Two American Presidents have been assassinated within the city, and its inhabitants shuddered at the approach of Southern armies during the Civil War. But at no other time in the history of the Federal city has there been such a moment of supreme terror as on the night of the 24th of August, 1814, when the British gave to the flames the Capitol, the President's house, the Navy Yard and the Treasury. President Madison and his Cabinet had taken refuge in flight; the frightened citizens were hurrying bewildered into Virginia when, towards sunset, General Ross and Admiral Cockburn drew up their troops on the esplanade east of the Capitol. Thus far the movement had been conducted according to the rigid etiquette of war, but the spectacle of the American capital at their mercy awoke both in officers and men the wanton spirit of revenge.
American school-books have perpetuated the unique fable that the British held a mock session in the Hall of the House of Representatives; that Cockburn from the Speaker's desk, while the soldiers filled the seats, put the question: "Shall this harbor of Yankee democracy be burned?" and that, when the motion was boisterously carried, gave orders
