french china which may or may not have been a ploy of latrobes for anything going into the white house. table linens were ordered from new york. latrobe was working furiously, as i said, at the end of 1809 trying to get the white house prepared. he was finishing marble chimney pieces, installing doors, constructing stairwells, assembling a coach house, installing a pump into the well on the other side of the house in addition to the furnishings. mrs. madison's parlor and the dining room had been finish since the spring of 1809 and really it was the elliptical room that was holding everybody up, including the findlays. by december everything was set for the ceremonial new year's day reception that had become a tradition president thomas jefferson had started. although crowds would come from near and far to catch a glimpse of the president's house, at the same time the largest house of the united states, mrs. madison had a large draw of visitors to the event.

she was well liked for her nature. although a bit bizarre, she took a youthful fashion. robes, turbines, coquettish blush with rouge. president madison, however, was not as beloved. he adored his wife and she him. but he was a bit stern. definitely what we like to call a statesman. once such encounter is described as he was a little man with a powdered head having pale countenance but with little flow of courtesy. this is not a compliment, let me assure you. let's see. you can see up here, there's that reference to the wallpaper. when guests finally arrived on new year's day, 1810, they came through the north door entering into an entrance hall flanked with fireplaces to the east and west. this is the modern day white house, but this is the entrance they would have come in. not much has actually changed in the design of the white house

since hoban rebuilt it after it was burned. here you come in from the north. these marbleized columns. here we also have the small little alcoves jefferson had put in to put some stoves in. but latrobe had carefully covered them up with columns that were made out of concrete but painted to look like marble. the hall was sparse in decoration compared to the brilliance of the elliptical room and mrs. madison's parlor and state dining room. one description of mrs. madison's parlor exists. a very fashionable grecian space. seen in contemporary english homes. the dominant color being a sunflower yellow. the room was opened up through double doors centered between it and the elliptical room creating a free flowing space. it truly must have been unlike anything anyone had ever seen before. following the debut of the latrobe interiors, the general

completion, the madisons began entertaining frequently again. mrs. madison's wednesday night receptions were the center of attraction. contemporary accounts state all these whom fashion, fame, beauty wealth or talents have rendered celebrated and many were able to enjoy the splendor but for a very brief time. the signs of oncoming war were extremely present in 1811. and the conflict came as no surprise to madison. very evident in 1811. the country prepared and put attention to its resources on relevant issues rather than latrobe's outlandish and expensive designs to finish the city. by madison's time, he'd become exhausted with latrobe. and he was ready -- later wrote to -- latrobe later wrote full awareness of madison's feelings, quote, i am personally obnoxious to the president and his principal friends in congress. the white house has a whole was still not finished and the capitol was left with its two wings and the planned dome not yet begun.

by 1813 latrobe was relieved of his position and moved to pittsburgh. the great fire. did we skip -- can you go back one? on august 24th, 1814, the british finally made their way into washington with instructions to burn all public buildings. there's a misconception that they burnt the entire of washington. they didn't burn taverns or hotels, but they did burn all the public buildings. many had been warned, many had fled, and still some stayed until the last minute including mrs. madison. as she was hurried out of the white house, she made certain to sit down and write a letter to her sister. she describes the flurry of activity that happened just prior to her leaving. our kind friend, mr. carol of dumbarton house has come to hasten my departure. in a very bad humor with me because i insist on waiting until the large picture of general washington is secured. it requires to be unscrewed from the wall. the process was found to be tedious for these perilous moments. i've ordered the frame be broken

and canvas out. it is done. and the previous portrait placed in the hands of two gentlemen from new york for safekeeping. one eyewitness account also describes the scene of washington as from his hotel room, i perceive the smoke coming from the windows of the president's house and in a short time that splendid and elegant edifice reared at the expense of so much cost and labor inferior to none, what i've observed in the different parts of europe, was wrapped in entire flame. the large and elegant capitol of nation on the one side. and the splendid treasury department on the other all wrapped in flame. present grand and sublime but at the same time an awful and melancholy sight. the madisons returned to the charred city three days after the great fire aiming to find temporary quarters and a place to recover from the symbolic and physical humiliation and the united states and the capital city had just incurred. madison was pinpointed as a

coward for abandoning the capitol. at this point in time, too, before most people did come back to washington, there was actually talk of moving the capital city west, possibly to cincinnati or even to st. louis. but fortunately enough they decided to stay in washington. in an effort to regain authority and some sense of place, mr. and mrs. madison took up residence in temporary homes. to furnish these spaces they did not go to mr. latrobe. from 1815 to 1817 they relied mostly on local resources and furniture that was mostly secondhand. used furnishings at this point were not necessarily cast-offs or outmoded discards. they were generally from diplomatic representatives that had since left and needed somewhere to put their furnishings because they couldn't take them back with them. so they brought localized pieces and ended up getting french pieces also instead of english. in 1815 the madisons acquired

from luis soreiro, the french minister, a dozen chairs and sofa for $250. perhaps they were familiar with the furniture since soreiro has occupied two of the most fashionable homes. the octagon house featured here still stands. it's where the madisons temporarily took up residence. their first residence from 1814 to 1815. their second residence was in a temporary structure known as the seven building on pennsylvania avenue which has now since been destroyed. here the madisons acquired a great deal of furniture from a georgetown cabinet maker, william worthington jr. perhaps they learned their lesson from outsourcing. possibly secondhand also, but locally made nonetheless. and two setee's, one secretary desk and large dining table and one large family bed stead came from the worthington workshop. they also patronized the merchant and silversmith charles burnett buying fireplace equipment, class ware and plated

flatware. the madisons never lived at 1600 pennsylvania avenue again. president madison did begin its reconstruction before leaving office. in 1815 reconstruction of the white house began and surprisingly james hoban was called upon to supervise and not latrobe. although latrobe's relationship with mrs. madison remained steady, his loose tongue and self-importance and endless amount of problematic insults had become a real issue for mr. madison. but as a gentleman he was, he did not lay any objection to the interview that was given to latrobe to become the architect of the capitol building, which he did receive. his less than favorable attitude began to take a turn again and in 1817 he resigned when james monroe was elected. hoban had not yet finished the structure so president monroe lived elsewhere while waiting for completion but wasted to time in ordering furnishings. latrobe went on to act as an engineer, traditional architect and landscape architect for

sights in maryland, virginia, is is pennsylvania, ohio, kentucky and louisiana. he aided in the building of the first catholic church in america. next one. the baltimore basilica. took almost 20 years to construct. and the decatur house. also adina in ohio. and pope villa in lexington, kentucky. his final destination ended up being farther, farther south in new orleans where he designed the city's water works. ironically he died of yellow fever, the very disease he was trying to prevent from spreading by the way of engineering pursuits with that water works system. there's a lot of history left up to interpretation, obviously. especially the madison and latrobe relationship which seems to have been pretty copacetic for the majority of the time. latrobe was well known whether he thought that it was gossip or not for being a loud mouth and very opinionated. people didn't appreciate it very much, especially at a time when manners were very well

appreciated. and since most of his structures are actually in ruins now, they don't exist anymore, including the interiors of the white house and several other homes and also the bank of pennsylvania, most of his genius has been lost to history. but the great projects like the bank of pennsylvania, we're lucky that all these great drawings survived. he has been able to maintain that -- the relationship and the reputation of being america's first architect. which is something i don't think anyone wants to rival. he ended his life almost facing bankruptcy and on a lot of short lists with many people. but, like i said, his genius has been unchallenged for nearly two centuries. as i do manage the decatur house, i want to put the little plug in there. you see the latrobe based designs up mere, the rendering of monroe and decatur in decatur house.

if we go to the next slide, i do want to just go through a very brief sort of slide show so you see what we think that the madison interior looked like in the elliptic room which was latrobe's most important essence of the white house interiors. these are how that same room has changed throughout history. this is in franklin pierce's administration. lincoln's administration. buchanan's administration. i think this is mckinley's administration. the roosevelt administration. theodore roosevelt. fdr's administration when it became his temporary office. and today as it is as the blue room. i want to give special thanks to the maryland historical society's mark letzer, mark epter and elizabeth stafford for being wonderful to work with. i'm sorry for the technical difficulties to begin with and my skipping my first page. in addition to everyone here that has been, like i said, wonderful to work with, i also

want to thank the library of congress, the university of virginia's dolly madison digital addition, the new york public library, the james madison montpelier, author and historian william steele and the white house historical association. if anyone has any questions, i'd be happy to take them. there'll be a microphone coming around if you'd like to raise your hand. [ applause ] >> or on white house history general. i know that as well. down here. >> the furniture that the madisons bought after the burning of the white house like by worthington, et cetera, does that still exist? is that still in the collection

of the white house? >> no, it's not still in the co. it's unknown as to where most of it is at the time. because when monroe came into the white house -- well, actually, most of those things actually never entered the white house. >> right. >> they were used in the seven building. to my knowledge, they're not in the montpelier collection. they may have been destroyed or they may just have been lost to history. >> thank you. >> sure. >> the 1814 drawing that you have of the -- of the white house after the fire, that's a drawing. i mean, what was left of the white house and what did they work with to come up with the white house that we have today? >> essentially it was just the exterior shell that was left. and they still used that same structure and built it from the inside out. there are reports of all the walls standing completely and then there are reports of some of it actually being destroyed on part of the eastern side. but for the most part, if you are ever fortunate enough to get on the inside, in the bowels of the white house, you can still

see burning marks on some of the stone. >> some parts of the white house were not flammable. that's why they were still there. >> yes. >> did someone try to put the fire out? >> actually, there was a rainstorm that helped singe everything -- i'm sorry. not singe. put everything out. which was very lucky for them. it happened the next day. >> thank you. >> sure. >> you mentioned when they burned washington, they didn't burn the entire city. >> correct. >> they left taverns? >> yes. >> and what else did you say? >> hotels. >> hotels. >> there are actually several accounts of british soldiers knocking on private buildings and telling the people within them to stay there, that was a safe place to stay. and they would best be suited rather than not going to any of the public buildings that evening. >> what was the rationale, really? were they intending on using

them? >> no. the americans had actually recently burned one of their ships. so it was sort of a retaliation. i got yours, you got mine. >> thank you. >> yes. >> leslie, is there any fragment left of the original white house design? i mean, wallpaper, anything that allowed us to be able to really, you know, reconstruct those in flames? >> in terms of fabric or -- >> fabric. any kind of wallpaper. is there anything left if we do any kind of analysis of the surfaces today, if we went back enough, would we find anything or is it completely gone? >> besides the wallpaper that's in the box that mrs. latrobe received from mrs. madison, nothing else is reported to have been salvaged except for a stove that they went digging for afterwards. it's the only thing that actually came out of the rubble. >> no fabrics, nothing? >> no.

>> okay. >> okay.agn. >> thank you very much. [ applause ] throughout the weekend here on american history tv on c-span 3, watch personal interviews about historic events on oral histories. our history bookshelf features some of the best known history writers. revisit key figures, battles and events during the 150th anniversary of the civil war. visit college classrooms across the country during lectures in history. go behind the scenes at museums and historic sites on american artifacts. and the presidency looks at the policies and legacies of past american presidents. view our complete schedule at c-span.org/history and sign up to have it e-mailed to you by pressing the c-span alert

button. there's a new website for american history tv where you can find our schedules and preview our upcoming programs. watch featured video from our regular weekly series. as well as access ah tv's history tweets. history in the news. and social media from facebook, youtube, twitter and foursquare. follow american history tv all weekend every weekend on onlin c-span.org/history. every day at the national archives in washington, d.c., a team of six researchers from the project comb through a multitude of civil war era government files searching for any documents related to the 16th president of the united states. so far they've found 12,000 records. recently, a researcher discovered a missing page from president lincoln's second annual message to congress along with a complete copy of the message signed in lincoln's hand.

american history tv went to the archives to see these relics from the great emancipator's presidency. this is the research room which is part of the research complex here at the national archives, where researchers come and view records that we serve to them. my job is to work with researchers and work with the records that we have here in our holdings here in the national archives. and i work with the records of the house and senate. which is the bulk of our holdings in the center for legislative archives. we have records from legislative support agencies as well, but the records of the house and senate are the bulk of our holdings. going from 1789 to the present. i've worked with the staff of the lincoln papers for -- since they've been here. and i've assisted them among my colleagues in serving them the records that they need to search for records pertaining to abraham lincoln. >> the papers of abraham lincoln is a long-term editing project from the abraham lincoln

presidential library and museum to locate an image and transcribe and public all of the documents written by lincoln or to lincoln during his entire lifetime. the papers of abraham lincoln began in 2001 as an expansion of the lincoln legal papers which have existed since 1985. we're systematically searching all of the record series that pertain to lincoln's presidency and a handful of series that pertain to his one term in congress. so we are trying to go systematically through each series that might contain documents. now, some series don't contain any documents. but as i tell my staff, no is an answer. and that's important for us to document that we've searched these records and we haven't found anything. we're going through pretty much anything that might contain

correspondence to lincoln or by lincoln, so everything from military records, army, maybe, to congressional records to, as i said, interior, treasury, state department, post office department, any kinds of records that might have some documentation from lincoln. >> his signature is very familiar. and i think most of our staff, we've kind of picked up a knack that even though something's not signed by him we can identify his handwriting. i was searching senate records. and was going through them. was about through with the entry i was searching and came across a cross-file sheet that referred me to some other volumes that weren't obvious to me that they existed. and so i had one of the legislative archivists go back .

and these -- these two on the desk are two of the ones i found. this was the first one i came across. it started out, you know, obviously it's not in the greatest shape. it also says 36th and 37th congress. 36th congress was the congress before lincoln took office. it was the office of buchanan. as i started leafing through, a lot of the stuff i saw was from buchanan's administration. but as i went further on through the book, eventually i came to on signature. i have a copy of it here. it turns out that i found about 24 documents with lincoln's signature in this entry. these -- the text of these documents are previously known in a printed form. back in the '50s when there were works done of abraham lincoln he didn't have access to these manuscripts. this was an exciting time. included here was one document we only knew of one other manuscript copy. that's stored at a church here

in d.c. as i kept leafing through the volume, i -- i came to the end and started just kind of across some random stuff. stuff that really didn't seem to fit. just seemed like just random pieces of paper, honestly, here at the very back. this calendar, i didn't know what it had to do with any presidential messages. it's dated 1861. you knand there's some sort of ledger material. and a few pages later, stuff from the 32nd -- 33rd congress, which wasn't -- wasn't right at all in terms of lincoln's time period.his spot here where i fo this document. which is the first page of lincoln's second -- second annual message to congress. >> he found three really

remarkable things. first of all, he found a missing first page of the official copy of lincoln's second annual message to congress. now, this is a predecessor of our modern state of the union address. so lincoln would write a message and then send it to congress. in those days, lincoln himself would not have read it to congress as we do today. but he would have had a clerk read -- a congressional clerk would have read the message. the official message has been missing the first two pages for more than a century. it was archives received it. and we didn't know where those two pages were. >> the first thing that tipped me off was the heading. fellow citizens in the house of representatives, i knew that's were transmitted. as far as the text i didn't immediately say, oh, that's from the second annual message. i just did a quick internet search and the text led me to

confirm this was, indeed, the text. i brought it to the legislative archivist's attention, bill davis and rodney ross. the legislative archives initially made the decision to remove it from the volume and return it with the rest of the copy that's in the vault. >> it's wonderful that we now know where it is and we have put that page with the rest of the second annual message in our treasurer's vault where we have some of our most -- some of our most historic items. in that room also we have, for example, george washington's inaugural address. we have several items from jefferson's presidency dealing with the louisiana purchase. lewis and clark expedition. we have things relating to world war ii. franklin d. roosevelt's day of infamy speech. we have a map that charts the

incoming planes during the pearl harbor attack. that was submitted to congress. and so those are just among the special items. >> the second thing that he found, in some ways even more remarkable, is an entire second copy of that second annual message. and it is written by a clerk but signed by abraham lincoln. so it is, in effect, an official copy as well. and then finally he found about two dozen pieces of communication between lincoln and congress. again, written by clerks but all signed by lincoln that we had known about in terms of the text from printed sources, but had not known where the manuscript materials were. and they were all in this one small set of records. >> in this volume actually labeled interior department, in

addition, even though there's some exciting parts of this message, there's also some pretty dry parts where he's just regurgitating what the secretary of state seward or caleb smith or whoever told him to say. so with this message he transmitted to congress and was read by a clerk before the -- before the senate and the house. there were also reports that were submitted at the same time. reports from secretary of state, secretary of interior, war department, post office, postmaster general. so -- so i think that's why this volume -- this message is in this volume with the interior. because following these pages are the messages from the secretary of interior. he has a lot of religious imagery in his opening. and while it please the almighty to bless us with a return to peace, we can but press on guided by the best light he gives us trusting that in his own good time and wise way all

will yet be well. the message is significant mainly because it deals with emancipation and also the -- lincoln's kind of reformulation of his thoughts about his administration during the course of the war. 1862 was a big year. a lot of change. he had issued the preliminary emancipation proclamation in september. he eventually decided to remove general mcclellan from command. a big thing was that the democrats had gained 28 seats in the house of representatives. so he was -- lincoln, according to some historians, david donald, for one, was trying to -- he might have been seen as more radical on some opinions. he was trying to come back centrist. especially what he says in this message regarding constituted gradual emancipation was a way

to try to bring more conservatives and moderates back to the fold. in addition to finding what i find in that volume i also found another complete, full copy of the message. probably his -- the best part, the most memorable words of this come from the last paragraph or so. the occasion is piled high with difficulties, and we must rise with the occasion. as our case is new, so we must think anew and act anew. we must disenthrall ourselves and then we shall save our country. fellow citizens, we can't escape history. we of this congress and this administration will be remembered in spite of ourselves. no personal significance or insignificance can shape one or another of us. the fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or dishonor to the latest generation. we say we are for union. the world will not forget that we say this. we know how to save the union.

the world knows how -- the world knows we do not know how to save it. we here hold the power and bear the responsibility in giving freedom to the slave we ensure freedom to the free. honorable alike in what we give or preserve, we shall nobly save or lose the last best hope on earth. other means may succeed. this cannot fail. the way is plain, peaceful, generous, just. a way which, if followed, the world will follow forever, applaud, and got must forever bless. abraham lincoln, december 1st, 1862. touching this page is the same page he touched to sign. he spent a lot of hours crafting some of this language. to see it here before you is just really something special. >> it's always great to have the original manuscript materials. we -- as i mentioned with these two dozen other pieces of correspondence between lincoln