Dolley Madison – First Lady Takes Action As Invaders Attack Washington, D.C.

Dolley Madison

Rick Bromer. First Lady Takes Action As Invaders Attack Washington, D.C. Old News.

When Dolley Madison moved into the White House in 1809-following the inauguration of her husband, President James Madison-she was dissatisfied with the unfinished appearance of her new home. Although the nine-year-old White House was the largest private residence in the United States, some rooms were bare of furniture, while others held drab offices.

Dolley Madison wanted to redecorate some of the barren spaces in the White House to create rooms in which she could host gala social events. Previous first ladies had avoided publicity and public events, but Dolley Madison loved a party. She believed that she could increase her husband’s popularity and help him push his political programs through Congress if she became the leading hostess in Washington, D.C. She therefore drew up plans to create an elegant dining room, a drawing room, and a parlor in the White House.

She discussed her plans with her husband, who was taken aback when he learned that the first lady’s proposed redecoration would cost more than his entire $25,000 annual salary as chief executive of the United States. He told her that she would have to figure out some way to raise the necessary money.

The fifty-seven-year-old president, who was sixteen years older than his wife, did not share her enthusiasm for entertaining. He was the principal author of the United States Constitution, but he was too bashful to make small talk at parties. Happiest at his desk among books and papers, James Madison seemed nervous in social situations. He was aware that his physical presence was not impressive. Pale and thin, with a weak, boyish voice, Madison was a short man, five feet, four inches tall. He had a solemn manner and he dressed in plain black suits that were said to make him “always look like a man on his way to a funeral.”

Dolley Madison, who sometimes called her husband “the great little Madison,” thought that he ought to attend more parties in order to cultivate a public image as a cheerful, friendly man. As if trying to counterbalance her husband’s subdued style, the first lady cultivated a flamboyant image. For parties, she liked to dress up in imported French dresses with daringly low necklines. She also wore turbans adorned with feathers. Although her clothes looked very expensive, her manner was so warm and unpretentious that almost everyone who met the first lady immediately liked her. The writer Washington Irving described her as “a buxom dame who has a smile and pleasant word for everyone.”

To finance her redecoration of the White House, Dolley Madison decided to seek help from the United States Congress. She invited Congressmen of both political parties to tea at the White House, and when they arrived she took them on tours of the building. She showed them the bare rooms, which she described as a national embarrassment. Eager to improve America’s image and to please the charming first lady, the a majority of congressmen voted an appropriation of $12,000 for repairs and $14,000 for new furnishings at the White House.

Dolley Madison then hired Benjamin Latrobe, the noted architect, to help her choose furnishings. Latrobe spent $2,150 for three mirrors, $556.15 for new china, and $220.90 for silverware. At the request of the first lady, he also spent $28 for a guitar and $458 for a piano.

Latrobe’s taste was more sedate than Dolley Madison’s. He was dismayed when she insisted on buying some velvet curtains that he found too gaudy for the drawing room. “The curtains!” Latrobe wrote. “Oh the terrible velvet curtains! Their effect will ruin me entirely, so brilliant will they be.”

With her new decor in place, Dolley Madison began holding “receptions” every Wednesday at the White House. At these weekly gatherings, Congressmen mingled with foreign diplomats, celebrities, important businessmen, and distinguished visitors to Washington D.C. Slaves and servants served the guests French cuisine, fine wines and plentiful liquor. Dolley Madison carefully introduced every new guesy to her husband, but James Madison usually stayed in a corner with a few close friends, intensely discussing political issues.

The first lady herself was the star attraction at her parties. She became so popular that the pres began calling her “Queen Dolley.” Celebrated writers and artists who attended the receptions usually seemed more eager to meet the first lady than to meet the president.

Dolley Madison’s real goal was to increase her husband’s popularity, rather than her own, and for several years she seemed to be succeeding. Then, in the summer of 1812, President Madison caused a controversy in America when he asked Congress to vote for a declaration of war against Great Britain.

The British government, which was at war with France, had provoked the United States by seizing American merchant ships bound for French ports, by forcibly conscripting Americans into the British navy, and by allowing traders in Canada to arm the Indians who killed settlers in the American west. Madison, a Democrat, and members of his party in Congress were ready to declare war, but members of the conservative Federalist Party wanted peace. The Federalists preferred the British monarchy to the radical dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, and they hated the idea of helping a French dictator to fight against liberty-loving Englishmen. Every Federalist in Congress voted against President Madison’s request for a declaration of war but, after exceptionally angry debates, the declaration passed by 79-49 votes in the House of Representatives and by 19-13 votes in the Senate.

After that, Dolley Madison’s parties began to be disrupted by rude outbursts of anger during conversations between antiwar Federalists and pro-war Democrats. To keep everyone as calm as possible, the first lady restricted her own conversation to small talk and laughter. “Politics is the business of men,” she liked to say. “I don’t care what office they hold or who supports them. I only care about people.”

In an effort to encourage national unity, the first lady threw more parties than ever, but her husband’s political problems grew worse. Congress refused to raise taxes for what the antiwar Congressmen called “Mr. Madison’s war,” and when the president called for 50,000 volunteers to invade Canada, only 5,000 signed up. James Madison’s popularity fell further when his underfunded attempts to invade Canada failed disastrously.

Dolley Madison became alarmed in 1813 when she heard rumors that British sympathizers and spies in Washington, D.C., intended to set fire to the White House to avenge the burning of the Canadian Parliament buildings at York (now Toronto) by American invaders. To defend her redecorated Executive Mansion, Dolley Madison began sleeping with a saber under her bed, so that she would be equipped to fight off any arsonists who might try to climb through her bedroom window. (The president, who was an insomniac, slept in a separate bedroom to avoid disturbing the first lady when he jumped out of bed, several times each night, and rushed to his desk to write down ideas that had occurred to him as he slept.)

In the summer of 1814, a fleet of twenty-one large British warships sailed up the Chesapeake Bay towards Washington, D.C. The United States Navy was too small to oppose the enemy ships, which on August 19 landed an army of four thousand British regulars on the shore of the Patuxtent River in Maryland.

As the British began marching toward Washington, D.C., Dolley Madison was alarmed not only by the enemy advance, but also by the depth of hatred that antiwar Americans began expressing towards her husband. One young Federalist lady in Washington, who had exceptionally long and beautiful hair, expressed her feelings by halting her carriage in front of the White House, loosening her hair, and shouting, “I pray that I may have the privilege of parting with this hair, in order to make a noose to hang Mr. Madison!”

Nobody in Washington seemed to feel much confidence in the American army of one thousand regulars, backed by several thousand ill-trained militiamen, who marched from Washington to confront the British invaders. President Madison felt that the troops needed some encouragement to cheer them up. On August 23 he told his wife that he felt it was necessary for him to address the troops in the field, and he asked her if she would be afraid to stay alone at the White House that night. Dolley Madison replied, “I have no fear except for you, and for the success of our army.”

Her husband expressed confidence in the American army, but he also showed her cases of secret documents that he did not want the British to see. He told her that, if she was forced to flee from the White House, she should be sure to take the documents with her. The president then kissed his wife goodbye and rode off towards Bladensburg, Maryland, six miles northeast of Washington, where the American forces were concentrated.

On the morning of August 24, Dolley Madison received an alarming dispatch from her husband. It warned her that “the enemy seem stronger than was at first reported, and they may reach the city with the intention of destroying it.” The first lady immediately loaded the secret papers into trunks and had them carried to her carriage. She found that the trunks completely filled the carriage, leaving hardly any room for her personal possessions. She tried to hire a wagon, but none was available because many of the city’s residents were fleeing with all their goods.

Dolley Madison was secretly worried that her husband might be lynched by antiwar Federalists. She felt that her own popularity might protect him, so she was eager to join him In a letter to her sister, written while she waited at the White House for the president’s return, the first lady wrote, “Our private property must be sacrificed, as it is impossible to procure wagons for its transporta tion. I am determined not to go myself until I see Mr. Madison safe, so that he can accompany me, as I hear of much hostility towards him Disaffection stalks around us.”

At noon Dolley Madison went to the roof of the White House with a spyglass, hoping to see her husband returning from the battlefield. Instead she saw small groups of American soldiers running back towards Washington without their guns. She went downstairs and told the house steward, Jean-Pierre “French John” Sioussat, to prepare a meal in case the president and his party returned soon.

Then, resuming her letter to her sister, the first lady wrote, “French John (a faithful servant), with his usual activity and resolution, offers to spike the cannon at the gate, and lay a train of powder, which would blow up the British, should they enter the house. To the last proposition I positively object, without being able to make him understand why all advantages in war may not be taken.” At three p.m. a messenger from the front galloped up to the White House waving his hat. “Clear out! Clear out!” he shouted. “General Armstrong [the American field commander] has ordered a retreat!”

Before departing, the first lady wrote in a letter to her sister: Will you believe it, my sister? we have had a battle, or skirmish, near Bladensburg, and here I am still, within sound of the cannon! Mr. Madison comes not. May God protect us! Two messengers, covered with dust, come to bid me fly; but here I mean to wait for him. . . . Our kind friend, Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me, because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvas taken out. It is done! and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York, for safe keeping. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be to-morrow, I cannot tell!

Unable to bear the thought of leaving behind her velvet curtains, she took them down and tossed them into the carriage, along with a small clock, some books, and some silver; then she departed for Virginia, where she spent an anxious night with friends.

The first lady’s fears for her husband’s safety were relieved when he joined her the next day in Virginia, but she was upset to learn that the victorious British troops had marched into Washington, D.C., where they had burned both the Capitol Building and the White House. They had then marched back to their ships.

Dolley Madison was told that British troops had done no damage to private property in the city, and that they had been “perfectly polite” to the citizens. She nevertheless expressed the opinion that only insensate barbarians could have committed such a hideous act of vandalism as the burning of the White House.

Returning to Washington, D.C., the Madisons moved into the Octagon House, which had recently been vacated by the French ambassador. There the first lady resumed holding her weekly receptions, but with fewer guests, because there was not enough room for large crowds in the smaller house. Congress voted to rebuild the White House, but Dolley Madison was disappointed to learn that the work would not be completed before the end of her husband’s final term in office.

The burning of the White House angered most Americans and therefore helped to unite the country behind President Madison. The Americans won the next major battles of the war, when they successfully defended Baltimore and New Orleans from British attacks. These victories, quickly followed by a peace settlement, restored President Madison’s popularity, and boosted his first lady’s reputation to new heights.

In 1817, when James Madison completed his second term in office, he and Dolley Madison retired to their farm in Virginia. That same year the White House rebuilding was completed, and the official portrait of George Washington, which Dolley Madison had saved from destruction, was returned to the Executive Mansion.

After her husband died in 1836, Dolley Madison returned to Washington, D.C., where she resumed her social activities, attending parties in her signature turbans and French gowns. Until her death in the summer of 1848, she was the most sought-after guest in Washington, attending many parties in the rebuilt White House, where various presidents, eager to be seen in her presence, escorted her from one brilliantly-lit parlor to another.

Although her White House redecoration did not endure, Dolley Madison’s public persona was so successful that it became the model for subsequent First Ladies, most of whom have tried to boost the popularity of their presidential husbands by being fashionable, sociable, and cheerfully apolitical.