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1814 War of 1812 newspaper - The BRITISH NAVY enters the CHESAPEAKE BAY on its way to the capture of the US Capital City of WASHINGTON DC - inv # 1B-425
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SEE PHOTO(s) - COMPLETE ORIGINAL NEWSPAPER, Niles Weekly Register (Baltimore, MD) dated July 30, 1814. This original newspaper contains news of the British Navy entering the Chesapeake Bay on its way to CAPTURE and burn the US Capital city of WASHINGTON, DC during the War of 1812.
The Burning of Washington was a British raid on Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States, during the Chesapeake campaign of the War of 1812. It was the only time since the American Revolutionary War that a foreign power has captured and occupied the capital of the United States. Following the defeat of an American force at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, a British army led by Major-General Robert Ross marched on Washington City. That night, his forces set fire to multiple government and military buildings, including the Presidential Mansion and the United States Capitol.
The British naval commanders were under strict orders not to carry out operations far inland, or to attempt to hold territory. Early in 1814, Vice-Admiral Alexander Cochrane had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy's North America and West Indies Station, controlling naval forces based at the new Bermuda dockyard and the Halifax Naval Yard, which were used to blockade American ports throughout the war. He planned to carry the war into the United States, by attacks in Virginia and against New Orleans. Rear-Admiral George Cockburn had commanded the squadron in Chesapeake Bay since the previous year. On June 25, he wrote to Cochrane stressing that the defenses there were weak, and he felt that several major cities were vulnerable to attack. Cochrane suggested attacking Baltimore, Washington, and Philadelphia. Rear Admiral Cockburn accurately predicted that "within a short period of time, with enough force, we could easily have at our mercy the capital".
He recommended Washington, D.C. as the target, because of the comparative ease of attacking the national capital and "the greater political effect likely to result". On July 18, Cochrane ordered Cockburn to "deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages ... You are hereby required and directed to destroy and lay waste such towns and districts as you may find assailable". Cochrane further instructed, "You will spare merely the lives of the unarmed inhabitants of the United States". Ross was less optimistic. He "never dreamt for one minute that an army of 3,500 men with 1,000 marines reinforcement, with no cavalry, hardly any artillery, could march 50 miles inland and capture an enemy capital", according to historian John McCavitt. Ross refused to accept Cockburn's recommendation to burn the entire city. He spared nearly all of the privately owned properties.
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