18131776 Club
British troops step ashore at Mount Vernon, aiming for Washington
Washington's own estate becomes a staging ground for the army that means to take his capital.
By September 1813, British raiders had spent months tearing up Chesapeake Bay shipping and coastal towns, and Washington, D.C. sat exposed just up the Potomac. On September 11, 1813, British troops came ashore at Mount Vernon, George Washington's former home, and made ready to march on the capital. Its bluff above the Potomac made the estate a natural staging point for a march north. Nearly a year later, that same pressure on Washington ended with the Capitol and White House in flames…
