The weather was fearfully hot, and the enemy proceeded by slow marches, dozens of men falling and fainting by the way. It was remarked at the time that their route might have been so impeded by felling trees, that the weather and the labor of removing them would have defeated the expedition. But nothing of the sort was done. Winder waited in a chosen position at Wood Yard, twelve miles from the city, to give battle. But Ross turned to the right after reaching Nottingham, taking the road to Marlborough, where Admiral Cockburn joined him with a body of marines and seamen. The Americans fell back to Battalion Old Fields, a detachment under Major Peters skirmishing sharply with the advancing enemy, and on the 24th to Bladensburg, six miles from Washington, where a bridge spanned the eastern branch of the {278}Potomac. Here they made a stand, taking a strong position on the western bank, commanding the bridge. The President and several members of his Cabinet were on the field, all interfering more or less with the military arrangements. Monroe--then Secretary of State, afterward President--who had been a staff officer in the Continental army more than thirty years before, considered himself specially qualified as a military meddler, and actually changed the disposition of some of Winder's troops at the last moment. It could not be expected that a mass of raw militia, hastily called together, and hardly knowing by whom they were commanded, would stand long, even in an advantageous position, before the onset of veteran troops. "Come, General Armstrong, come, Colonel Monroe," said the President, "let us go, and leave it to the commanding General." So Mr. Madison and his Cabinet left the field, and it was not long before the militia followed their illustrious example. The ground on the eastern side of the river, where the British approached, was low and clear. On the western it rose in a gradual slope, and along the stream was fringed with willows and larches. A body of American riflemen was posted in the shrubbery that lined the bank. Three hundred {279}yards up the slope was a slight earthwork, mounting six guns, supported by two companies of Baltimore volunteers. General Stansbury had posted three regiments to the right of it, but Secretary Monroe had moved them to a point in the rear of the battery and five hundred yards farther up the slope. At the top of the hill, one mile from the bridge, was formed a line consisting of Maryland militia on the right, Barney's seamen and marines in the centre, a detachment of regular troops and a regiment of District militia on the left, with a battery of six guns and a company of riflemen in front.