On August 24, 1814, an iconic portrait of George Washington is removed from the White House walls, to prevent it being looted by British troops during the War of 1812. Later, first lady Dolley Madison takes credit for the save.
According to the White House Historical Society and Dolley’s personal letters, President James Madison left the White House on August 22 to meet with his generals on the battlefield, as British troops threatened to enter the capitol. Before leaving, he asked his wife Dolley if she had the “courage or firmness” to wait for his intended return the next day. He asked her to gather important state papers and be prepared to abandon the White House at any moment.
The next day, Dolley and a few servants scanned the horizon with spyglasses waiting for either Madison or the British army to show up. As British troops gathered in the distance, Dolley says in later correspondence, she decided to abandon the couple’s personal belongings and save the full-length portrait of former president and national icon George Washington from desecration by vengeful British soldiers, many of whom would have rejoiced in humiliating England’s former colonists. Different accounts tell different stories.
In a letter dated August 23, Dolley wrote to her sister that a friend who came to help her escape was exasperated at her insistence on saving the portrait. Historians speculate on whether Madison wrote that letter well after the fact to amplify her role in saving the painting, and a book by White House servant Paul Jennings, who was there at the time, contradicts her account. It is likely she ordered the painting removed, but did not have time to supervise it herself. (Jennings relates that she left only with what silver she could carry.) Dolley left the White House and found her husband at their predetermined meeting place in the middle of a thunderstorm.
Since the painting was screwed to the wall, it was necessary for the frame to be broken and the canvas pulled out and rolled up. According to Jennings, this was done by a White House steward and gardener on order from Mrs. Madison. Two unidentified “gentlemen from New York” later hustled it away for safe-keeping. (Unbeknownst to Dolley, the portrait was actually a copy of Gilbert Stuart’s original). The way Dolley wrote it, she had risked life and limb to supervise the portrait's unframing: “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.”
On the evening of August 24, British troops enjoyed feasting on White House food using the president’s silverware and china before burning the building. Although they were able to return to Washington only three days later when British troops moved on, the Madisons were not again able to take up residence in the White House and lived out the rest of his term in the city’s Octagon House. It was not until 1817 that newly elected President James Monroe moved back into the reconstructed building.
