Saving History – How America’s Founding Documents Survived the War of 1812

Today, we leap forward in time to a terrifying moment during the War of 1812.

In August 1814, a massive fleet of British warships sailed up the Chesapeake Bay, landed troops, and began marching directly toward Washington, D.C., with strict orders to burn the young American capital to the ground.

Total panic gripped the city as politicians and citizens fled for their lives. While First Lady Dolley Madison famously risked her life to save the iconic full-length portrait of George Washington from the White House dining room, a little-known State Department clerk named Stephen Pleasonton realized that an even greater historical treasure was in immediate danger of being lost to history forever.

As British troops defeated American forces at Bladensburg, just miles from the capital, clerk Stephen Pleasonton took immediate, decisive action without waiting for official orders. He rushed into the State Department archives and grabbed the original, handwritten parchment copies of the Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution, and the Bill of Rights.

He bought a stash of coarse linen bags, stuffed the priceless documents inside, and loaded them onto a basic wooden farm wagon he had hastily procured.  Pleasonton escorted a convoy of wagons loaded with valuable documents out of the capitol, just hours before British soldiers marched into the city and torched the public buildings.

On the night of August 24th, 1814, as British forces set fire to the U.S. Capitol building, the White House, and the Library of Congress, lighting the night sky in a horrific orange glow, Stephen Pleasonton was driving his wagon through the dark Virginia countryside.

He initially hid the coarse linen bags containing America’s founding documents inside an abandoned gristmill located two miles outside of Georgetown. Fearing that British scouts might burn the mill, he moved them further inland to a secure home in Leesburg, Virginia, locking them safely in a vault in the basement. Because of one clerk’s relentless initiative, our history remained intact.

Once the British forces retreated from Washington and a storm rolled into Washington and put out the fires. Unfortunately, during the storm, a tornado erupted and tore through the city

He returned the undamaged documents to Washington, D.C., where they were safely stored until a new capital could be constructed. The tangible proof of our nation’s birth survived a brutal war, not because of a military defense, but because of a dedicated civil servant and a few linen bags. Tomorrow, we explore America’s original social network: the colonial post.