City hall
The White House
Executive mansion and presidential residence rebuilt from a scorched sandstone shell after an eighteen-fourteen fire.
0:00≈ 2 min
Location
0:00≈ 2 min
About this audio guide
This guide to the White House traces the night of August 24, 1814, when British troops set the house ablaze after President James Madison rode out to check the city's defenses and couldn't return in time. It follows his wife Dolley, who stayed behind watching the horizon with a spyglass, and a fifteen-year-old enslaved servant named Paul Jennings, who she asked to save one particular object before the soldiers arrived. The soldiers, the guide notes, sat down to the family's abandoned dinner before setting the house alight.
This audio guide was created using AI.