Capital Ideas: 'Washington Burning'

THE NAME "L'ENFANT" adorns our city, from a Metro station to hotels, leaving many a tourist to wonder why Washington is commemorating some Frenchman.

But Pierre-Charles L'Enfant came to the United States when it was still a British colony, and he fought the British in the Revolutionary War. He was later commissioned to create the nation's capital, and downtown Washington follows his plan almost to a tee.

L'Enfant was also an eccentric idealist, however, and he finished his life bankrupt and banished from political influence.

In "Washington Burning: How a Frenchman's Vision for Our Nation's Capital Survived Congress, the Founding Fathers, and the Invading British Army," author Les Standiford engagingly tells the story not only of L'Enfant's life in his adopted homeland but the larger story of the important role Washington, D.C., played in reuniting a nation.

When Standiford initially had the idea for a book on the District, it was not to tell the story of L'Enfant, but rather to tell the story of the War of 1812 (1812-1815). The British stormed Washington and burned much of the District — including the White House, U.S. Treasury, Navy Yard and the buildings housing the Senate and House of Representatives.

When al-Qaeda attacked the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, Standiford was reminded that 9/11 was not the first attack on the nation's capital, and he began planning to write a book on the 1814 burning of Washington.

"When I proposed it to the publishers, they fainted," Standiford said. "There were certain things you just couldn't do at that time. But three years later when I proposed it, they said, 'Oh, what a great idea — this is terrific!' Time changes everything."

As Standiford began researching the book, which took about three and a half years to complete, he went in with the notion that the story was going to be entirely about the British invasion. But "at a juncture in the research, it occurred to me that the story was bigger than that," he said.

"In order to appreciate why the British were there in the first place, readers would have to see and understand why there had come to be a Washington, D.C., to begin with," said Standiford. "Of course, the men who were most passionate and responsible [for the District] were Washington and L'Enfant. That relationship intrigued me — the master politician and the ultimate idealist."

Though "Washington Burning" doesn't lack for characters or drama — constructing the capital in Washington was the result of Southern states threatening to secede if the capital was placed in New York or Philadelphia, for example — Standiford said L'Enfant was the axis of his book.

"In my mind, he stole the show. I had to fight from letting him take over the book entirely because he wasn't on the scene when the British came and wiped out what he was so passionate about. ... Exasperating as L'Enfant surely was in person, I came to admire his single-mindedness, his dedication and his sacrifice.

"When he finally got the chance to do the best thing that he thought he was capable of — that was design the city — he threw everything that he had into it, certain that he was right," Standiford continued. "You hear a lot about all these idealists who give everything for some notion and some dream — well, in this case, he was right. The proof is Washington as it is today.

"You can stand at his tomb [at Arlington National Cemetery], look at the map that's chiseled on it and gaze across the Potomac and there it is, exactly what he had in mind."

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Written by Express contributor Katherine Silkaitis
Author photo courtesy Les Standiford; gravesite photo courtesy Ron Williams/Arlington National Cemetery