ANNOUNCING:

A new book by

In the hot and humid summer of 1814 British Troops completed a fifty-mile march to capture a young American capital, putting to rout along the way pitiful citizen militiamen (some in winter gear, others barefoot) while President James Madison galloped out of town to safety. Among those remaining, a realization spread that Washington had been "abandoned to a horrid fate." In no time, British arsonists set off an inferno whose glow was seen miles away and from which burn marks are visible today on original stones of the White House. This attack was one of the defining moments in the coming-of-age of the United States, and Anthony Pitch tells the dramatic story with all the immediacy of an eyewitness account.

Painstakingly tracking down firsthand sources - tattered letters, diaries, journals, and newspapers - on both sides of the Atlantic, Pitch has brought this key episode of American history to life in a gripping narrative filled with vivid details. He describes how, after the catastrophe in Washington, Francis Scott Key, a hostage on a British warship, was inspired by the Star-Spangled Banner flying over an embattled Fort McHenry to write an epic poem that later became the national anthem. Readers of Anthony Pitch's book will experience again the sense of pride and honour felt by Key and all Americans in 1814 as they fought this Second War of Independence that eventually led to a celebrated victory at New Orleans.

Anthony Pitch is the author of a number of books ranging from biographies to tracel guides to anecdotes about Congress. A former journalist in England, Africa and Isreal, Pitch was also Associated Press broadcast editor for Pennsylvannia and a senior writer in the books division of the U.S. News and World Report in Washington, D.C. In addition to writing, he gives anecdotal history tours for, among others, the Smithsonian Institution Resident Associates, which sponsored a tour of his based upon The Burning of Washington. Pitch lives in Potomac, Maryland, with his wife and their son and daughter.

ISBN 1-55750-692-2 paper US$32.95
length (304 pages), 11 Photographs / Maps / Notes