Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision for Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army [Deckle Edge] [Hardcover]

Les Standiford (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 6, 2008

The Riveting Story of the Federal City and the Men Who Built It

In 1814, British troops invaded Washington, consuming President Madison’s hastily abandoned dinner before setting his home and the rest of the city ablaze. The White House still bears scorch and soot marks on its foundation stones. It was only after this British lesson in “hard war,” designed to terrorize, that Americans overcame their resistance to the idea of Washington as the nation’s capital and embraced it as a symbol of American might and unity.

The dramatic story of how the capital rose from a wilderness is a vital chapter in American history, filled with intrigue and outsized characters–from George Washington to Pierre Charles L’Enfant, the eccentric, passionate, difficult architect who fell in love with his adopted country. This Frenchman–both inspired by the American cause of liberty and wounded while defending it–first endeared himself to then General Washington with a sketch drawn at Valley Forge. Designing buildings, parades, medals, and coins, L’Enfant became the creator of a new American aesthetic, but the early tastemaker had ambition and pride to match his talent. Self-serving and incapable of compromise, he was consumed with his artistic dream of the Federal City, eventually alienating even the president, his onetime champion.

Washington struggled to balance L’Enfant’s enthusiasm for his brilliant design with the strident opposition of fiscal conservatives such as Thomas Jefferson, whose counsel eventually led to L’Enfant’s dismissal. The friendships, rivalries, and conflicting ideologies of the principals in this drama–as revealed in their deceptively genteel correspondence and other historical sources–mirror the struggles of a fledgling nation to form a kind of government the world had not yet known.

In these pages, as in Last Train to Paradise and Meet You in Hell, master storyteller Les Standiford once again tells a compelling, uniquely American story of hubris and achievement, with a man of epic ambition at its center. Utterly absorbing and scrupulously researched, Washington Burning offers a fresh perspective on the birth of not just a city, but a nation.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Facing the profusion of histories on the founding of Washington, D.C., Standiford pitches this narrative as a fresh appreciation of the capital’s first 25 years. Standiford is a novelist, and this background serves him well in developing the characters involved in platting, building, and burning Washington, and central to the narrative is Pierre Charles L’Enfant. To him goes the glory of the street plan, but L’Enfant’s talents in design and construction were not matched by political acumen. He was fired in 1792, and his grievances attract Standiford’s sympathy as well as his perception that unbending pride was the source of L’Enfant’s undoing. Standiford then turns to the tangled details of constructing buildings for the president and Congress, which, in the course of fiscal and physical challenges and further firings of personnel, were ready for incineration by the British in 1814. Closing with the city’s recovery from the War of 1812 and the recognition belatedly accorded to L’Enfant a century later by burial in Arlington National Cemetery, Standiford’s dramatized synthesis is a solid choice for the history set. --Gilbert Taylor

About the Author

LES STANDIFORD is the author of the critically acclaimed Last Train to Paradise and Meet You in Hell, as well as ten novels. Recipient of the Frank O’Connor Award for Short Fiction, he is director of the Creative Writing Program at Florida International University in Miami, where he lives with his wife and three children.

Visit his website at www.Les-Standiford.com.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Crown; First edition (May 6, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0307346447
• ISBN-13: 978-0307346445
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.3 x 9.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,222,102 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting Story Reads Well, June 25, 2008

By 

Q. Publius (Annandale, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision for Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army (Hardcover)

Les Standiford is a successful novelist and a great story teller. His story of the selection of Washington DC, the building of the public buildings, their burning during the War of 1812, and the rebuilding afterwards reads like a novel and is well worth reading. There are a few errors but not fatal ones. I'm not a historian, but James Madison was not a senator (page 67); Patrick Henry became his political enemy in Virginia after losing the state ratification vote on the Constitution, and the opposition of Henry's followers resulted in Madison serving in the House rather than the Senate. On page 267 Madison at Bladensburg is described as the only president to be on a battlefield, but Lincoln was shot at in July 1864 at Fort Stevens in DC during Jubal Early's attack. The author says the burning of Washington was a kind of Pearl Harbor or 9/11 of its day, with citizens so outraged that their largely indifferent attitude to the new Potomac location was tranformed into a determination to rebuild on the site. But the vote in Congress to keep the capital in DC and rebuild only passed by nine votes, so this comparison may be a bit overblown. Also, the roles and characters of Andrew Ellicot and Benjamin Banneker could have been developed more. Despite these comments this book is well worth the read, especially for it's portrayal of George Washington, L'Enfant, Adams, and the Madisons, with tribute to the courageous role of Dolley Madison in saving many valuables from the White House. This is a very interesting story most Americans aren't aware of, and they'd profit from the well told tale of the founding of our nation's capital and the personalities of the real characters involved in the story.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars The Quirky Beginnings of Our Nation's Capital, January 14, 2009

By 

Michael L. Shakespeare (Kansas City, MO USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision for Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army (Hardcover)

Les Standiford's entertaining and eloquent "Washington Burning" tells the story of the difficult breach birth of our nation's capital, presenting the political, diplomatic, military and technical factors that shaped it -- especially its architects.

Mr. Standiford, the director of the Creative Writing Program at Florida International University, writes gracefully, and the story he weaves around the building of Federal City offers fresh perspectives, despite the vast literature on the founding fathers that has gone before.

The author addresses some less familiar issues of the history of our federal buildings, throwing light upon their rain soaked nooks and crumbling crannies.

Mr. Standiford has done his homework, and rests his views on the study of several primary sources. He has profitably mined the letters of architect Pierre Charles L'Enfant and George Washington in the Library of Congress. His detailed narrative is in part composed painstakingly from the French-born L'Enfant's poorly worded, confusing correspondence.

A little over two centuries ago, Washington D.C. occupied an insignificant place in the world; today, things are very different. He tells us its story with sympathy, humor and a rubbish pile of fascinating detail.

Mr. Standiford's central point is simple: "The efforts of Washington, L'Enfant, Jefferson, Madison, Monroe, and Hamilton to build, defend, and rebuild Washington D.C., in its fledgling years is a microcosm for the building of the nation itself, the first in a never-ending series of internal struggles to preserve our nation and its way of government...that plagues and inspires us to this day."

The author is well aware of the political minefield that awaits any unflattering study of our founding fathers -- especially Washington and Jefferson.

In the "Author's Note" Mr. Standiford tells us how the idea for this book originated in the days following the 9/11 attacks as he was reminded of the British destruction of Washington D.C. in 1814 -- too bad he overreached in trying to draw parallels with today's acts of terrorism and the British occupation and destruction of Washington D.C. 187 years before. This story is good enough to stand on its own.

Mr. Standiford details the choosing of the site and procurement of land for the capital city itself, day by day: the deals, the funding, the successes, the losses and the shifting political and financial arguments. The genius of George Washington's leadership in these difficult negotiations is clear.

Mr. Standiford's principle character, Frenchman Pierre Charles L'Enfant, famously known as the "Architect of Washington City," is the stuff of legend. L'Enfant was, as Mr. Standiford shows, "eccentric and passionate and difficult," which makes for fascinating reading.

Future presidents, Adams, Jefferson, Madison and Monroe make mostly cameo appearances, in deference to L'Enfant and the other passionate overworked architects.

The early years -- long before he undertook the redesign of Fort Washington on the Potomac, long before he and Hamilton planned the six square mile S.U.M. headquarters site in New Jersey, long before he masqueraded as America's foremost military engineer -- the early years during the Revolutionary War were L'Enfant's best.

Nor does Mr. Standiford slight the relatively unheralded but vitally important contributions of the long line of other mercurial architects: Hallet, Thornton, Hadfield, Latrobe, and Bullfinch. Completing the nation's capital was a giant task -- too much for one individual -- architect or president. Although the initial planning was the inspiration of Pierre Charles L'Enfant, many others were needed to successfully finish the task. Still, Mr. Standiford has provided a tantalizing glimpse into all their passionate temperaments.

The author takes us skillfully through the prehistory of Federal City -- from the choosing of the site for the new capital, to acquisition of the land, to the city planning by L'Enfant and his dismissal, to the design contests for the President's Palace and the Congress House in 1792. The resulting book is informative, readable and concise.

But beyond the familiar tale of wars and presidents, Mr. Standiford deftly underscores the frugal, rustic, even foolish nature of the age.

"Washington Burning" is enormously entertaining, especially in the deft descriptions of L'Enfant's personality and his life under the scrutiny of the founding fathers.

But all the way through, Mr. Standiford offers incisive details and insights that make "Washington Burning" a measured. deeply sympathetic and well balanced; it is a great read.

His tale is a catalog of disappointment and frustration, brimming with plenty of useful insights and anecdotes. It is always absorbing, frequently moving and sometimes funny.

It is impossible not to be struck by how unmanageable L'Enfant was. It is clear that for L'Enfant, "supervision" meant nothing whatsoever other than to be opposed to him. The picture that emerges from L'Enfant is both disturbing and perplexing -- a haughty man of soaring ideas working on behalf of a penniless government, he struggled with labor shortages, project funding and never receiving adequate compensation in return.

He was always at odds with his overseers it seemed -- he ordered marble, they wanted brick.

L'Enfant's whole career as an architect was one of vast over expenditures. His huge cost overruns constructing a grand house for America's richest man landed Robert Morris in the poor house.

L'Enfant's lifetime was spent in dogged pursuit of the founding fathers for compensation, into the very halls of Congress, makes the book worth reading.

With no steady income, he found himself slipping in poverty. But at least L'Enfant's arrogant story has a happy ending with his rescue from extreme poverty in old age by William Dudley Digges, who "revered the major's contributions."

As in his latest book, Last Train to Paradise: Henry Flagler and the Spectacular Rise and Fall of the Railroad that Crossed an Ocean, Mr. Standiford loads his pages with interesting information: Opposing the 100 square mile federal district proposed by L'Enfant, the frugal Thomas Jefferson had touted a site on the Potomac that comprised only 50 acres -- John Adams "groused" his whole life over how the nearby Washington and Custis property was increased in value "100 percent" by adjoining Washington City -- The new U.S. Capitol featured an adjoining 70x8x13 ft. privy built for congressman's convenience -- Originally planned as a commercial canal, the Tiber River was filled in to make Constitution Ave.

The last part of the book. particularly after the removal of L'Enfant, has a somewhat rushed, superficial feel to it as a long line of architects come and go struggling to complete the work under intolerable circumstances especially starting over after the British raid in 1814.

Nevertheless, "Washington Burning" is a skillful, absorbing, often moving contribution to the understanding of one of the few episodes in history to live on unknown and misunderstood in our collective memory.

In fact, this unusual tale should be read by anyone who wants real insights into the design of the White House and U.S. Capitol. It is as good a primer on the hopeless bureaucracy and shameless haggling of the times as you will find.

As Mr. Standiford notes at the end of his book, "While the most able and revered of statesmen established the philosophical underpinnings and devised the laws that guide the United States, its was a self-trained architect and lover of liberty named L'Enfant who created the vessel that carries them down through time."

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A watershed event in our nation's history, May 24, 2008

By 

The Junior Clerk (Los Angeles, US, Canada) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision for Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army (Hardcover)

Les Standiford's Washington Burning focuses on an often ignored, but highly significant event in our nation's history--the British invasion of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812. With a historian's meticulous eye and a novelist's flair for drama, Standiford recounts the efforts of the brilliant, eccentric architect, Peter L'Enfant, whose vision for the nation's capitol ultimately prevailed in the face of political resistance, rampant corruption, and the devastation of war. At the same time, Washington Burning describes how a terrorist attack on U.S. soil galvanized a nation. This well-written book is highly recommended.