"Barney, then at Nottingham, promptly informed the Navy Department of the movement, and of a boast of the British admiral that he would destroy the American flotilla, and dine in Washington on the following Sunday. General Winder, by direction of the War Department, immediately ordered General Samuel Smith's division (the Third) of the Maryland militia into actual service. He also called upon General John P. Van Ness, commander of the militia of the District of Columbia, for two brigades, to be encamped near Alexandria; and he sent a circular letter to all the brigadiers of the Maryland militia, asking for volunteers to the amount of one-half their respective commands. "By his orders, his adjutant-general, Hite, issued a stirring appeal to the citizens to come forward, 'without regard to sacrifices and privation,' in defense of the national capital. Winder also asked General Stricker, of Baltimore, to send to Washington his volunteer regiments of infantry and his rifle battalion. "The veteran patriot, General Smith, promptly responded to the call of the government. He at once issued a division order, in which he gave notice of the invasion, and directed the whole of General Stansbury's brigade to be held in readiness for active service, adding, 'the third brigade is now under the pay of the United States, in its service, and subject to the Articles of War.' That corps General Smith declared to be 'the finest set of men he ever saw.' They paraded at four o'clock the same day, and on the following morning General Stansbury left Baltimore for Washington with thirteen hundred of his corps. Another force, under Lieutenant-Colonel Joseph Sterett, consisting of the Fifth Regiment of Baltimore Volunteers, Major Pinkney's rifle battalion, and the artillery companies of Captains Myers and Magruder, left Baltimore on the evening of the 20th, and joined Stansbury on the evening of the 23d. "With wise precaution, General Smith ordered the Eleventh brigade and Colonel Moore's cavalry to hold themselves in readiness to march to Baltimore at a moment's warning, for it seemed probable that the enemy would strike at both cities simultaneously. "The British in the meantime had moved up the Patuxent from Benedict, the land troops being accompanied by a flotilla of launches and barges that kept abreast of them. The naval forces were under the command of the notorious marauder, Cockburn. They reached Lower Marlborough on the 21st, when Barney's flotilla, then in charge of Lieutenant Frazier and a sufficient number of men to destroy it if necessary, moved up to Pig Point, where some of the vessels grounded in the shallow water.