Two hundred years ago on Aug. 24, the U.S. Capitol and the White House went up in flames. If not for the quick thinking of a State Department clerk, the Declaration of Independence, and many other documents dating to the founding, would have as well.
On the morning of Aug. 20, 1814, Secretary of State James Monroe stood atop a bluff near Aquasco Mills, and gazed three miles south toward Benedict, a village on Maryland's Patuxent River. Though he was without a spyglass, through squinted eyes Monroe spotted British ships coming up the river and their soldiers coming ashore. With that, he dashed off a note to President James Madison speculating that the ultimate destination of the invading army, though the timing was uncertain, was the young nation's capital city.
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