The newspaper is citing unidentified people familiar with the investigation. Upon seeing the flames of the Capitol from his temporary residence at the Octagon House, French minister Louis Sérurier remarked, "I have never beheld a spectacle more terrible and at the same time more magnificent.The Washington Post is reporting that a current senior White House adviser is under scrutiny as part of an investigation into possible coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia. From the library, winds spread the flames to the Senate Chamber, where the damage to the art and architecture was also severe. The space burned so fiercely that it endangered a portion of the exterior stone wall. Upstairs, a large room that then housed the Library of Congress' collection of over 3,000 books served as a ready stockpile of fuel. In the Supreme Court Chamber, on the first floor of the north wing, troops piled furniture from nearby rooms to create another great bonfire, severely damaging the Doric stone columns. The heat from the fire grew so intense that it melted the glass skylights and destroyed much of the carved stone in the room, including Giuseppe Franzoni's life-size marble statue of Liberty seated on a pedestal, located above the Speaker's rostrum.ĭownstairs, the Clerk's office was transformed into an inferno of burning documents and furniture this fire produced a heat so great it forced the British to retreat from the south wing, leaving half of the rooms on the first floor unscathed. In the south wing, soldiers ignited a giant bonfire of furniture slathered with gunpowder paste in the Hall of the House of Representatives (now National Statuary Hall). The British focused their destructive work on the principal rooms, foregoing the lobbies, halls and staircases, thus securing their escape route. As a result, the exterior structure survived and many of the interior spaces remained intact. His extensive use of masonry vaulting also proved to be practical as well as aesthetic. Damage to parts of the wings was severe, but the building was not completely destroyed.įortunately, architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe had used fire-proof building materials, such as sheet iron, marble, sandstone, zinc and copper. Capitol was still being constructed and consisted of only the north and south wings connected by a wooden walkway spanning the area intended for the center building. The White House, the navy yard and several American warships were also burned however, most private property was spared.Īt the time, the U.S. The British torched major rooms in the Capitol, which then housed the Library of Congress, as well as the House, Senate and Supreme Court. Those who remained on the evening of August 24, 1814, were witness to a horrifying spectacle. Meeting little to no resistance, British troops set fire to much of the city, in retaliation for the Americans' burning of the Canadian capital at York on April 27, 1813. Word of the approaching forces sent most of the population fleeing, leaving the capital vulnerable. Around 8 p.m., on the evening of August 24, 1814, British troops under the command of Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cockburn and Major General Robert Ross marched into Washington, D.C., after a victory over American forces at Bladensburg, Maryland, earlier in the day.
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