Following the defeat of American forces at the Battle of Bladensburg on August 24, 1814, a British army led by Major-General Robert Ross marched on Washington, D.C. That evening, British soldiers and sailors set fire to multiple public buildings, including the Presidential Mansion, United States Capitol, and Washington Navy Yard.

The initial British strategy against the United States focused on imposing a naval blockade at sea, and maintaining a defensive stance on land.

Rear Admiral Cockburn accurately predicted that "within a short period of time, with enough force, we could easily have at our mercy the capital".

[12] On July 18, Cochrane ordered Cockburn to "deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages ... You are hereby required and directed to destroy and lay waste such towns and districts as you may find assailable".

He "never dreamt for one minute that an army of 3,500 men with 1,000 marines reinforcement, with no cavalry, hardly any artillery, could march 50 miles inland and capture an enemy capital", according to historian John McCavitt.

[15] An added motive was retaliation for the "wanton destruction of private property along the north shores of Lake Erie" by American troops under Colonel John Campbell in May, the most notable being the Raid on Port Dover.

[16] On June 2, Sir George Prevost, Governor General of British North America, wrote to Cochrane at Admiralty House, in Bailey's Bay, Bermuda, calling for a retaliation against the American destruction of private property in violation of the laws of war.

Prévost argued that, in consequence of the late disgraceful conduct of the American troops in the wanton destruction of private property on the north shores of Lake Erie, in order that if the war with the United States continues you may, should you judge it advisable, assist in inflicting that measure of retaliation which shall deter the enemy from a repetition of similar outrages.

They found refuge for the night in Brookeville, a small town in Montgomery County, Maryland, which is known today as the "United States' Capital for a Day".

[21][22] The plan to attack Washington had been formulated by Rear Admiral Cockburn, who predicted that "within a short period of time, with enough force, we could easily have at our mercy the capital".

[29] Among the items destroyed was the 3,000-volume collection of the Library of Congress[30] and the intricate decorations of the neoclassical columns, pediments, and sculptures[31] designed by William Thornton in 1793 and Benjamin Latrobe in 1803.

The House rotunda, the east lobby, the staircases, and Latrobe's famous Corn-Cob Columns in the Senate entrance hall all survived.

[37][38][39]The sappers and miners of the Corps of Royal Engineers under Captain Blanshard, who were employed in burning the government buildings, entered the White House.

[22] The day after the destruction of the White House, Rear Admiral Cockburn entered the building of the D.C. newspaper, the National Intelligencer, intending to burn it down.

It also spun off a tornado that passed through the center of the capital, setting down on Constitution Avenue[7] and lifting two cannons before dropping them several yards away and killing British troops and American civilians alike.

While some assert that the storm forced the British to retreat,[7] historians have argued that their intention was only to destroy the city's government buildings, rather than occupy it for an extended period.

The rains sizzled and cracked the already charred walls of the White House and ripped away at structures the British had no plans to destroy (such as the Patent Office).

[40]: 359  A separate British force captured Alexandria, Virginia, on the south side of the Potomac River, while Ross's troops were leaving Washington.

[61] Most contemporary American observers, including newspapers representing anti-war Federalists, condemned the destruction of the public buildings as needless vandalism.

Such actions were denounced by most leaders of continental Europe, where capital cities had been repeatedly occupied in the course of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars but always spared destruction, at least on the part of the occupiers—the famous burning of Moscow that occurred less than two years prior had been an act carried out by the defenders.

According to The Annual Register, the burning had "brought a heavy censure on the British character", with some members of Parliament, including the anti-establishment MP Samuel Whitbread,[62] joining in the criticism, declaring that the government was "making much of the taking of a few buildings in a non-strategic swamp, as though it had captured Paris".

In contrast, the majority of British public opinion perceived the burnings to be justified following the damage that the U.S. military had inflicted during its incursions into Canada.

[64] The Reverend John Strachan, who as Rector of York had witnessed the American acts there, wrote to Thomas Jefferson that the damage to Washington "was a small retaliation after redress had been refused for burnings and depredations, not only of public but private property, committed by them in Canada".

[65] When they ultimately returned to Bermuda, the British forces took with them two pairs of portraits of King George III and his wife, Queen Charlotte, which had been discovered in one of the public buildings.

[70] On February 3, 1815, in an effort to guarantee that the federal government would always remain in the area, Washington property owners funded the building of the Old Brick Capitol,[71] a larger meeting space where the Supreme Court now stands.

[75] On February 13, President Madison and Congress passed legislation to borrow $500,000 to repair the public buildings, including the Capitol, "on their present sites in the city of Washington".

With the reconstruction of the public buildings in Washington, the value of land in the area increased dramatically, paving the way for the expansion of the city that developed in the years leading up to the American Civil War.

[79] In 2009, President Barack Obama held a ceremony at the White House to honor the Madisons' slave Paul Jennings as a representative of staff action to save the Gilbert Stuart painting and other valuables.

"[81] In an interview with National Public Radio, Jennings' great-great-grandson, Hugh Alexander, said, "We were able to take a family portrait in front of the painting, which was for me one of the high points.

[36] During heated free trade negotiations in 2018, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asked President Donald Trump how the United States could justify protective tariffs as a national security issue.