They remembered the way American troops looted and burned government buildings in York-and they were ready to get revenge. British troops set fire to the White House, the Capitol building, the Library of Congress, the U.S. Treasury, the War Department and the State Department.

The city was completely unprepared for the invaders, but one woman took immediate action. Even as people were fleeing the city in droves, First Lady Dolley Madison refused to leave without some of the nation's most important treasures-including the famous Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington.

While they were in Washington, the British captured an elderly doctor named William Beanes. Beanes was a much-liked man, and among his friends was a young Baltimore lawyer named Francis Scott Key.