The Burning of the White House: James and Dolley Madison and the War of 1812 Hardcover - 2016

From the jacket flap

The White House in Flames

In 1814, Washington was set alight by the invading British, in an outrage unequaled until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941.

How did it happen? How did the scholarly president James Madison, "the father of the Constitution," react? And how did his socialite wife, Dolley Madison, respond to the invasion of the redcoats?

Here, in The Burning of the White House, award-winning author Jane Hampton Cook brings this exciting story to life--from the intrigue of disloyal cabinet members, to the pacifist Quaker faith of the lively and defiant Dolley Madison, to adventures involving future president James Monroe, amateur poet Francis Scott Key, and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow author Washington Irving.

The Burning of the White House gives you a front row seat at one of the most dramatic, contentious, and dangerous times in American history, with New England threatening secession (fifty years before the South seceded, precipitating the Civil War), British Rear Admiral George Cockburn plotting his attack on the newly independent nation's young capital, and President Madison's opponents criticizing him for being weak and ineffectual before Madison, in the end, emerged victorious.

Colorful, informative, and a tremendous read, The Burning of the White House is a riveting account of the first great war in America's post-independence history, sure to merit a place on any history lover's bookshelf.