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.