Theyre also very different. And i suspect that the truth is somewhere in the middle here, and i couldnt tell you which one is better. And this is another one. This is an image that came out of one of the books that i did and it is showing the british piling up material, and this is in the Capitol Building. And if youll notice, the guy on the left, on the back, hes carrying a backpack that would carry two cases for a congrieve rocket. Rocket and if youll notice the man standing on top of the pile, hes literally taking the projectile material that would have been inside of that rocket and hes sprinkling it over the top and then thats how they would light that fire and here is the actual account and this is by Benjamin Henry latrobe. There was no want of material for the conflagration. For when the number of members of congress was increased the old platform was left in its place and another raised over it giving an additional quantity of dry and loose timber. All the stages and seats of the galleries were of timber and yellow pine. The mahogany desks, table and chairs were in their places. At last they made a great pile in the center of the room of the furniture and retiring set fire to the quantity of rocket stuff in the middle. The whole was soon in the blaze and so intense was the flame that the glass of the lights was melted. I love that rocket stuff. Obviously americans didnt know much about these rockets and they didnt know how to describe them but that would have been the propellant that would send that rocket through the air. So we now have three different accounts as to how the british burned these public buildings. And its possible all three might have been used. I suspect its more likely that maybe two of those three were used and one is a slight alteration of the other and its already been mentioned and so i can save some time and go through this that parts of these buildings were saved. They werent completely destroyed. This is the old Senate Chamber. These are the corn cob columns that don already talked about. I think theyre beautiful. If you ever have a chance to take a tour of the capitol, please go and see these. This all survived the burning. Then heres another quote by latrobe. The ruin of the capitol i assure you is a melancholy spectacle, however, many important parts are wholly uninjured and what particularly is gratifying to me, the picture entrance of the house of representatives with its handsome columns, the capitals of senate vestibule, the great staircase, and all the vaults of the Senate Chamber are entirely free from any injury which cannot be easily repaired. Myth number two. Is the white house so called because it was burned by the british and they needed to cover the scorch marks . How do we get rid of that . There we go. These are some of the images. In fact, the one thats in the upper left, thats the tom freeman. The poster for that is available in the different shop right here and tonight at the reception theres going to be a little booklet thats been written about that. This is what the white house looked like after. I told you that i only know of one image of the actual burning of quoteunquote the city. Theres many depictions of what happened afterwards but thats the only one that i know of the actual burning. And these are examples of the scorch marks. And this is what the white house would look like if it were not painted white. And thats because its made out of aquia sandstone. And you can go to the quarry, its not that far from here, on aquia creek on the Potomac River. The sandstone wasnt that great a stone but it was a nearby quarry stone. And its streaked very heavily streaked with iron oxide and the color of the sandstone itself is kind of a sandy color with a little bit of a hint of a pinkishness to it. But when the stone gets wet, it turns into a dull gray. Not particularly attractive. And because the stone is relatively soft, when the building was being built, the workers were immediately applying whitewash to help to seal the stone so that water would not penetrate it. The white house has been white since it was first built. This is an example of the aquia stand sandstone. This is Pohick Church if youre familiar with that in virginia. I wanted to throw that one in because it has great graffiti that dates from 1813 to 1814. That would be the color of that stone. Theres many examples of the stone throughout the washington, d. C. , area. And this guy would not get out of the way when i was trying to take these pictures. But if you look very carefully, this is the entrance to the kitchen down in the basement area and you can clearly see the scorch marks. But id particularly like you to look at the lefthand side where the scorch marks suddenly disappear. And what that shows us is that obviously those stones, for whatever reason, were replaced over time. Exactly when that took place, i do not know. But not all of the original stones that make up the white house nor the capitol were there. Many of them were damaged. And then this is just a detail of the same thing where my hand is pointing, thats what you would look if you could get a closeup of it and then just below it, right after all of that scorch you can see good, clean stone. And then this is just another example. And you can see this in many places. Now, this is a quote that i took right out of don hickeys book about the myths. Theres many other examples but i like this one in particular because this is a british quote, and ill read it to you, or in part. Francis james jackson, former british minister of the United States, wrote in the spring of 1811 that his successor, augustus jay foster, would act as a sort of political conduct tore attract the lightning that may issue from the clouds round the capitol and the white house at washington. So heres a british statement written in 1811, clearly talking about the white house. So i think we can now put to bed pretty much this myth that the white house was called the white house in 1814 because the british burned it. And then the final myth, because im running out of time, did the great storm put out the fires . And i have no illustrations of the great storm. Surprise, surprise. But down below are some examples of some tornadoes that have hit the city of washington. One in 1927 and one in 1973. The first thing we have to make clear to everybody is that many of the accounts claim that this was a hurricane. No way. Anybody that knows anything about weather knows that this was not a hurricane. This was a severe line of thunderstorms, almost certainly accompanied by tornadoes. And folks, for those of you that live here, weve experienced this this year, this summer. We experience it many, many summers. Maybe not to the level of what happened in 1814, but this was a severe line of thunderstorms that came through washington. It was not a hurricane. And this is a description of this great storm by George Robert glegg, one of the Junior Officers in the british army. Roofs of houses were torn off by it and whirled into the air like sheets of paper whilst the rain which accompanied it resembled the rushing of a mighty cataract rather than the dropping of a shower. The darkness was as great as if the sun had long set. And the last remains of twilight had come on. Occasionally relieved by flashes of vivid lightning streaming through it which together with the noise of the wind and the thunder, the crash of falling buildings and the tearing of roofs as they were stripped from the walls, produced the most appalling effect i have ever and probably ever shall witness. The storm lasted for nearly two hours without intermission. Think about this. If the Lower Eastern Branch bridge was set on fire at around 8 20 p. M. , if the Washington Navy yard was set on fire at about 8 30 p. M. , if the Capitol Building was set on fire about 9 00 p. M. And the white house the treasury were set on fire about 11 00 p. M. , that means that between 17 to 15 hours had passed before the great storm comes into washington at about 2 00 in the afternoon. And i want to just ask you, after burning that long, how many of these buildings would likely still have great amounts of flame . And i would argue that there was probably hardly any flame at all. There probably was still smoke. There were probably embers. Might have been some minuscule amounts of flame but nothing tremendous at that point. The only places that might still have been burning with open flame at that time would be the buildings that the british set on fire the following morning. And that would be the executive office. That would be the rope walks, more of these private structures. But the reasons they were built was because they had contracts to the navy to supply rope. Those buildings might have still had fire when that great storm came through. So is it fair for people to say or to believe that the great storm came through, put out the fires, and saved the city of washington, d. C. . Based upon the quote i just read you from glegg, its very clear to me that the storm contributed to the destruction of the city, it did not help the city. It actually did additional damage. It blew down buildings. It blew the chimneys off of some of the brick buildings in washington, d. C. They were probably some of these tornadoes that were part of this great storm that came through. So im dashing another one of these myths. And id just like to summarize, the british burned significant public buildings in washington, including the capitol, the president s house, the treasury, and the executive office. The british did not burn Washington City but, in fact, showed restraint. And youve heard that from some of the other speakers up here already. The u. S. Military burned more structures and you know im going to be a little more conservative now when i actually do the paper. Im going to say maybe as many but certainly a significant number of buildings than did the british. The president s house was called the white house prior to the british burning. And the great storm was not a hurricane. It did not save the city from additional damage. In fact, it added to the destruction. So with that, i will close. I see patrick is quickly up to the mike. Well take some questions. Go ahead. Well, i applaud you for everything you said and i agree with everything and im saying that from a researcher and also a local person, but im from oklahoma. So when i came in, i hear all the myths. I dont know anything about the war of 1812, even the civil war, especially the American Revolution having growing up and reading our history books. So im glad you said it was not a hurricane. It was not a hurricane. It was like del retro. Like you said, a few years ago, we had coming through, terrible storm, everybody can associate with that. With the glow in the sky, looking at when you were talking about the time frame of the navy yard, the hms meteor, one of the british bomb vessels down on the Potomac River at maryland point, at 9 30 p. M. Their time, and i dont know what you know. But 9 30 their time, they first report the glow in the night sky. So that might help with that concept. Thats a good point, patrick. The problem with the ships logs is they dont record simultaneously with the events that actually take place. Right. And we do know that some of the ships logs are off by several hours from the time it was kept locally. So it makes it very difficult. We also know that some of the ships logs are actually off by a single day where someone screwed up the dates. So all of these things enter into the complexity of trying to determine what really happened. But you make a good point. So my question is, when we talk about the white house first off, in my book the battle of the white house i say after the burning of washington, i dont say the british burned it. I say after the burning so am i okay on that . Youre okay. All right, all right. With the use of the white house and my question is not about whether it had ever been called the white house by august 24th, 1814, but how prevalent was the use of it when ft. Washington everybody still, even now, park service didnt stop till three or four years ago of calling it ft. Warburton at the time it was burnt and it was only ft. Washington after pierre la font came down and redesigned it. You dont have ft. Warburton anywhere at the time actually, you do. I have some references okay. But generally speaking, it was ft. Washington, even the british on their ships called it ft. Washington. So my question is, how prevalent is the use of the white house . Its not prevalent. I only know of three instances. But its the point is that it was known as the white house before. Sure. And it really didnt become popularized, as you know, until much later, until the 1930s. Okay. Because the wheel white house was down on the potomac. All right. Okay. I think were going to cut so we have enough time to have lunch. Thank you all very much. Friday night on American History tv in primetime well show you more of the speakers from the symposium on the british burning of washington, d. C. And the war of 1812. Including kenneth bowling, author of the creation of washington, d. C. the idea and location of the american capital. Pamela scott, author of buildings of the district of columbia. William seale talks about his book the president s house a history. History. And coauthors of madison and captioning performed by vitac it was really inspite of rather than because of anybodys wishes. Americans at the time considered Political Parties, political faxes dysfunctional. The european record seemed to be that factions led to civil war, so no one really favored the development of american Political Parties, but they emerged anyway. The initial division was over hamiltons Financial Program. That division widened after the french revolution went into its more radical stage in 1793, 94 95, and i think the parties were pretty well solidified by the time the United States ratified the jay treaty with Great Britain in 1795. The federalists reluctantly supported that treaty, the emerging democratic republicans who are deadset against it. They deepened still more during our undeclared naval war with france in the late 1790s which was a byproduct of the jay treaty, one of the down sides, though we did pretty well thats truly or forgotten conflict. We call it the quasi war, and most of our students saying ive never heard of that. Does it have two legs or four . They were ability to complement their policies. I would say their domestic policies essentially arrested on hamiltons Financial Program and commitment to military and naval preparedness. In Foreign Affairs theyre usually protrayed as the probritish party, but i think theyre more accurately described as the antifrench party. I think thats what drove it, a fear and hostility to france the they reluckett negotiated and ratified the jay treaty, and later got involved in the quasi war. I think those were probably antifrench as much as they were probritish policies. Any case, the jeffersonian republicans took over as a result of the election. In so far as they could, they reversed those policies. They rejected military and naval preparedness. They modified hamiltons Financial Programs. And theyible moved away from a close relationship with Great Britain, which it really developed during the quasi war. When the commercial clauses of the jay treaty expired in 18 on 3, the british asked if we were interested in renewing them and the jeffersonian administration said absolutely not. Later when jefferson was sort of compelled to send a Diplomatic Mission to london to try to resolve all of our outstanding differences and the result was the monday ron pink any treaty, he refused to submit that treaty to the senate. That was further followed by largely over maritime issues, the british practice of impressment, which was removing seamen on the high seas, and the british odds which restricted our trade with the count nent the europe, between 1807 and 1812. The republicans responded to this, first by adopting a series of trade restrictions, most notab notably jeffersons notorious embargo, which was in force for 15 months from 18078 to march of 1809, and then in june of 1812, by going to war against Great Britain. The vote on the declaration of war in june of 1812 was the closest vote on any such declaration in American History. Weve had 11 declarations of war, but only five wars. The war of 1812, mexican, spanishamerican and the two world wars, but there were multiple declarations, and we havent had a formal declaration of war since 1942. We just dont do it that way nowadays. Rather, Congress Authorizes it is president to take action, and then he does if and when he thinks its necessary. Anyway, the vote on the declaration of war in 1812 was 7949 in the house of representatives, and 1913 in the senate. Now, there was actually a closer vote in the senate on the declaration of war against spain in 1898, but this is the closest vote on any declaration of war. All the others except for the spanishamerican war were overwhelming, if not unanimous, so this represents an exception here. Now typically the declaration of war, the vote on the declaration of war is portrayed as a sectional vote, because so many northern members of congress voted against it and so many southerners and westerners voted for it, but that really masked what i think is the true nature of this vote. It was a party vote. 80 of the jeffersonian republicans in congress voted for the declaration of war, and every single federalist, without exception, voted against it. So it looks to me look its more of a party vote. Now, to a large extent, deepseeded policy issues, a policy differences explain this vote. The jeffersonian republicans were convinced we had reached a position in our history where our sovereignty was at risk. We only had three ways of responding to the british encroachments on our rights war, more trade restrictions, or what the republicans called submission. The federalists, however, thought there was a fourth alternative, accommodation. The conditioned of thing they had accepted in the jay treaty, and the kind of thing that jefferson had rejected in t