s appearance on the main road, in force, in front of
my battery, and on seeing us made a halt. I reserved our fire. In a
few minutes the enemy again advanced, when I ordered an
eighteen-pounder to be fired, which completely cleared the road;
shortly after, a second and a third attempt was made by the enemy
to come forward but all were destroyed. They then crossed into an
open field and attempted to flank our right. He was met there by
three twelve-pounders, the marines under Captain Miller, and my men
acting as infantry, and again was totally cut up. By this time not
a vestige of the American army remained, except a body of five or
six hundred posted on a height on my right, from which I expected
much support from their fine situation.

Barney was made a prisoner, although his men stood by him until he
ordered them to retreat. Loss of blood had made him too weak to be
carried from the field. General Ross and Admiral Cockburn saw to it
personally that he was well cared for and paid him the greatest respect
and courtesy. As for the other British officers, they, too, were
sportsmen who admired a brave man, even in the enemy's uniform, and
Barney reported that they treated him "like a brother."

The American army had scampered to Washington with a total loss of ten
killed and forty wounded among the five thousand men who had been
assembled at Bladensburg to protect and save the capital. The British
tried to pursue but the afternoon heat was blistering and the rapid pace
set by the American forces proved so fatiguing to the invaders that many
of them were bowled over by sunstroke. To permit their men to run
themselves to death did not appear sensible to the British commanders,
and they therefore sat down to gain their breath before the final
promenade to Washington in the cool of the evening. They found a
helpless, almost deserted city from which the Government had fled and
the army had vanished.

The march had been orderly, with a proper regard for the peaceful
inhabitants, but now Ross and Cockburn carried out their orders to
plunder and burn. At the head of their troops they rode to the Capitol,
fired a volley through the windows, and set fire to the building. Two
hundred men then sought the President's mansion, ransacked the rooms,
and left it in flames. Next day they burned the official buildings and
several dwellings and, content with the mischief thus wrought, a