J.B.R.
About ten years before Mr. Madison was President,
he and Colonel Monroe were rival candidates for the Legislature.
Mr. Madison was anxious to be elected, and sent his chariot to
bring up a Scotchman to the polls, who lived in the neighborhood.
But when brought up, he cried out: "Put me down for Colonel
Monroe, for he was the first man that took me by the hand in this
country." Colonel Monroe was elected, and his friends joked
Mr. Madison pretty hard about his Scotch friend, and I have heard
Mr. Madison and Colonel Monroe have many a hearty laugh over the
subject, for years after.
When Mr. Madison was chosen President, we came
on and moved into the White House; the east room was not finished,
and Pennsylvania Avenue was not paved, but was always in an awful
condition from either mud or dust. The city was a dreary place.
Mr. Robert Smith was then Secretary of State,
but as he and Mr. Madison could not agree, he was removed, and
Colonel Monroe appointed to his place. Dr. Eustis was Secretary
of War — rather a rough, blustering man; Mr. Gallatin, a tip-top
man, was Secretary of the Treasury; and Mr. Hamilton, of South
Carolina, a pleasant gentleman, who thought Mr. Madison could
do nothing wrong, and who always concurred in every thing he said,
was Secretary of the Navy.
Before the War
of 1812 was declared, there were frequent consultations
at the White House as to the expediency of doing it. Colonel Monroe
was always fierce for it, so were Messrs. Lowndes, Giles, Poydrass,
and Pope — all Southerners; all his Secretaries were likewise
in favor of it.
Soon after war was declared, Mr. Madison made
his regular summer visit to his farm in Virginia. We had not been
there long before an express reached us one evening, informing
Mr. M. of Gen. Hull's surrender. He was astounded at the news,
and started back to Washington the next morning.
After the war had been going on for a couple
of years, the people of Washington began to be alarmed for the
safety of the city, as the British held Chesapeake Bay with a
powerful fleet and army. Every thing seemed to be left to General
Armstrong, then Secretary of war, who ridiculed the idea that
there was any danger. But, in August, 1814, the enemy had got
so near, there could be no doubt of their intentions. Great alarm
existed, and some feeble preparations for defence were made. Com.
Barney's flotilla was stripped of men, who were placed in battery,
at Bladensburg, where they fought splendidly. A large part of
his men were tall, strapping Negroes, mixed with white sailors
and marines. Mr. Madison reviewed them just before the fight,
and asked Com. Barney if his "Negroes would not run on the
approach of the British?" "No sir," said Barney,
"they don't know how to run; they will die by their guns
first." They fought till a large part of them were killed
or wounded; and Barney himself wounded and taken prisoner. One
or two of these Negroes are still living here.
Well, on the 24th of August, sure enough, the
British reached Bladensburg, and the fight began between 11 and
12. Even that very morning General Armstrong assured Mrs. Madison
there was no danger. The President, with General Armstrong, General
Winder, Colonel Monroe, Richard Rush, Mr. Graham, Tench Ringgold,
and Mr. Duvall, rode out on horseback to Bladensburg to see how
things looked. Mrs. Madison ordered dinner to be ready at 3, as
usual; I set the table myself, and brought up the ale, cider,
and wine, and placed them in the coolers, as all the Cabinet and
several military gentlemen and strangers were expected. While
waiting, at just about 3, as Sukey, the house-servant, was lolling
out of a chamber window, James Smith, a free colored man who had
accompanied Mr. Madison to Bladensburg, galloped up to the house,
waving his hat, and cried out, "Clear out, clear out! General
Armstrong has ordered a retreat!" All then was confusion.
Mrs. Madison ordered her carriage, and passing through the dining-room,
caught up what silver she could crowd into her old-fashioned reticule,
and then jumped into the chariot with her servant girl Sukey,
and Daniel Carroll, who took charge of them; Jo. Bolin drove them
over to Georgetown Heights; the British were expected in a few
minutes. Mr. Cutts, her brother-in-law, sent me to a stable on
14th street, for his carriage. People were running in every direction.
John Freeman (the colored butler) drove off in the coachee with
his wife, child, and servant; also a feather bed lashed on behind
the coachee, which was all the furniture saved, except part of
the silver and the portrait of Washington (of which I will tell
you by-and-by).
I will here mention that although the British
were expected every minute, they did not arrive for some hours;
in the mean time, a rabble, taking advantage of the confusion,
ran all over the White House, and stole lots of silver and whatever
they could lay their hands on.
About sundown I walked over to the Georgetown
ferry, and found the President and all hands (the gentlemen named
before, who acted as a sort of body-guard for him) waiting for
the boat. It soon returned, and we all crossed over, and passed
up the road about a mile; they then left us servants to wander
about. In a short time several wagons from Bladensburg, drawn
by Barney's artillery horses, passed up the road, having crossed
the Long Bridge before it was set on fire. As we were cutting
up some pranks [planks] a white wagoner ordered us away, and told
his boy Tommy to reach out his gun, and he would shoot us. I told
him "he had better have used it at Bladensburg." Just
then we came up with Mr. Madison and his friends, who had been
wandering about for some hours, consulting what to do. I walked
on to a Methodist minister's, and in the evening, while he was
at prayer, I heard a tremendous explosion, and, rushing out, saw
that the public buildings, navy yard, ropewalks, &c., were
on fire.
Mrs. Madison slept that night at Mrs. Love's,
two or three miles over the river. After leaving that place she
called in at a house, and went up stairs. The lady of the house
learning who she was, became furious, and went to the stairs and
screamed out, "Miss Madison! if that's you, come down and
go out! Your husband has got mine out fighting, and d___ you,
you shan't stay in my house; so get out!" Mrs. Madison complied,
and went to Mrs. Minor's, a few miles further, where she stayed
a day or two, and then returned to Washington, where she found
Mr. Madison at her brother-in-law's, Richard Cutts, on F street.
All the facts about Mrs. M. I learned from her servant Sukey.
We moved into the house of Colonel John B. Taylor [Tayloe?], corner
of 18th street and New York Avenue, where we lived till the news
of peace arrived.
In two or three weeks after we returned, Congress
met in extra session, at Blodgett's old shell of a house on 7th
street (where the General Post-office now stands). It was three
stories high, and had been used for a theatre, a tavern, an Irish
boarding house, &c.; but both Houses of Congress managed to
get along in it very well, notwithstanding it had to accommodate
the Patent-office, City and General Post-office, committee-rooms,
and what was left of the Congressional Library, at the same time.
Things are very different now.
The next summer, Mr. John Law, a large property-holder
about the Capitol, fearing it would not be rebuilt, got up a subscription
and built a large brick building (now called the Old Capitol,
where the secesh prisoners are confined), and offered it to Congress
for their use, till the Capitol could be rebuilt. This coaxed
them back, though strong efforts were made to remove the seat
of government north; but the southern members kept it here.
After the news of peace, and of General Jackson's
victory at New
Orleans, which reached here about the same time,
there were great illuminations. We moved into the Seven Buildings,
corner of 19th street and Pennsylvania Avenue, and while there,
General Jackson came on with his wife, to whom numerous dinner-parties
and levees were given. Mr. Madison also held levees every Wednesday
evening, at which wine, punch, coffee, ice-cream, &c., were
liberally served, unlike the present custom.
It has often been stated in print, that when
Mrs. Madison escaped from the White House, she cut out from the
frame the large portrait of Washington (now in one of the parlors
there), and carried it off. This is totally false. She had no
time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down.
All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British
were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every
moment. John Suse' [Jean-Pierre Sioussat?] ( a Frenchman, then
door-keeper, and still living) and Magraw, the President's gardener,
took it down and sent it off on a wagon, with some large silver
urns and such other valuables as could be hastily got hold of.
When the British did arrive, they ate up the very dinner, and
drank the wines, &c., that I had prepared for the President's
party.
When the news of peace arrived, we were crazy
with joy. Miss Sally Coles, a cousin of Mrs. Madison, and afterwards
wife of Andrew Stevenson, since minister to England, came to the
head of the stairs, crying out, "Peace! peace!" and
told John Freeman (the butler) to serve out wine liberally to
the servants and others. I played the President's March on the
violin, John Suse' and some others were drunk for two days, and
such another joyful time was never seen in Washington. Mr. Madison
and all his Cabinet were as pleased as any, but did not show their
joy in this manner.
Mrs. Madison was a remarkably fine woman. She
was beloved by every body in Washington, white and colored. Whenever
soldiers marched by, during the war, she always sent out and invited
them in to take wine and refreshments, giving them liberally of
the best in the house. Madeira wine was better in those days than
now, and more freely drank. In the last days of her life, before
Congress purchased her husband's papers, she was in a state of
absolute poverty, and I think sometimes suffered for the necessaries
of life. While I was a servant to Mr. Webster, he often sent me
to her with a market-basket full of provisions, and told me whenever
I saw anything in the house that I thought she was in need of,
to take it to her. I often did this, and occasionally gave her
small sums from my own pocket, though I had years before bought
my freedom of her.
Mr. Madison, I think, was one of the best men
that ever lived. I never saw him in a passion, and never knew
him to strike a slave, although he had over one hundred; neither
would he allow an overseer to do it. Whenever any slaves were
reported to him as stealing or "cutting up" badly, he
would send for them and admonish them privately, and never mortify
them by doing it before others. They generally served him very
faithfully. He was temperate in his habits. I don't think he drank
a quart of brandy in his whole life. He ate light breakfasts and
no suppers, but rather a hearty dinner, with which he took invariably
but one glass of wine. When he had hard drinkers at his table,
who had put away his choice Madeira pretty freely, in response
to their numerous toasts, he would just touch the glass to his
lips, or dilute it with water, as they pushed about the decanters.
For the last fifteen years of his life he drank no wine at all.
After he retired from the presidency, he amused
himself chiefly on his farm. At the election for members of the
Virginia Legislature, in 1829 or '30, just after General Jackson's
accession, he voted for James Barbour, who had been a strong Adams
man. He also presided, I think, over the Convention for amending
the Constitution, in 1832.
While Mr. Jefferson was President, he and Mr.
Madison (then his Secretary of State) were extremely intimate;
in fact, two brothers could not have been more so. Mr. Jefferson
always stopped over night at Mr. Madison's, in going and returning
from Washington.
I have heard Mr. Madison say, that when he went
to school, he cut his own wood for exercise. He often did it also
when at his farm in Virginia. He was very neat, but never extravagant,
in his clothes. He always dressed wholly in black — coat,
breeches, and silk stockings, with buckles in his shoes and breeches.
He never had but one suit at a time. He had some poor relatives
that he had to help, and wished to set them an example of economy
in the matter of dress. He was very fond of horses, and an excellent
judge of them, and no jockey ever cheated him. He never had less
than seven horses in his Washington stables while President.
He often told the story, that one day riding
home from court with old Tom Barbour (father of Governor Barbour),
they met a colored man, who took off his hat. Mr. M. raised his,
to the surprise of old Tom; to whom Mr. M. replied, "I never
allow a Negro to excel me in politeness." Though a similar
story is told of General Washington, I have often heard this,
as above, from Mr. Madison's own lips.
After Mr. Madison retired from the presidency,
in 1817, he invariably made a visit twice a year to Mr. Jefferson
— sometimes stopping two or three weeks — till Mr. Jefferson's
death, in 1826.
I was always with Mr. Madison till he died, and
shaved him every other day for sixteen years. For six months before
his death, he was unable to walk, and spent most of his time reclined
on a couch; but his mind was bright, and with his numerous visitors
he talked with as much animation and strength of voice as I ever
heard him in his best days. I was present when he died. That morning
Sukey brought him his breakfast, as usual. He could not swallow.
His niece, Mrs. Willis, said, "What is the matter, Uncle
Jeames?" "Nothing more than a change of mind, my dear."
His head instantly dropped, and he ceased breathing as quietly
as the snuff of a candle goes out. He was about eighty-four years
old, and was followed to the grave by an immense procession of
white and colored people. The pall-bearers were Governor Barbour,
Philip P. Barbour, Charles P. Howard, and Reuben Conway; the two
last were neighboring farmers.
This article is from
Paul Jennings, A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison,
Bladensburg Series, Number Two, Brooklyn: George C. Beadle, 1865,
from the Special Collections Library of James Madison University.
The article was reprinted in White House History: A journal
published occasionally by the White House Historical Association,
Volume 1, Number 1, 1983, pp. 46-51. However, this copy is directly
from the 1865 manuscript. The text is reproduced without correction
except that "Negro" is capitalized. Suggested corrections
in the 1983 reprint are in brackets.
