Before he departed Tom warned, “If the British win, it’ll be an end to this nation. We’ll likely be made colonies again. The English will consider your father a traitor and our entire family useful prisoners. So think of that before you say another word against my taking to the field.”
Ashamed, I said nothing. For the defense of our country—and our family—my husband would drill troops on the muddy, mosquito-ridden banks of the York River while my son joined a company of artillerists to fend off the invasion. Still smarting and betrayed, Tom gave me the coldest of farewells, and I was too afraid to press him for more.
But before they marched off, I held my son’s freckled face in my hands, memorizing every line. Jeff was as beautiful as his father had been at that age, but without the darkness. In temperament and strength, he was more like my father.
But where was I in that mix?
In his heart, I hoped. Where I’d will it to keep beating.
Chapter Thirty-three
Monticello, 28 August 1814
From Thomas Jefferson to Louis H. Girardin
Of the burning of Washington, I believe nothing. When Washington is in danger, we shall see Mrs. Madison and Mrs. Monroe, like the doves from the ark, first messengers of the news.
P.S. Since writing this I receive information undoubted that Washington is burnt.
THE SHAME OF IT.” Dolley wept, her pink lips quivering as she recalled her flight from the capital. Their escape was such a narrow miss that British officers actually dined on the meal that had been prepared for the Madisons before they put the President’s House to the torch. The house where my father had served as president. Where I’d been his hostess. Where my son James had been born.
The English also burned the Naval Yard, the War Office, the Treasury, and the congressional buildings—including the Library of Congress and all the books therein. And Dolley sniffled, “My poor husband, when he saw the wreckage, was as shaken and woebegone as if someone had cleaved his heart in two.”
My father looked every bit as heartbroken. “Barbarism,” Papa said, pretending to dab at sweat with a kerchief, when I could see plainly there were tears in his eyes.
“I cannot do justice to the destruction with words,” Dolley continued, having stopped at Monticello briefly on her way to Montpelier. “The country’s monuments and architectural triumphs are all ash. The President’s House burned to a charred shell. The capitol building without a roof and gutted to the marble like an ancient ruin. Priceless paintings slashed; their splintered frames nothing more than kindling now.”
I’d hoped Dolley might bring some comforting word of my son and my husband, who would now face the British as they turned their guns south, but instead, I found myself comforting her. “At least you rescued some national treasures.”
“Only trifles,” she said with a dismissive wave. “A wagonload of papers, some silver and velvet curtains. There wasn’t time to save more. I told the servants to cut down the painting of George Washington or destroy it if it couldn’t be cut down, lest it fall into British hands. We hid it in a farmhouse—that’s what we were reduced to. Mr. Madison sought shelter under armed guard while I spent the longest night of my life without him, hearing cannons booming. Explosions, too. I had to disguise myself in someone else’s clothes to sneak back into Washington City.”
I’d never admired her more.
“And the Federalists.” She uttered the word like a curse. “Never let them tell you they’re true patriots. They cared for wounded British soldiers in preference to our own and crowed at the rout of our army and the destruction of our capital.” She finished with a lament. “I wish I could’ve mounted the battle guns that our ill-trained and cowardly militia abandoned.”
It was the most unladylike thing I’d ever heard her say, and it plucked not even a note of censure on the harp of my conscience. “I pray this war ends soon.”
“Have you turned to your Bible, Patsy?” Dolley asked.
“No more than before,” I said with a nervous glance to Papa. There was, of course, bad blood between God and me. I’d forsaken his nunnery and he’d forsaken my sister. I didn’t wish to provoke the Almighty against my husband and son, too.
Papa excused himself on account of a growing headache, while I poured Dolley tea and readied my napkin in case she spilled it in her agitated state. But her hand was steady as she withdrew from her satchel a packet of papers. “I don’t know on what terms you parted with your sister-in-law, but you’d better see this before your husband hears of it.”