Editing Dolley Madison (section)

==In Washington (1801–1817)==
[[File:Dolley Madison sketch.jpg|thumb|left|200px|Portrait of Dolley Madison by Thomas Christian Lubbers, located at the [[National Portrait Gallery (United States)|National Portrait Gallery]].]]
Madison worked with the architect [[Benjamin Henry Latrobe]] to furnish the [[White House]], the first official residence built for the president of the United States. She sometimes served as widower Jefferson's hostess for official ceremonial functions.<ref name=":0" /> Madison would become a crucial part of the Washington social circle,<ref>{{Cite web|title=Unraveling the Dolley Myths|url=https://www.whitehousehistory.org/unraveling-the-dolley-myths|url-status=live|access-date=2021-10-21|website=White House Historical Association|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150804040800/http://www.whitehousehistory.org:80/unraveling-the-dolley-myths |archive-date=August 4, 2015 }}</ref> befriending the wives of numerous diplomats, among them Sarah Martinez de Yrujo, wife of the ambassador of Spain, and Marie-Angelique Turreau, wife of the French ambassador.<ref>{{Cite web|title=Sarah McKean, Marquesa de Casa Yrujo|url=https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_PA990059|url-status=live|access-date=2021-10-21|website=National Portrait Gallery|language=en|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20211021012709/https://npg.si.edu/object/npg_PA990059 |archive-date=October 21, 2021 }}</ref>{{Sfn|Allgor|2006|p=60}} Her charm precipitated a diplomatic crisis, called the [[Merry Affair]], after Jefferson escorted Madison to the dining room instead of the wife of [[Anthony Merry]], English diplomat to the U.S., in a major faux pas.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Abrams|first=Jeanne E.|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UNnaDwAAQBAJ&dq=merry+affair&pg=PT222|title=A View from Abroad: The Story of John and Abigail Adams in Europe|date=2021-02-02|publisher=NYU Press|isbn=978-1-4798-0289-0|language=en}}</ref>

[[File:Dolly madison yale miniature.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Watercolor-on-ivory miniature of Dolley Madison at the [[Yale University Art Gallery]].]]

In the approach to the 1808 presidential election, with Thomas Jefferson ready to retire, the Democratic-Republican caucus nominated James Madison to succeed him. He was elected the fourth President of the United States, serving two terms from 1809 to 1817, and Dolley Madison became the [[First Lady of the United States|official White House hostess]]. She had often been the unofficial hostess at the White House during Jefferson's presidency. The term ''first lady'' was not yet in use, but her role as hostess became official when her husband assumed the presidency.<ref>See [[First Lady of the United States#Origins of the title|Origins of the title "First Lady"]] for further detail.</ref> Madison helped define the official functions, decorated the Executive Mansion, and welcomed visitors in her drawing room. She was renowned for her social graces and hospitality, and contributed to her husband's popularity as president. She was the only First Lady given an honorary seat on the floor of Congress, and the first American to respond to a telegraph message.<ref name="firstladies1">{{cite web |url=http://www.firstladies.org/facinatingfacts.aspx |title=Little-known facts about our First Ladies |publisher=Firstladies.org |access-date=July 7, 2015 |archive-date=July 14, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150714000059/http://www.firstladies.org/facinatingfacts.aspx |url-status=live }}</ref> In 1812, James was reelected. Later that year, he delivered a war request to Congress, signalling the beginning of the [[War of 1812]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=President Madison's 1812 War Message {{!}} NEH-Edsitement|url=https://edsitement.neh.gov/curricula/president-madisons-1812-war-message|access-date=2021-10-21|website=edsitement.neh.gov|language=en}}</ref>

=== Burning of Washington (1814) ===
{{main|Burning of Washington}}
The United States declared war in 1812 and invaded British North America in 1813, and a British force attacked Washington in 1814. As it approached and the White House staff prepared to flee, Dolley ordered [[Paul Jennings (slave)|Paul Jennings]], her personal servant, to save the Stuart painting, a copy of the [[Lansdowne portrait]],<ref name="NPSportraitsaved"/> of George Washington. She wrote in a letter to her sister at 3 o'clock in the afternoon of August 23:

<blockquote>Our kind friend Mr. Carroll has come to hasten my departure, and in a very bad humor with me, because I insist on waiting until the large picture of General Washington is secured, and it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. The process was found too tedious for these perilous moments; I have ordered the frame to be broken and the canvas taken out. . . . It is done, and the precious portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen from New York for safe keeping. On handing the canvas to the gentlemen in question, Messrs. Barker and Depeyster, Mr. Sioussat cautioned them against rolling it up, saying that it would destroy the portrait. He was moved to this because Mr. Barker started to roll it up for greater convenience for carrying.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://nationalcenter.org/WashingtonBurning1814.html|title=Dolly Madison on the Burning of Washington - 1814|website=nationalcenter.org|date=November 3, 2001|access-date=March 9, 2019|archive-date=July 15, 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190715002910/https://nationalcenter.org/WashingtonBurning1814.html|url-status=live}}</ref><ref>Dolley Madison's letter to her sister as quoted in {{cite book|first=Gilson|last=Willets|title=Inside History of the White House|url=https://archive.org/details/insidehistorywh00willgoog|year=1908|page=[https://archive.org/details/insidehistorywh00willgoog/page/n226 220]|publisher=New York, The Christian herald}}</ref></blockquote>

Popular accounts during and after the war years portrayed Dolley Madison as the one who removed the painting, and she became a national heroine. An 1865 memoir by Jennings stated that she had ordered him to save the painting, and that [[Jean Pierre Sioussat]] and a gardener, McGraw, were the ones who removed it from the wall.<ref name="reminiscences">{{cite book|title=A Colored Man's Reminiscences of James Madison |last=Jennings |first=Paul |year=1865 |publisher=George C. Beadle |location=Brooklyn, NY |url= http://docsouth.unc.edu/neh/jennings/jennings.html |pages=12–13 |quote="She (Mrs. Madison) had no time for doing it. It would have required a ladder to get it down. All she carried off was the silver in her reticule, as the British were thought to be but a few squares off, and were expected every moment. John Suse (meaning Jean Sioussat), a Frenchman, then doorkeeper, and still living, and McGraw, the President's gardener, took it down and sent it off on a wagon with some larger silver urns and other such valuables as could be hastily got hold of. When the British did arrive, they ate up the very dinner, and drank the wines, etc., that I had prepared for the President's party."}}</ref><ref name="NPR2009">{{Citation |last=Gura |first=David |date=August 24, 2009 |title=Descendants Of A Slave See The Painting He Saved |journal=The Two-Way: NPR's News Blog |url=https://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2009/08/descendants_of_the_slave_who_s.html |access-date=2010-09-11}}</ref> Early twentieth-century historians noted that Sioussat had directed the servants, many of whom were enslaved people, in the crisis, and that they were the ones who actually preserved the painting.<ref>Review: Gilson Willets, ''Inside History of the White House-the complete history of the domestic and official life in Washington of the nation's presidents and their families,'' ''The Christian Herald'', 1908</ref>

Dolley Madison hurried away in her waiting carriage, along with other families fleeing the city. They went to Georgetown and the next day crossed over the Potomac into Virginia.<ref>{{cite AV media |people=Darcy Spencer |date=August 21, 2016|title= Historic McLean Home Set for Demolition |url= http://www.nbcwashington.com/news/local/Historic-McLean-Home-Set-for-Demolition_Washington-DC-390859091.html|access-date=August 24, 2016 |format=news program |publisher= [[WRC-TV]]}}</ref> When the couple returned to Washington, the White House was uninhabitable and Dolley and James Madison moved into [[The Octagon House]].<ref>{{Cite web|title=The Octagon of Washington, D.C.: The House that Helped Build a Capital (Teaching with Historic Places) (U.S. National Park Service)|url=https://www.nps.gov/articles/the-octagon-of-washington-d-c-the-house-that-helped-build-a-capital-teaching-with-historic-places.htm|access-date=2021-10-21|website=www.nps.gov|language=en}}</ref>