re: #206 Kragar

One of the few building the British spared during the sacking of DC was the Marine Barracks and the Commandant’s home. The traditional story is that this was out of respect for the Marines standing their ground during the Battle of Bladensburg while the rest of the troops fled.

I did not know that. Props to Sir George Cockburn.

Incidentally, Alex Cockburn who was always my favorite far-leftist for various reasons (1, he had a sense of humor; 2, in related news, he loved P.G. Wodehouse; 3, I was at college with his younger brothers and shared a dealer with one of them; 4, he at one point had columns in both The Nation and the Wall Street Journal) regularly boasted of being descended from the man who burned the White House.