Harvard Club of Washington, DC

The Burning of Washington 1814

Price $20.00

Duration: 2 hours

Based upon The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814, a selection of the History Book Club, authored by tour leader Anthony S. Pitch.

• Starting Point: beside Neptune fountain at curbside In front of Jefferson Building, Library of Congress
• Follow the path of British troops who burned the Capitol, the White House, and other public buildings in 1814. See the original walls of the Capitol that survived the inferno, and the building from where American sniper fire felled the British commander's horse.
• Walk down Pennsylvania Avenue, pausing where the enemy destroyed the first national newspaper, and where they ate by the light of the flaming city.
• See where an armed soldier robbed residents, and where a patriot saved the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution from destruction.
• Follow the footsteps of the arsonists to the White House for a vivid account of British vandalism over a single night and a day.
• Stroll to the equestrian statue of Andrew Jackson, who took revenge with an epic victory over the British at New Orleans.

Anthony S. Pitch is the author of a number of books including the recently published "They Have Killed Papa Dead!" - The Road to Ford’s Theatre, Abraham Lincoln’s Murder, and the Rage for Vengeance, described by Harold Holzer, co-chairman of the U.S. Commission on Lincoln’s Bicentennial, as “a perfect storm of a book.” Publisher’s Weekly hailed it as “a real page-turner…No reader will come away unmoved.” The book received the Arline Custer Memorial Prize for best book of 2009 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference.

Another of his books, The Burning of Washington: The British Invasion of 1814, was a selection of the History Book Club, winner of the Arline Custer Memorial Prize for best book of 2001 from the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference, and recipient of the Maryland Historical Society's annual book award. The White House announced that President Clinton took this book on vacation. Movie rights were optioned by National Geographic.

On the anniversary of Lincoln’s assassination Pitch was invited to speak in Ford’s Theatre. He has appeared numerous times on C-Span TV, most recently in Washington Journal and in its documentary on the White House. He was interviewed on C-Span by Brian Lamb in the Library of Congress on the inaugural airing of Book TV. Two of Pitch's anecdotal history tours in Washington, D.C. have been filmed by C-Span TV: The Assassination of Abraham Lincoln and Washington, D.C. Homes of the Presidents Before & After the White House. Pitch was also filmed by Tribune Broadcasting TV while