That evening the President and the members of the Cabinet rode out to the camp, and the next morning the President reviewed the army, which had been reinforced by Commodore Barney with four hundred sailors, the crews of the burned gunboats. Winder then had twenty-five hundred men, of whom near a thousand were regulars, or sailors even better fighting troops than ordinary regulars. Such a force vigorously led was sufficient to give Ross’s army a sharp check, and at that moment Ross was still hesitating whether to attack Washington. The loss of a few hundred men might have turned the scale at any moment during Tuesday, August 23; but Winder neither fought nor retreated, but once more passed the day on scout. At noon he rode with a troop of cavalry toward Marlboro. Satisfied that the enemy was not in motion and would not move that day, he started at one o’clock for Bladensburg, leaving his army to itself. He wished to bring up a brigade of militia from Bladensburg.[220] Winder had ridden about five miles, when the British at two o’clock suddenly broke up their camp and marched directly on the Old Fields. The American army hastily formed in line, and sent off its baggage to Washington. Winder was summoned back in haste, and arrived on the field at five o’clock as the British appeared. He ordered a retreat. Every military reason required a retreat to Bladensburg. Winder directed a retreat on Washington by the navy-yard bridge. The reasons which actuated him to prefer the navy-yard to Bladensburg, as explained by him, consisted in anxiety for the safety of that “direct and important pass,” which could not without hazard be left unguarded.[221] In order to guard a bridge a quarter of a mile long over an impassable river covered by the guns of war-vessels and the navy-yard, he left unguarded the open high-road which led through Bladensburg directly to the Capitol and the White House. After a very rapid retreat that “literally became a run of eight miles,”[222] Winder encamped in Washington near the bridge-head at the navy-yard at eight o’clock that night, and then rode three miles to the White House to report to the President. On returning to camp, he passed the night until three or four o’clock in the morning making in person arrangements to destroy the bridge “when necessary,” assuring his officers that he expected the enemy to attempt a passage there that night.[223] Toward dawn he lay down, exhausted by performing a subaltern’s duty all day, and snatched an hour or two of sleep. The British in their camp that evening were about eight miles from Bladensburg battle-field. Winder was about five miles distant from the same point. By a quick march at dawn he might still have arrived there, with six hours to spare for arranging his defence. He preferred to wait till he should know with certainty that the British were on their way there. On the morning of Wednesday, August 24, he wrote to Armstrong:[224]--