claim: The last man to attack the US Capitol, prior to the events on 6 January 2021, was a British Army Major General from Northern Ireland, in 1814.
evidence: On 24 August 1814, British troops under the command of Major-General Robert Ross captured the city of Washington and set fire to its public buildings, including the Capitol building and the White House. The events happened during the war of 1812, fought between British and American forces at sea and on land in America and Canada. America had declared war on Great Britain on 27 June 1812, citing four key reasons: trade restrictions and blockades imposed during the Napoleonic Wars, the impressment into the Royal Navy of British seamen serving on American ships, British defence of the Native American tribes against American expansion and territorial claims into part of modern day Canada that had not been sufficiently addressed following the American Wars of Independence and the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1783 (FO 93/8/2). [...] On 18 July 1814 Lord Bathurst, the British Foreign Secretary, sent the following orders to Major-General Robert Ross: [...] On 30 August 1814, Major-General Robert Ross, on board HMS Tonnant, in the Patuxent river, wrote to the Earl of Bathurst, the British Foreign Secretary, announcing the capture of Washington ‘My Lord, I have the honour to communicate to your Lordship that on the night of the 24 instant, after defeating the army of the United States on that day, the troops under my command entered and took possession of the city of Washington.