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The British government already at war with Napoleonic France adopted a defensive strategy against the United States when the Americans declared war in 1812 Reinforcements were held back from Canada and reliance was instead made on local militias and native allies to bolster the British Army in Canada However after the defeat and exile of Napoleon Bonaparte in April 1814 Britain was able to use its now available troops and ships to prosecute its war with the United States in addition to reinforcements sent to Canada the Earl of Bathurst Secretary of State for War and the Colonies dispatched an army brigade and additional naval vessels to Bermuda from where a blockade of the US coast and even the occupation of some coastal islands had been overseen throughout the war it was decided to use these forces in raids along the Atlantic seaboard to draw American forces away from Canada the commanders were under strict orders however not to carry out operations far inland or to attempt to hold territory Early in 1814 Vice Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Royal Navy's North America and West Indies Station controlling naval forces based at the new Bermuda dockyard and the Halifax Naval Yard which were used to blockade US Atlantic ports throughout the war He planned to carry the war into the United States by attacks in Virginia and against New Orleans, Uncle Tom's Cabin Ad for the Federalist. More than 20,000 injured or ill soldiers received treatment in an array of permanent and temporary hospitals in the capital including the U.S Patent Office and for a time the Capitol itself Among the notables who served in nursing were American Red Cross founder Clara Barton and Dorothea Dix who served as superintendent of female nurses in Washington Novelist Louisa May Alcott served at the Union Hospital in Georgetown Poet Walt Whitman served as a hospital volunteer and in 1865 would publish his famous poem "The Wound-Dresser." the United States Sanitary Commission had a significant presence in Washington as did the United States Christian Commission and other relief agencies the Freedman's Hospital was established in 1862 to serve the needs of the growing population of freed slaves, During the American Civil War tremendous resources were expended to defend Washington D.C which bordered on the Confederate States of America (with the Commonwealth of Virginia) from Confederate attack even though the relatively small federal government could easily have been moved elsewhere Likewise great resources were expended by the Confederacy in defending the Confederate capital from attack by the Union in its exposed location of Richmond Virginia barely 100 miles (160 km) south of Washington D.C. Jennings said the people who saved the painting and removed the objects actually were: Surrender at Yorktown (1781)! .

Parliament sought to punish Massachusetts colonists for their role in the Boston Tea Party in 1774 by passing the Coersive Acts which Washington referred to as "an Invasion of our Rights and Privileges". He said Americans must not submit to acts of tyranny since "custom and use shall make us as tame and abject slaves as the blacks we rule over with such arbitrary sway". That July he and George Mason drafted a list of resolutions for the Fairfax County committee which Washington chaired and the committee adopted the Fairfax Resolves calling for a Continental Congress. On August 1 Washington attended the First Virginia Convention where he was selected as a delegate to the First Continental Congress as tensions rose in 1774 he assisted in the training of county militias in Virginia and organized enforcement of the Continental Association boycott of British goods instituted by the Congress. .