Dublin Core
Title
Letter to Lucy Payne Todd
Description
First Lady Dolley Madison waited in the White House for her husband to return from the battlefield at Bladensburg; while she waited, she wrote this letter to her younger sister Lucy Todd. Mrs. Madison refused to leave until the absolute last moment and directed her household, both hired staff and enslaved men and women, to remove specific objects from the house for preservation. The most famous item saved by the White House residents was a portrait of George Washington, which you can see today in the National Portrait Gallery.
Creator
Dolley Payne Madison
Source
Original at the Library of Congress. As quoted in Allen C. Clark, Life and Letters of Dolly Madison (Washington, D.C.: Press of W.F. Roberts Company, 1914), 165-166. Read original.
Date
August 24, 1814
Coverage
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
At this late hour, a wagon has been procured; I have had it filled with the plate and most valuable portable articles belonging to the house; whether it will reach its destination, the Bank of Maryland, or fall into the hands of British soldiery, events must determine.
Our kind friend Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured, and ir requires it to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvass taken out; it is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York for safe keeping. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it, by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell!!
Our kind friend Mr. Carroll, has come to hasten my departure, and is in a very bad humor with me because I insist on waiting until the large picture of Gen. Washington is secured, and ir requires it to be unscrewed from the wall. This process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken, and the canvass taken out; it is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen of New York for safe keeping. And now, dear sister, I must leave this house, or the retreating army will make me a prisoner in it, by filling up the road I am directed to take. When I shall again write to you, or where I shall be tomorrow, I cannot tell!!