Library of Congress Burned by Brits-1814.

Incendiary buried in cask of rum in Nova Scotia.

British Burn Washington, DC August 14,1814¹

Irish-born British Major-General Robert Ross led the British in the burning of Washington, D.C. The Library of Congress housed in the capitol building was burned (perhaps not).² En route to what would be the  Battle of Baltimore,³ the British advance encountered American skirmishers. An American sharpshooter shot Ross through the right arm into the chest and he died. His body was preserved in a barrel of 129 gallons of rum and shipped to the Old Burying Ground in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

Sources:

Library of Congress: A Timeline. Library of Congress.

McCavitt, John, and Christopher T. George. The Man Who Captured Washington: Major General Robert Ross and the War of 1812. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2016.

1. This illustration is from the 1816 book, The History of England, from the Earliest Periods, Volume 1 by Paul M. Rapin de Thoyras.

2. Dorn, Nathan. “The Mysterious Disappearance of the First Library of Congress” In Custodia Legis May 24, 2012.

3. Following capture of the White House, General Ross accepted an American lawyer, Francis Scott Key, onto his ship and granted Key's request for the release of some American prisoners, but Key was kept prisoner until the battle was over. Key watched the bombardment of Baltimore's Fort McHenry and when he saw the American flag flying in the morning wrote the poem, Defence of Fort M'Henry which became the lyrics to the Star Spangled Banner.