Among my miscellaneous reading, I got hold of an American publication giving a detailed, and, indeed, an official account of the capture of Washington by the British, in 1814.  An event so long past, and of so little ultimate importance, is, perhaps, hardly worth alluding to; but there are some passages in the official documents which I thought very amusing.

At the very moment of receiving the attack of the British on the heights of Bladensburgh, there seems to have been a most curious puzzle among the American generals, as to where they were to be stationed, and what they were to do.  It is stated that the British threw themselves forward in open order, advancing singly.  The American general (Winden) goes on in his narrative to describe what followed, thus: 

“Our advanced riflemen now began to fire, and continued it for half a dozen rounds, when I observed them to run back to an orchard.  They halted there, and seemed for a moment about returning to their original position, but in a few moments entirely broke and retired to the left of Stansburg’s line.  The advanced artillery immediately followed the riflemen.

“The first three or four rockets fired by the enemy were much above the heads of Stansburg’s line; but the rockets having taken a more horizontal direction, an universal flight of the centre and left of this brigade was the consequence.  The 5th regiment and the artillery still remained, and I hoped would prevent the enemy’s approach, but they advancing singly, their fire annoyed the 5th considerably, when I ordered it to retire, to put it out of the reach of the enemy.  This order was, however, immediately countermanded, from an aversion to retire before the necessity became stronger, and from a hope that the enemy would issue in a body, and enable us to act upon him on terms of equality.  But the enemy’s fire beginning to annoy the 5th still more, by wounding several of them, and a strong column passing up the road, and deploying on its left, I ordered them to retire; their retreat became a flight of absolute and total disorder.”

Of Beall’s regiment, the general gives the following succinct account—­“It gave one or two ineffectual fires and fled.”

In another place he says, piteously,—­“The cavalry would do any thing but charge.”

General Armstrong’s gentle and metaphysical account of the business was, that—­“Without all doubt the determining cause of our disasters is to be found in the love of life.”

This affair at Washington, which in its result was certainly advantageous to America, inasmuch as it caused the present beautiful capitol to be built in the place of the one we burnt, was, nevertheless, considered as a national calamity at the time.  In a volume of miscellaneous poems I met with one, written with the patriotic purpose of cheering the country under it; one triplet struck me as rather alarming for us, however soothing to America.