Stephen Pleasonton - Saving The Declaration of Independence

Saving The Declaration of Independence

With the War of 1812 going poorly and worried that the British would attack Washington, Secretary of State James Monroe tasked Pleasonton with preserving the books and papers of the State Department. Pleasonton acquired several coarse linen bags, and filled them with all the Department's records. This included the still-unpublished secret journals of Congress, the commission and correspondence of George Washington, the Articles of Confederation, the United States Constitution, and all the treaties, laws, and correspondence of the Department made since 1789. He had all of this placed in coarse linen sacks and carted to a grist mill two miles beyond Georgetown. Before he left, he noticed the Declaration of Independence had been forgotten and was still hanging in its frame on the wall, and took that as well. After one more day, Pleasonton became fearful that the British would destroy a nearby cannon foundry and possibly even the grist mill if they were to come to Washington, and procured wagons to take the material another thirty-five miles to Leesburg, Virginia, where they were stored in an empty stone house. That night, the British arrived and burned many buildings in the city. While the British left within two days, it was some weeks before the documents were returned to Washington.