilibrium in the aftermath. peace is really good for business. it's really good for the economy. war is not. that's a lesson the british had learned many years before. >> go to the mic please for questions. >> yes. have you seen what you would call the public -- >> mic. sorry. >> have you seen in the public record office any orders to coburn and ross to burn the public buildings in washington and the implication being retaliation, question mark? >> yes. thanks very much. this is one of the great questions about what happens in washington. were coburn and ross operating under specific orders to do something as specific as burning the white house? certainly there was a sense that after the occupation of what is now toronto and the destruction of the public buildings there and in other parts on the niagara front where there had been some cross border destruction of public and private buildings of both sides, that the public buildings of the state that started the war were fair game. nobody in europe would have thought this was in any way surprising. the whole organization was organized by george coburn. he's the only one who has been here long enough to work out what we're talking about. the chronology is quite clear. the army with ross and alexander cochran arrives in the chesapeake and the next morning they set off up the pawtuxan and land towards bladensburg. he didn't have a problem with it but he didn't have specific orders to do it. his boss, alexander cochran, was very supportive. he lost his brother and harbored some dislike of the americans as a consequence. it was a decisive war. they fought in the conflict either as young men or in the case of alexander cochran as a ship captain in the royal navy. so memories of the last war were very strong. they were quite raw for many people. the government buildings, but we've heard it often said that no private buildings were burned. but pamela scott showed me a drawing the ore day that i had noticed before but hadn't thought about in this context. a drawing by latrobe in december of 1815 that shows george washington's buildings burned, ruins of them, and a large tavern nearby near the capital that was also in ruins. this is a year after the british were there and it seems as though they must have done the burning. >> thank you for that. did the british destroy other buildings than the government buildings. the only building was from which a sniper missed general ross. the britts didn't burn the building it was part of tariff. they pulled it down. they destroyed the office of national intelligence, any sound a general would like to see the press suppressed. george coburn took all of the letters c out of the box so they couldn't write anymore scurrilous letters. he took a particular delight. he decided he had not done enough so he got the press out and burned that as well. >> remember in the aftermath of that occupation there was a tremendous storm and there was a lot of damage done by the storm as well so that may have been storm damage. but there's certainly no record of the british deliberately destroying any other private buildings. >> thank you very much for being here. when as part of the -- coburn's operation and ross's operation of course there was the squadron under captain gordon which came, ascended the potomac river, a rather remarkable adventure in itself. as they came up and before they engaged fort washington, they sailed by mount vernon. the very symbol of america with george washington. why didn't they just blow up mount vernon? >> thank you very much. tomorrow evening i'm going to be speaking in the masonic hall in alexandria about that very operation. the reason the british didn't blow up mount vernon is because george washington was a liberal hero. as far as british liberals certainly on the left of politics were concerned, george washington was the very significant leader. he taught the british some very important lessons about representation so they didn't burn the building, they stopped and the band came up and they played watching top's march in his honor. so the british were not making war on america, they were making war on the american government. the federalist's response to the war was not particularly engaged. they saw that this was very much a partisan conflict within america and they very carefully targeted those americans who they believed to be the causes of the war, hence, the use of the congressional division list. george washington, he's off limits. he's part of the history of brittain and america. and he's spared, as are almost all public buildings that the british can spare. thank you. one there and one there. why don't you go first. >> okay. at one point was part of the british war aims for concluding the conflict to create some sort of a native american territory in the midwest? what happened for that for it to go status quo? >> the british government's position on the piece treaty was not entirely unified. the british minister most involved in running the war was also responsible for british colonies and his view was it would be a good idea if we could build some kind of buffer zone between the united states and british north america to reduce the possibility of future conflict. the native american peoples were seen as an ideal opportunity to do this. his cabinet colleagues disagreed vehemently. they didn't want to spend $10 million a year to improve the war against canada. bathos was out voted. they were looking at a way to create a buffer zone who have no residential qualifications and did not have any national identity. at law it would have been almost impossible to have created a ter tore riff to give to the native americans. there was certainly no framework to do this. european systems did not recognize the rights of native peoples which is how you're able to sweep right west across the whole continent. there was no legal framework for giving them national identity. it was an idea. it was mooted. it was used as a way of pushing the americans away from talking about maritime general rights. the british put this up because they were trying to communicate. it was a kind of line somewhere out in the northwest but it was never determined what that line was, how it was decided. it marred the americans think something needed:c5ñ to be done. they got maritime rights off the treaty table. it's a nice way of everybody feeling they've won something, but there was no way that this could have been set up. we would have to have agreed, washington and london, that the nato american people were a nation, that they had a national identity rather than being tribal. question? >> okay. there's a william charles cartoon or pair of cartoons, one involving baltimoreans and the other -- >> yes. william charles, the famous cartoonist who makes fun of the alex and dree ans, he loves working here and he was british. his cartoon is very much the republican view of the alex andrey ans which was very unpleasant and he then used the baltimore cartoon as a way to keep beaten. they decided they didn't want to -- if you want to start baltimore, we can do it. there are 20,000 americans dmug at a very strong position at baltimore. british have less than 4,000 ground troops. how are they going to get in there? the british didn't have another army. >> what's your -- >> yeah. with alexandria the picture is quite clear. john bull, who's a minortor, mythic beach, has the citizens with them on their head. but the british sailors are saying we need to get out of here before the american naval heroes turn up. john rogers and david porter and oliver hazard perry. they did show up and they tried to stop the british from leaning. brits will come back. you have to read it as a partisan cartoon. it's just like the cartoon i showed. it's one side of the argument. it has no resonance with the british at all. this is the republicans pointing the finger at them and saying, you're not patriotic. one more? >> just like to say that the score is now even. this last weekend the city of alexandria challenged the royal navy to three sporting events and the city won all three. [ laughter ] [ applause ] >> i'm -- i'm -- i'm very pleased to hear that because of course the score in friggets in the war of 1812 was three each. had the british took all of theirs home and we only took one home, i think we get that one on point. thank you very much. [ applause ] the symposium on the war of 1812 and the burning of washington, d.c., continues thursday. author and historians discuss the war, the role of dolly madison and the national historic tour. we have a live from decatur house in washington, d.c., starting at 8:30 a.m. here on cspan 3 and 8:00 p.m. eastern we'll give you another chance to see the discussions and remarks from the event. that's also here on cspan 3. here are some highlights of this coming weekend. today live at 10:00 a.m. on cspan, the nebraska supreme court will hear oral arguments on the keystone xl. michael konkts and robert mcdowell with campaign 2014 gearing up, watch the latest debates on cspan. sunday kate haggan and tom till lot and from the california goff's race, jerry brown and republican nominee neil kushcurrie. yu on international law and what little effect has on the behavior of powerful nations. mike gonzalez thinks republicans can make gains for the hispanic vote. and sunday at noon, three hour afrgs ken your phone calls with tonight, at 8:00 eastern on american history tv on c-span 3, authors and historians talk about the burning of washington during the war of 1812. saturday on real america, the building of the hoover dam and sunday night at 8:00, the anniversary of president jared ford's pardon of richard nixon. find their schedule at cpsn.org and let us know what you think. call us about the programs you're watching. send us a tweet at #c123. like us on facebook, follow us on twitter. thursday on c-span, a senate agriculture committee hearing on improvzing meals in schools. we hear from new york senator on the subject. here's a look. >> of course kids like nonwhole grains, yes, that's what they prefer. they like sugar even more. you give your child a choice, sugar for lunch or etc. fruits and vegetables. their taste buds love it, but we have to be the adults in the room. you just don't give kids the foods they want, you have to give them and teach them how to eat well for their whole lives. and that takes leadership, it takes determination. it takes creativity. and i love the fact that you told your school district pick three colors every day. my children, when i was teaching them about nutrition when they're four, five, and six. that's how we do it. how many colors on your plate. and they loved that. because i fed my children steamed vegetables as children, they only like steamed vegetables. they don't want butter, cream, no cheese, they want steamed vegetables. they've been eating fruit since they were babies. so my kids as a consequence because they're given and introduced healthy foods at every meal. they prefer healthy foods. so for a lot of these kids, they're not getting healthy foods at home. they're getting refinaled carbohydrates. a typical meal will be a burger and fries. of course they prefer it, that's what they've been fed since they were little. we have to do more. i just, i feel that yes, to senator hoven, it is easy to have flexibility. they like it grits. but let's not serve refined foods at lunch. let's actually push them to eat something healthy that makes them healthy and reach their full potential. when a kid's obese, he doesn't reach his full potential. he can't concentrate in class. he's often made fun of. he has low self-esteem, he doesn't reach his full potential. she doesn't reach her full potential. so i am grateful that all of you have thought outside the box, figuring out how to solve the problems, meet nutrition standards. so i do not want to back off the standards. let's figure it out. we can figure it out. >> thursday a senate agriculture committee hearing on efforts to improve nutrition in school meals. see it at 8:00 p.m. eastern on c-span. c-span. now more from the symposium on the war of 2812. katherine allgor discusses her book a perfect union, dolly madison and a creation of the american nation. this is 35 minutes. >> welcome back everybody. for america under fire mr. madison's war and the burning of washington city. for those who may be just joining us, if you have one of these little devices, if you can make sure it's turned off or in the silent mode, that would be fantastic. so i have the pleasure now of introducing dr. katherine algor. she's going to tackle james madison's other half and some may say his better half, dolly madison. katherine has written several very important books on dolly including a perfect union. dolly madison in the creation of the american nation. and most recently she edited an important memoir written by dolly madison's niece. katherine is the director of education at the huntington library, art collections and botanical gardens and at riverside. today she will discuss the republic against the war and her events known as squeezes they were so popular. i've also heard she's going to mention maybe the role of snuff in the war of 1812. and i would encourage all of you later on to take a look at dolly madison's snuff box which is over at the delaware cater house. we just brought that up today so go take a look look at snuff box. with that teaser, join me in welcoming dr. katherine algor. >> thank you so much for that lovely introduction, i'm tempted to say forget about the speech, let's look at the snufz box. but no, no, no. i'm very happy and honored to be here with such a distinguished set of scholars and if i may say, even more distinguished and lovely audience. thank you so much to bill and to the white house historical association, to the u.s. capitol historical side and james madison mount pooelier for getting me here. and thanks to the huntington library for the day off. the slogan don't give up the ship, the figure of uncle sam, the star spangled banner. the proliferation of symbols that emerged from the war of 1812 constitutes a paradox. though as this conference demonstrates. much recent scholarship on the causes, conduct, and legacies of the war has produced fresh insights about the kothss and gains of the war, even the combatants. at the time the treaty was signed, americans understood that piece gained them little in policy, international power, or territory. so on the one hand, it seems contradictory that such a wealth of symbolism emerged out of a feckless endeavor. on the other hand, the very futile nature of the war accounted for its symbolic booty. the victory that contemporary americans and many later historians claimed was a psychological one. as member of the peace delegation, albert observed quote, the war has renewed and reenstated the national feelings and character which the revolution had given and which were daily lessening. he said, the war made citizens feel more americans. they feel and act more as a nation, and i hope the perm nancy of the union is there shall better secured. so appreciating both sides of this paradox, may explain the national energy that took in account a fairly mundane battle and set it to the tune of an old drinking song and made it a national anthem. some of the most potent images to emerge from the war of 1812 are those of dolly madison. facing down the enemy, fleeing the burning capitol, saving the gilbert-stewart portrait and otherwise demonstrating heroism under fire. and what i'm arguing to you today is that part of the reason that dolly's american audience seized upon these images, endowing them with a heft that would propel them. we all know the images that is that they were really a culmination of a process. and the process was dolly's construction of a political identity. and she began when she was the wife of the secretary of state in 1801. she would have no idea of course what would be happening 12 to 14 years later. but it turns out what she did was precisely right. >> now this idea of constructing an identity is one of the most rich and fruitful historical inquiries in the last 50 years and there's a whole literature on identity, and it's far too wide and varied to be simplified here. are are some demonalties to the identity constructing process. identity making can occur at the individual level, single person, and at a larger collective level, and of course sometimes they operate both at the same time. similarly, identity processes can happen both consciously and unconsciously. and these dynamics about identity mark the awareness and the manipulation of the self, which makes it a modern phenomenon. people are becoming aware of selves. in viewing dolly's political construction, you can see a lot of tenants of identity here to ya play, as the time and place, she was offered and accepted probably unconsciously the roles provided by her culture and those roles were southerner, lady, political hostess, along with the more common roles of wife and mother. dolly added elements from european and royal cultures, however to create her republican queen. a persona which she deployed to political effect. dolly's position as queen dolly resulted in her ascension as the figure for the madison administration, and as i said, it began quite early, certainly by the time the inaugurated in 1809, it would be enhanced by the outbreak of war. in the historical search for dolly's creation of this republican queen, the sources don't lie in dolly's own words. she is not discussed her work that way in her private correspondence. for evidence we must rely on the many descriptions of dolly that were supplied by those who saw her or met her, especially at her famous wednesday night drawing rooms. generally the descriptions of dolly that pepered the letters and newspaper reports of the early republic has been regarded by historians as a form of capitol dmen tear and not the least because they're quite colorful. men and women reported back home on what dolly wore, served, how she moved, and how she treated people. but, we have to look at these descriptions not just as mere celebrity mentions. the people who regarded dolly so minutely, whether members of the ruling elite or ordinary americans and europeans invested in the republican experiment, what they were looking for and how she looked and how she behaved, they were looking for signs and clues about the madison's themselves, maybe a specific political event, especially the declaration of war. and even for the fate of the republic. some there's a lot at stake in these descriptions. after the american revolution at a time of flux and change with very few real political structures in place. these new americans focussed on the persons of their leaders and the number one person they subjected their attention was george washington. in the early republic, people transferred this capacity to dolly. to them, dolly symbolized the heart of the madison administration, but also its true character. in political theory, the charismatic figure is a person who can convey abstract psychological and emotional messages to large groups of people. although the psychological aspect is important to any political people, indeed there are some who say that all politics are psychological, it was especially important in the infant early republic. it influenced the way americans felt about how they were ruled. and that was key to the survival of the nation. recent scholarship especially from historians of women's lives and gender has revealed that the early u.s. government and the political culture that it spawned was much more dependent on royal forms of rule than we ever previously thought. the newly liberated columnist turned citizens it seemed not only had an appetite for it, they craved the legitimacy and authority conveyed by it only vocabulary of power they knew. so the founding men, even as they were putting together a new nation along the line of what they call pure republicism, that they found they might actually need the droppings of in order to command the widespread respect and reassure the people that the right kind of people were ruling them. now this is a tricky balance to achieve, how much was too much in the quest to repurpose the old vocabulary to convey the legitimacy of the national experiment? and perhaps federalists such as washington and john adams would freely brought back the aristocratic practices, we have evidence of that. a number of americans however, the ones who would be republican followers of thomas jefferson wanted nothing to do with the old world and kept a sharp eye out for, as they would have called it, encroaching air stock si. so as it turned out, this republic balance came down on one side of the other in a lot of different ways. one of the ways this tension played out is issues of power often do was on the field of gender. so in the end, the women of the ruling elite were given the task of conveying the aristocratic message to the masses. and ironically because they were considered private, they had a lot+6nt more latitude than men to do that. the genius of this persona that i'm talk abouting with the republic can -- talking about with the republic queen, on both sides for max mall effect. so dolly combined with a regal visual persona with a personality that seemed down right democratic. and put it to use at her social events. report after report mostly favorable, described her regal bearing and fantastic call cost assumes as she presided over her drawing room. over and over her guests cautioned her demeanor is so far removed from the generally attended on royalty that your fancy can carry the resemblance no further than the head dress. she was a queen, many proclaimed her that, but as samuel mitchell, the new york congressman said, she was a queen of hearts. james had employed dolly personifying gifts during the difficult decision to declare. it allowed him to hold the war hawks at bay while he weighed options for peace. it's during this time that dol lit and henry clay -- dolly and henry clay maybe several notable appearances signaling to political watchers that though james could not officially embrace the agenda, he was not discounting for it. not discounting it altogether. now there seems to be have no hint of sexual impropriety in the stories that surfaced, unless one counts the symbol of sharing a snuff box. see now we went a different way here, kent, there we go. all right. so both dolly and henry clay shared their addiction to the substance and dolly's possible sharing of her snuff box with clay was read by all as a sign of henry clay's favor within the madison administration. like many, sarah gill seton, sister of one editor and wife of the other thought taking snuff a bad habit. she admitted in dolly's hands the snuff box quote, seems only a gracious implement within which to charm. political commentator and writer margaret smith saw it as quote a most magical influence in suing savage political breasts. for who could partake of its contents offered them in a manner so cordial and gracious and retain a feeling to the interests of the bestower. in this way, dolly had henry clay on a kind of political string as it were while james decided what to do. dolly's persona was firmly in place in washington city when the u.s. congress declared war on great britain in june 1812. shortly after the declaration, the president was in what we moderns would call a public relations nightmare. though the people at the time did not have the vocabulary, they recognized his dilemma as such. virginia representative burwell worried to his wife that quote, the difficulties of his situation have increased in a great dez agree. as far as burwell was concerned, madison's only hope lay an influencing public sentiment by some brilliant achievement. that's not at bad thought, but unfortunately for james madison, the war went badly from the beginning, so the madison's chance for a brilliant achievement lay with dolly who took her symbolizing capacity to a new level. her brilliant achievements were not the dramatic stuff of military victories and battles at sea, their execution and effects were subtler, if as significant. while fulfilling the goal of unity. in the first congressional season after the declaration, dolly began her social campaign early, returning to the capitol after only one week at montpeli montpelier, according to her in the midst of business and anxiety, anxious for the fate of the war only. throughout the war, she gave more parties than ever before, and it's interesting as you read her letter, she uses a phrase telling about the parties, she calls them the routine of gaiety, which i think hints at what it took to produce these brilliant scenes as people called them. as kat said, before the war, he drawing rooms became known as squeezes because there were two to 300 guests crammed into the oval room, but housed up to 500. that first month of the congressional season after the declaration, dolly's butler left her for france, and she told her cousin and james's personal secretary edward coles, i am acting in his department and the city is more than ever crowded with strangers, my head is dizzy. no one was more visible at her parties than queen dolly. though personally she was as partisan as any man in congress because she was a woman. dolly could be seen as politically neutral. men of parties had interests dictated by their political needs, but women could be disinterested, simply patriotic for their own sakes. her work transcended, her political affiliation. since men were associated with one party or the other, no male, not even the president could represent the united states because of course in theory, as a woman she was above politics, dolly could appear to the american publics as larger than life embodiment of disinterested patriotism and nation. during the war of 1812, dolly became not just the charismatic figure for james madison, but for america. now her famed deabilities to draw people to her had an urgets, larger purpose. her mission was to convey to the capitol and to the country that the government was working and that the war was being conducted well. she presented a picture of calm optimism and unquestioning support. military troops had begun honoring her by parading past her house when she was the wife of the secretary of state, now they march by the white house to be reviewed by her and she did so as a general wood. dolly then invited the soldier's in and served them refreshments, quote, giving liberally of the best of the house. she made a lot, perhaps too much of the few military victories that came to the united states as way, and of the men responsible. and as i think is dr. lambert said earlier, the biggest surprise of the war was how well the navy performed and now that we know how little it really got them, it's really amazing what dolly made of it. to dolly in very public ceremonies. as the present secretary edward coles arranged the presentations, in a culture where intelligence traveled slowly, such displays war welcomed source of good news both informing the public of what had happened and heartening them. and dolly was very conscious of this honor paid to her and the country during the presentation of the mass done yan's colors, seton noted the flush of pride and patriotism that sufficient fused dolly's face. she's standing in the crowd and said i saw her color come and go. as always, dolly's visibility cut both ways and her position as a disinterested patriot did not go unquestioned. political enemies tried to turn events against her, in particularly a federalist congressman taggard spread stories of dolly defiantly stamping on the colors laid before her, thus tarnishing the united states world reputation. so he said, in englishmen in the city hearing this report, basically observed that charlotte, meaning the queen of great britain would not have done so with the american colors. discussing this incident later in life, dolly denied making such a gesture and indeed the story seems unlikely. such a public display seems out of character for a woman of such control and consciousness. and also the fact that it was the federalists spreading the story around, the story seemed suspicious. according to dolly, when the men have been carrying the flag to her by the corner, and this is according to her niece, commodore student let his end fall either by accident or designed. the motive has been much questioned. according to dolly, it was another lady eyeing out -- crying out trample on it, trample on it, and dolly said oh no not so while the lady advanced and put her foot on it. as the war advanced, fears of invasion grew. it did not help with those began to hear tales of civilian intimidation brought by the commander of naval operations, sir george coburn. dolly's job as the face of the war became more crucial. she might write privately to her cousin edward coles about the atmosphere of fears and alarms. she was afraid. but the pop lists looked to her and they found reassurance. our friend william burrwell, right before invasion, wrote to his wife again saying, i assure you, i do not believe there's the smallest cause for alarm. and what was his prove? it was his proof of how the ladies were reacting led by dolly. i do not rereceive the least alarm among the women. they receive the ample needs and are well aware of their safety. so in her role as a stand in for her husband, dolly madison attracted both positive and negative attention. during the summer of 8:13, coburn fed the rumors of invasion by threatening her. while relating to edward the detiles of the plot where in british roves were to land under cover the darkness and set fire to the white house. dolly confessed, i do not tremble at this, but feel affronted that the admiral should send me notice that he would make his bow at my drawing room soon. surely it was a bit of a pose. she could be forgiving dreading a man with what she called a savage style of warfare. the panic in washington city abated somewhat when coburn did not as i tack in the summer of 1813, but the panic returned stronger than ever the next year, and it turns out they were absolutely right to panic. the invasion began in the early mornings of august 19th, 1814 as a british force landed at benedict maryland and the main port of the river. couriers brought the news dolly remained the focus as he quote sent word to mrs. madison that unless she left the house would be burned over her head. and notice he doesn't mention james in this, nor does he include james in the other threat as to capture her and parade her through the streets. on august 23rd, james left the white house in order to review the troops in the field and the national reported the rumor that five or 6,000 british troops joined already in maryland. and this really panicked washington. signaling a mass exodus. alone in the white house, accept for her servants and slaifzs, dolly was poised to make her name in history. now the story that we know of dolly's most famous day, and the subsequent crafting of her historical legacy would be examined tomorrow by holly shulman in this program. but i will conclude then just by saying, that dolly's ability to achieve historical and popular fame after the war though, was a direct result of the experiment and identity making that rendered her the queen of washington city, long before the first shots were fired in the war of 1812. if at the end of the war, and the doctor talked about this, most americans understood that the victory was psychological. then dolly's symbolizing work made that sense of victory possible. thank you very much. do you want to come -- here. thanks so much. now's my favorite time, questions and answers. we have a microphone there and i think maybe somebody traveling around with a mike. but does anyone have questions? yes. and let's see if we can get you a mike. i'll tell you what, why don't you ask a question, i'll repeat it. >> okay. how much of dolly's performance was dictated by her husband's inability to say yes or no, and -- [ inaudible ] >> this is a question about contrasting dolly's performance with james's performance or non-performance if you will. you know, a lot has been made of the contrast between dolly madison and james madison. she is the sort of tall, shapely, vivacious woman, never forgets a name, a face, or a family pedigree, proving her true southerner, warm and lovely and all that, and of course everybody likes to make fun of james madison, washington irving calls him a withered little apple john. he is seen as, you know, there's all kinds of quotes about him. i don't want to the load up on james madison with the president here. but there's, there's two things, so easy to make that contrast, and of course, they're a great team, but there's two things i think that we have to remember, he is an intellectual. james madison is a pure intel chul. and like many of the founders, he constructed a lovely theory on which to run a government. i'm going tell you that theory is not going to work. it's going to become a democracy in 30 years and it's going to be two parties and their vision of the republic is going to fade away, they don't know this at this time, and what dolly madison did along with her other female colleagues is taking this lovely theory, machine of government and put it into action. and by putting into action, discovering its strengths and weaknesses, for instance, in the lovely theory that james madison has. there's no place for anything, you know, ma narc call or aristocratic or anything like that, there's no patronage which is just the hallmark, of course. well, you can't really run a government that way. and it's dolly and her colleagues that begin to build a first patronage machines in washington, d.c. borrowing from the courts in order to try to make this theory work. so i think that's something. so underthat when everybody's describing dol lit and how fabulous she is and she's like a queen. they're also describing james in a positive way. that is by saying, look at this guy, there is no way he is going to be the charismatic male figure that we fear in a republic. that was the big fear. that somebody like george washington with his sword and over 6'0", he was going to become an emperor. na poll yan, he was a charismatic figure. so there are great contrasts for the people of the time, here's little quiet little james madison in his republic broadcloth. he's not a threat to anybody, whereas dolly, not a threat because she's a woman, appears, you know, and gives everybody this kind of authority that will, and legitimacy that royalty imparts. the other thing i want to say about the them and they are two different people, intellectual, they are both in conflict. they are both striving for his goal and his goal was national unity. and in everything she does publicly, you can see her enacting his goal. so for all that they looked so different, they have values in common. sometimes that worked out well for them, and sometimes it didn't. but it was something profound that they nñshared. yes. helen. >> hi there. when i hear descriptions of madisons that are demeaning to him, i think one of the reasons might have been is because the men who said it were jealous of him, and i think that when you think that she was probably the most well known and admired woman of her generation, that he was as unattractive and assuming and quiet and his tummy hurt, how did he win the most popular and beautiful woman in this age? >> so we're talking about -- >> and in her 80s, and she was still in love with him. what man in here can say something like that? >> oh my lord. i do not want to see a show of hands. well, now this is very interesting. you've got right to it. which is of course terrible descriptions of james and they're awful, of course they're all political and people are jealous because he was the smartest guy in the room, but the question is why did, at 26 years old, dolly payne todd, a widow with a son and a little bit of money choose james madison to marry? in fact she child abuses him so -- choose z him so quickly that it's a shame. people are shocked she gets married within a year of her husband dying in the epidemic. and actually we have good evidence that he was pretty swept away by her, but who wouldn't be, she was beautiful, but very little evidence that this was all love's young dream. in fact the one thing we sort of have is a letter written on her wedding day which basically justifies her marriage to james has been good for her son, and she signs the letter to her friend, dolly todd, her maiden name, and when she's married, she writes dolly madison alas. we do know that they have fall in love at some point, that happens after marriage, people. and they become, you know, fabulous, but the question is why? she certainly could have had her pick of anyone. and my theory that this is where we wish our sources would write at a convenient time and place for historians is that she had grown up in the world of slave holding. and she might have had very golden memories of her child ishood. no doubt enhanced bithe fact that her father freed his about nine slaving and because of conscious, quaker conscious, and when she's 15 moves the family to philadelphia which is very cold compared to anything down. does he want to be the center of the quaker world? so by the time she's 26 and considering marriage to james madison, she's been up north for ten years and terrible things have happened. there's a yellow fever epidemic, loses her husband, child, father's out of quaker meeting, he dies of a depression. all of her brothers, i think all of them are dead by that point. it was terrible in philadelphia. terrible time. so i think that there's a part of her that looked at this quite likely man and thought, i could go back to that place. of my childhood. and in fact go back at a higher sort of station because she'd be the mistress of montpelier. the part i can't believe she didn't think about about, did the slave holding state mean to her? she was just a virginia miss, well, she didn't think about it. but she, her parents were quakers. there was a lot of discussion about slavery and abolition, sort of ahead of its time. her father gaves slaves freedom because of this and that was the reason she ended up in philadelphia. so i don't know if she had qualms about returning to a slave holding society, or whether she went without a backward glance, but some day somebody's going to find a trunk of letters and tell me what i need to know. >> thomas jefferson said he was the most brilliant speaker along with pendleton that he had ever heard, not a quiet little man -- >> james madison was a formidable intellect, twoef take the many descriptions of madison for what they are which is politics. ral ralph. >> i'm going to see the great little madison? >> right. so i have to say -- yes, of course madison is famous, so dolly madison, when she meets james madison, she's in the capitol of the yielts at that point, in philadelphia, and congress is there. and she has heard of what she called the great little madison. i have to say that, i just have to acknowledge you as the buyinger in of madison but the savior of many of dolly's perps. when he was doing his buying if i, he would note where he saw it and people keep women's parms differently than mens. so it was wonderful to have. some one of the papers that came up, that exists now only in microfilm, thanks to you, is a version of the memoir written by dolly's niece mary cuts, and i use the memoir this way because most of the stuff in the memoir happens before she's born. so we think it as the closest autoboy graphical voice to dolly that we have. and that's the source of the great little madison. yes. so he's definitely famous, yes. sir, you're standing there, good for you. >> i'm by the mike. >> you are. >> dolly is first lady for eight years during madison's administration. >> yes. >> jefferson is a widower in the previous eight years, and jane monroe who serves the next eight years after madison, his wife is somewhat limited in her abilitying to in the public eye. so could you talk about how dolly, does her role as first lady expand in the either one of those administrations? >> yes. so this is the question about dolly and her role as first lady. first, i have to tell you, i would pity anybody who followed dolly madison. she was an act to follow. and sadly for elizabeth monroe, people noted it. it was noted by people. katherine adams who would follow mrs. monroe said she's not just dear dolly. mrs. monroe brought, once underthat there's this tension between republicism or dmom sick, you can see the united states wrestling with it. so when elizabeth monroe comes with her polish from the continent, she tries to set things on a more formal set of footing, ceremony and footing as they would say with not great success. she didn't have that touch where dolly could really blend those two absolutely. and i also have to say, and i owe this to holly shulman who will talk to you tomorrow. absolutely right, too much has been made of the fact that thomas jefferson was a widower, and that people said that dolly madison servinged as a stand in for him, and it is true that when they were ladies at table, he would ask dolly and sometimes her sisters to come in, though he had an official hostess which was his daughter, martha jefferson randolph. concentrating or thinking about dolly is waiting in the wings for that invitation from the president's mansion, obscures the fact of what she was really doing during the years. thomas jefferson feared it, he cut out the new year's day and the, he kept new years and fourth of july, but that was it. no parties and where women and all kinds of unofficial characters as he called women were going to appear. and he had those famous dinner parties with men of one party or the other because he was trying to control power. what was happening however on s street in the house of the sec state of state during those eight years is that dolly is building a little mini empire there. that's the place in washington. i would say came to washington on an evening you'd see the white house all dark up there, but the house on s street was full of life and color and that's where federalists met republicans and where the ambassadors, this is, she was building a political is a lom there. and that becomes most apparent when he disappoints them that the diplomacy between great britain and the united states screeches to a halt, but the marys eat at the madison's house. it's important to look at this thomas jefferson years not as a stand in for his lady, but building a power base. and it's no wonder when james madison is elected the people of the town said they're very happy to have mrs. madison as presidentess. okay, i think we have one more question so we can stay on time. does anyone, yes, sir. >> wasn't it simply be unfortunate circumstance of succeeding thomas jefferson who was certainly more colorful and more authoritative. like truman succeeding fdr. people looked that the, like say truman because he seemed colorless in relation to his predecessor. >> right, so the question is about poor james madison suffering comparison to the thomas jefferson. i really actually think, i'm sure there's always something that. this view could have been anybody who would have gotten it. . republican party was suffering what, suffering the disease of the victors. which is in fight bpg thomas jefferson, sort of sweeping into town with this new party, the federalists were really on their way out and they were going to let go without a fight, but they were on their way out, and so, instead of holding together and katherine mitchell who is the wife of mitchell from new york said why do they keep fighting? they're just trying to pull in splinter with him because i have to tell you james madison's greatest enemies were his fellow republicans. so thank you very much. [ applause ] the symposium on the war of 1812 and the burning of washington, d.c. continues thursday. all historians discussed the war, the role of dolly madison, and the star spangled national historic tour. we'll be live from the house in washington, d.c. starting at 8:30 a.m. eastern here on cpsan 3. here at 8:00 p.m., we'll see the discussions and remarks. that's also here on cspan 3. >> here are some highlights for this weekend. today, live at 10:00 a.m. eastern on cspan. the nebraska supreme court will hear argument on the pipeline. saturday at 6:30 p.m. on the communicators, former fcc commissioners michael cops and robert mcdowell. with campaign 2014 gearing up, watch the latest debates on cspan. sunday at noon, debates between kay hagan and republican opponent tom tillis. and from the california governor's race, democratic incumbent jerry brown and republican nominee neel kashkari. tonight, at 8:00, on cspan 2, author john yu shares international law and the behavior of powerful nations. saturday, on book tvs afterwards. mike gonzalez, and how he thinks republicans can make gains for the hispanic vote at 10:00 p.m. eastern, and sunday at noon on in depth, three hour conversation and your phone calls with the former chair of the u.s. commission ore civil rights, mary francis barry. tonight at 8:00 eastern on american history tv on cspan 3. authors and historians talk about the burning of washington during the war of 1812. saturday on real america, the building of the hoover dam and sunday night at 8:00, the anniversary of president jared ford's pardon of richard nixon. find the schedule at cspan.org and let us know what you think about the programs you're watching. call us, send us a tweet a at #c123, e-mail us, join the conversation, lying us on facebook, follow us on twitter. >> thursday on cspan. senate agriculture hearing on improving meals in schools. we hear from the new york senator on the subject. here's a look. >> of course kids like non-whole grains, yes, that's what they prefer. they like sugar even more. you give a child a choice would you like to have sugar for lunch or have fruit and vegetablings, they're going to pick sugar. it's what they like. we have to be the adults in the room. you just don't give kids the foods they want whereby you have to give them and teach them how to eat well for their whole lives. and that takes leadership. it takes determination. it takes creativity. and i love the fact that you told your school district pick three colors every day. my children, when i was teaching them about nutrition when they're four, five, and six, that's how we did it. how many colors can you put on your plate. and they loved that. because i fed my children steamed vegetables as children, they only like steamed vegables, they don't want butter, cream, they want steamed vegetables. they've been eating fruit at every meal since babies. so my kids as a consequence because they're given and introduced healthy foods at every meal, they prefer healthy foods. so for a lot of these kids, they're not getting healthy foods at home. they're getting refined carbohydrates at every meal. a typical meal will be a burger and fries. of course they prefer burger and fries, that's what they've been fed since they're little. i just, i feel that yes, to the senator, it is easy to have flexibility, people like the grits, they like the grits they've had since they were a kid, but let's not serve refined foods at lunch. let's actually push them to eat something healthy that makes them healthy and reach their full potential. when a kid's obese, he doesn't reach his full potential. he can't concentrate in class. he's often made fun of. he has low self-esteem, he doesn't reach his full potential. she doesn't reach her full potential. so i am grateful that all of you have thought outside the box, figuring out how to solve these problems, meet nutrition standards. so i do not to want back off these standards, let's figure it out. we can figure it out. >> thursday, senate agriculture committee hearing on empts to improve nutrition in school meals. you can see it at 8:00 p.m. eastern on cspan. our coverage of the symposium marking the 200th anniversary of the burning of washington and the war of 1812 continues with allan taylor, author of the civil war of 1812. this is 55 minutes. >> so i now have the great pleasure of introducing dr. allan taylor. he joins us as the thomas jefferson, just talking about that gentleman, thomas jefferson chair in american history at the university of virginia. this is a new role for dr. taylor. his previous two decades were at the university of california at davis. he is as probably all of you know, a very distinguished scholar, the war of 1812 and wrote the book the civil war of 1812, which really looks at that engagement in great detail, but recently and very exciting for us, who live in virginia, he published the national book award and prize winning, "internal war" and it really looked at the war the 1812 with such a different lens. all allan's ground breaking war the scholarship which highlights this very understudied story of the war of 1812, particularly the runaway slaves who sought their freedom we joining with british forces. it's just something i think is very intriguing and allan, we want to learn so much more, so please come forward and let's hear about this new story of the war. [ applause ] >> thank you, kat, for that very kind introduction, and i'm grateful if to you and leslie for your hard work to the white house historical association and the u.s. capitol historical association. and to james madison's montpelier for bringing all of us together today. i want to introduce some characters who tend to be bit players in the usual story of the war of 1812. and to try to make a case that they were much more than bit players. and i want to begin with one of them, a man named willis. we don't know his last name. because enslaved people were denied in the public record last names in virginia in this period of time. he was 14 years old when he first escaped from his masters plantation in virginia. and he escaped from princess ann county which is down in the vicinity of where you would find virginia beach today. it's july of 1807, he was 14 years old, and he stole a boat and he rode out to the a british warship. anchored in nearby lynnhaven bay. now he expected a warm welcome from the british because war then seemed eminent. this was in the immediate wake of the british attack on the american forget the uss chesapeake which came very close to igniting war five years before the war of 1812. . initially they did feed and welcome and clothe willis and four other refugees who also stole boats to get away to the british. but a month later, the british captain forcibly sent all of them back to their masters. in a bid to defuse tensions with the americans. but remarkably, instead of dwelling on that betrayal, willis later recalled that he quote had been to the british once and that they treated him well and he wished his master let him remain, end quote. and in 1814, after war did break out in earnest, willis had much better luck fleeing again to a british warship along with quote many other negros in the neighborhood, end quote. and this time, he remained free. now willis's persistence demonstrated the persistent allure of the british as potential liberators among the rested slaves of the tide water region of virginia and maryland. for example, in july 1814 in cal vert county, maryland. a farmer sought water by visiting a spring. he noted a group of slaves already there. and so the farmer hid behind a tree, and he overheard, quote, the negros belonging to the said john j. brook for the british admirals, end quote. two days later, three of those cheering slaves fled to the warships. now the argument i want to make today is that by their enthusiasm for the british as potential liberators, the enslaved people of the chesapeake made it so. flocking to them in unanticipated numbers that would be early 1814 compel a major rethinking of british strategy in the chesapeake. at the start of their first chesapeake campaign in 1813, the british officers were under orders to take on no more than a few black men and only men who could be useful as pilots and guides. but a year later in 1814, they would seek and entice hundreds of runaways including women and children, and including willis. so like willis, the other runaways would not take no for an answer. now, professor lambert gave a very nice introduction of the reluctance of the british to engage in this war, and they were slow to wage the war with great vigor because they hoped that it would end pretty quickly in its first year. and so it's only in the second year of the war in 1813 that they send a major expedition into chesapeake bay with the purple of punishing the states of virginia and maryland. from a perception that those two states were the heartland of american resources and also the political home prince bli in virginia of the governing republican party which the british quite rightly blamed for making this war. so the british purpose in coming into chesapeake bay in 1813 is initially not to free any slaves of any significant numbers. the job is to punish the americans who lived along the shores of the chesapeake. to do so primarily by rating shipping that was vulnerable to this british naval supremacy which was overwhelming in chesapeake bay. and secondarily to raid exposed and vulnerable villages along the major waterways. what the british are very reluctant to do is to go into the interior. they were fearful of the very dense forests that surrounded the chesapeake. they feared being ambushed, they feared american riflemen, adidn't know where an attack might be coming from and they didn't nose in what numbers and they simply did not know the lay of the land. and that's very inhibiting on the british. and when you read the letters of their captains and their admirals during 1813, they are full of mystery and fear about the interior. just a mile or two beyond where they could make their landings. so they're very skiddish, and they're not all that effective. so despite the miseries that they do inflict on a fair number of americans during the campaign of 1813, that campaign closes with a sense of frustration by british naval commanders in the chesapeake. they have not achieved their principle goal which was to make life so miserable for the people of virginia and maryland that their government would call their their invasion of canada. far from it. the united states is planning yet again to pursue an invasion of canada in 1814, despite the failures of their invasion attempts in 1812, in 1813. now another problem that the british had, that had inhibited them from being aggress ifz in going ashore is that they were fearful that their own men would desert. the royal navy had a major problem which was it was shorthanded. and it shorthanded because the royal navy's very large and as andrew lambert pointed out, england, or i should say the british isles are not particularly large in populous places and maintaining a global navy was a major challenge. and to do so at an unprecedented scale, the royal navy is larger 1814 because of their war against napoleon on a global scale. and so the ships that are sent over into the chesapeake are shorthanded. and then they suffer the loss of further seamen. now a few of them are combat desks, but and a few more of them are deaths from disease, but there's also a significant loss by desertion because sailors decide that wages are higher and alcohol is cheaper in the united states, and the working conditions are a whole lot better off in baltimore than they were on the british royal navy warship. now i'm not saying here that most sailors deserted or that most sailors wanted to desert, but any desertion is a problem for the crews that are already short handled and british officers have the perception that their men are prone to desert along the coast of the united states to a much greater degree than they ever would desert anywhere else in the world. so the british, this adds to a certain skiddishness when the british do go ashore because their commanders have the unenviable task of fighting an enemy while also closely guarding their own men. so the chesapeake have a couple of problems that are revealed in 1813 in their operation. one is they need abled bodied men who would resolutely fight the enemy rather than desert to it. a potential solution lay in the hundreds of runaway slaves who were eager to be on british naval warships. and they were fleeing in stoling boats and canoes to seek refuge during 1813. unlike the british deserter who anticipated a better life in the republic, the former slave didn't want to go back to the republic. and so they did not desert. indeed as marines, they could be deployed to watch the white sailors and to pursue deserters. admiral coburn sought to replace many of his white marines with black recruits, they are stronger men and more trust worthy. for we assure they will not desert, whereas i am sorry so to say we have instances of our marines walking over to the enemy. end quote. and promoting slave's cams seemed the perfect turn about to punish the americans who were so zealous about entizing britains to desert from their duty. and so it is the desertion problem that is one of those things that nudges these naval officers to embrace blacks as essential allies in the chesapeake war. to perform more effectively, the british needed more men. now they have a second problem, they need better knowledge of the landscape. and here too, the solution to their problem lies with runaway slaves who are pressing themselves on the british in growing now, they are under pretty strict orders not to take in a significant number of refugees. these orders were renewed in march of 1813 by the british secretary of state forewarned the colonies. but despite these orders, black men, women, and children are stealing boats and they are rowing out to these warships and they are essentially calling the bluff of the british naval commanders. and they are forcing those naval officers to make some hard decisions. will they take in these men, women, and children in violation of their orders or send them back to suffer severe punishment by their masters? and naval officers are coming to perceive african-americans as a potential military resource that could be invaluable. and they know that if they start systematically sending these people back to severe punishment, that they will lose that potential resource. also, frankly, they like feeling holier than thou compared to americans and they are just sick of americans going on about how liberty loving they are. and here's the great opportunity for the british naval officers to say, who is the world's most sincere and true champions of liberty in the world, the people taking on napoleon bonaparte and the slave trade and willing to emancipate the slaves held by these allegedly freedom-loving republicans of the united states. well, this is just too delicious for british naval officers to resist. and they really don't want to resist and so they have to write to their home government to try to get that home government to shift its policy. in late may, admiral warren reported that his warships had received about 70 refugees, quote, to whom it was impossible to refuse an asylum, end quote. and in these reports to his superiors, warren is walking a fine line. he's making clear that he's following official policy and doing his best to discourage these runaways but can't really turn them all away. although they are including entire families of women and children as well as men. by the end of 1813, the best evidence is that at least 600 enslaved people from the chesapeake had escaped to the british. on november 14th, the captain of the royal navy noted their potential. "the slaves continue to come off by every opportunity and i have now upwards of 120 men, women and children on board and if their assertions be true, there is no doubt but the blacks of virginia and maryland would cheerfully take up arms and join us against the americans." although many masters have come out under flags of truce to the british warship and had received permission to speak to their former slaves. not a single black would return to his former owner, end quote. january 1814, the british government comes around and endorses warren's proposal to enlist black troops among the runaways. and, indeed, it also authorizes the naval commanders to take in women and children as well, for it was well understood that the men would not come if they could not also bring women and children with them. implementation of the new policy fell to vice admiral sir alex cochrane who supplanted war on april 1st of 1814. and he issued his famous proclamation, which is extremely clever in its word. it never uses the word slaves. but instead is addressed to all those who may be disposed to emigrate from the united states with their families. now, it turns out there's only one white family that takes them up on this and that was in georgia at the end of the war and the british were completely flumoxed by this and had to explain to this poor white family, that it really wasn't meant for them. [ laughter ] but also in his proclamation, in the topography of this, because he had a thousand copies of this printed, the word free is in capitals compared to everything else around, and it's giving these emgrants, quote, their choice of either entering into his majesty sea or land forces, or being sent as free settlers to the british possessions in north america, or the west indies, where they will meet with all due encouragement, end quote. now, i mentioned that cochrane had a thousand copies of this printed up. he had his subordinate admiral coburn and his subordinates distribute this, they nailed it up on trees, they are trying to get the word out. incredibly, the americans helped in the process, unwittingly, by reprinting the proclamation in their newspapers. now, they do this because they can't wait to denounce it because they just think this is the most horrible thing on earth and it's really an invitation to slave revolt and they want to assure slaves that they are really being lulled away and the british are going to sell them away into slavery in the west indies. so by anything that appears in the american newspapers, people talk about. that's the culture of the day. and this is world in which black people and white people live right intermixed amongst each other. and so anything that white folk talk about, black folk learn about and they interpret it in their own way. so the national intelligence doesn't mean to be promoting slave escapes but it unwittingly does so. and the orders now are different. sir cochrane instructs coburn, quote, let the landings you make be more for the protection of the desertion of the black population than with a view to any other advantage. the great point to be obtained is the cordial support of the black population, with them properly armed and back with 20,000 british troops, mr. madison will be hurled from his throne. so this is now job one. this isn't some byproduct. this is what you've got to do first and foremost because it is the essential means to the end. the defeat of the madison administration. now, these are the types of boats that the british used. this is a drawing done by one of the subordinate admirals who is active in the operation, sir malcolm. the actual drawing was done along the coast -- along the shores of louisiana later in the war. but it's the same type of coastal craft used in the chesapeake. now, the british establish a refugee camp on tangier island and it's ideal because it's sufficiently removed from the shores of virginia, the mainland shores of virginia. it's pretty secure from attack. but it's close enough and it's right in the center of the black population of virginia, which is in the tide water, both on the eastern shore and to the west on the western shore. and coburn's words, the island was surrounded by the districts from which the negros always come, end quote. this is a modern artist's attempt to imagine the drilling of colonial marines. colonial marines was the special unit formed for american blacks, former slaves, to augment british forces in the chesapeake. we have no images from that time of colonial marines so it requires an artist informed by knowing what the uniforms of regular marines looked like and knowing something about the structures that would be built in virginia at that time. so this is showing the refugee camp at tangier island and it's showing the drilling by a white officer who is the man gesturing with his hand of three new recruits of the colonial marines. initially, admiral coburn has a pretty low expectation of these troops. and the colonial marines is a unit that resembles on a much smaller scale the union color regiments of the civil war in that the officer is a white man and the enlisted men and ncos are african-americans and they are being attracted into the service because they are not being compelled to do it and indeed as far as we can tell most of the runaways, indeed, including most of the men, don't choose to be colonial marines. some may end up as sailors or others work as guides, many women worked as lawn dresses and nurses. some of them are serving as paid servants for british officers and others go to work for the naval dockyard in bermuda. it's a subset of the men serving in the colonial marines and they are not compelled to do this, though there is a great deal of persuasion applied to encourage them to serve and they are attracted by the fact they will be paid, they will receive decent clothing for the first time in their lives, they will receive a daily meat ration for the first time in their lives, they will receive a daily alcohol ration for the first time in their lives. they will receive some respect and they will have the opportunity to plunder and in some cases kill their former masters. now, possessing racial prejudice, these british naval officers, again, they're growing into this role. don't get the idea that these are william lloyd garrison on the decks of these naval warships. they've got other priorities. so they are not natural-born abolitionists but they are working up a real good hatred for the united states as this conflict goes along, and they're trying to think, how can we really stick it to them? and it occurs to them, by liberating their slaves and using them against them. that's what is going on here. and coburn thought, well, it's useful because it draws these people away from their masters. it weakens the economy. he's not sure these young men are going to be effective fighters. he said, quote, blackie hears about naturally very valorous, end quote. that's what he says in 1814 as the drilling has started. a month later, however, coburn changed his mind upon noticing how well the new recruits responded to their training. he reported they were getting on astonishingly and are really fine fellows. they have induced me to alter the bad opinion i had of the whole of their race and i now i believe these who we are training will neither show want of zeal or courage when employed by us in attacking their old masters, end quote. and with glee he noted that this is the news of the colonial marines was alarming the local masters. "they expect blackie will have no mercy on them and knows that they understand bush fighting and the locality of the woods as well as themselves and perhaps could play a hide and seek." and during may and june, he starts to employ the colonial marines as part of the rating -- raiding forces, and they are systematically targeting militia batteries, particularly along the eastern shore and along the northern neck of virginia, and in the paut uxet valley of southern maryland. and they perform very admirably and win the universal praise of british naval officers. i'll just quote one of them and, again, it's coburn but you could multiply these quotes. "how uncommonly and unexpectedly well the blacks have behaved in these several engagements and that one of them was shot and died instantly in the front of the others and it did not daunt or check the others in the least but on the contrary, animated them to seek revenge." now, on the one hand, by recruiting blacks in significant numbers, the british are able to escalate their shore raids. they are able to go deeper inland than they ever could in 1813. they also need to do so because the british cannot sustain their crews without food drawn from the shores of the chesapeake. and there are more and more people on these warships and on tangier island as they are welcoming more and more refugees. in the first year of this operation when they were reluctant to take on the refugees, 600 had come to them. i believe that 2800 went during 1814, which shows the payoff ofg the british now welcoming them and aggressively going out and seeking them. but now they have to feed them z on top of their own crews. and so that means they have to accelerate and escalate their raiding into the interior, to get food, to get livestock in particular, but to get hams, to get chickens. they are seeking out food. and they are going to the places where their colonial marines know best, their former neighborhoods. and that's an opportunity, then, for some revenge and it's also, more importantly, an opportunity to get out relatives who have been left behind. so everybody's purposes are being served by these raids, the purposes of these runaways who have become colonial marines and the purposes of the british who want to punish the americans and need to get food for their own crews and for the expanding refugee population. they benefit from the nocturnal knowledge of enslaved peoples who have had to become intimate experts in the landscape. they have had to know how to navigate it at night and dodge slave patrols in order for them to meet their friends, to meet their wives, to meet their children because black families have been split up and the black -- they tend to live on different farms and plantations. and so the black community is maintained by nocturnal travel. they are the experts in this landscape. they know it better than their masters, who allegedly own it. and it is that knowledge that passes to the british. and we can find both in british sources very eloquent statements about how better informed and more secure they are now that they have blacks as their guides and as their light infantry in the form of these colonial marines but we also find it from american officers. one of them, brigadier john p. hungerford of virginia, said, vote, our negros are flocking from the quarters and with a most minute knowledge of every bypass. they leave us as spies upon our post and our strength and they return upon us as guides and soldiers and insendiaries. it was by the aid of these guides that ambushes were formed everywhere in the woods. from this cause alone, the enemy have a great advantage over us in a country where the passes and byways through our necks and swamps are so little known to but very few of our officers and men, andd2 through which the ey can be conducted with so much ease by these refugee blacks, end quote. and this is the same modern artist imagination of the colonial marines engaged in one of these raids at benedict p destroying some kegs of alcohol in the foreground. in the middle ground you see a british naval officer directing a black family to safety and freedom in british boats that are just out of the scene here and in the distant background you see an american sailing ship being burned. so the whole range of activities that colonial marines would have been involved with, several of their activities are combined in this one imagined reconstruction of their activities. now, the point i want to make is that this raiding would not have been as effective without the colonial marines that transformed british operations. here is a map done and i am grateful to ralph for sharing this with me. this shows the variety of targets the british had in 1813, the first year. and you'll see that it's fairly randomly scattered along the bay, east and west, north and south, by the maritime targets -- but the maritime targets are the principal targets and that's indicated by these symbols for sailing ships. if we go to 1814, we'll see a very different nature of british attacks. many more shore raids and they are concentrated particularly along the northern neck of virginia and in southern maryland, either along the shores of potomac on the maryland side but especially along the paut you think set river. the british are targeting them for a reason. one, there are a lot of black people there eager to get out and help the british. these are also the pathways or i should say the waterways that lead to washington, d.c., and coburn has been planning from the very start of the war, he's been looking for the opportunity to get to washington. he did not have that opportunity in 1813. now he has it in 1814. but he must first do soften up and eliminate militia resistance along one of these two corridors. the virginians are much more republican than the marylanders of southern maryland and they fight a lot harder. so coburn decides it's the paut uchk set where resistance is eliminated much more quickly and earlier because most of the people living in southern maryland don't really want to be part of this war at all. and they certainly don't want to deal with superior of british forces that are now well-guided by the local experts in the landscape. and it is because of this that the british are able to land without any opposition at benedict in mid-august of 1814 and they are able to advance to the upper reaches of the paut uxet river and to approach the very outskirts of the washington, d.c., again, without any opposition, because that opposition has already been eliminated by the raids of the summer. and they were able to brush aside militia resistance which it belatedly appears at bladensburg and push into washington, d.c., where they famously burn the public buildings. here is a very famous image of that. and you all notice, there is not a single black face represented in this, which is all too common among representations of battles of the war of 1812. they are presented as lily white affairs in almost all cases. the colonial marines were very much present in the occupation of washington, d.c., and in the burning of the white house and the capitol. now, so my argument today has been that the colonial marines and black refugees in general transform the

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