In the middle of August the British fleet under Admirals Cochrane and Cockburn sailed into Chesapeake Bay with a detachment of four thousand troops commanded by General Ross. Barney had no choice but to retire before this overwhelming force. As the British advanced up the narrowing waters all chance of escape disappeared; so Barney burnt his boats and little vessels and marched his seamen in to join Winder's army. On August 24 Winder's whole six thousand drew up in an exceedingly strong position at Bladensburg, just north of Washington; and the President rode out with his Cabinet to see a battle which is best described by its derisive title of the Bladensburg Races. Ross's four thousand came on and were received by an accurate checking fire from the regular artillery and from Barney's seamen gunners. But a total loss of 8 killed and 11 wounded was more than the 5,000 American militia could stand. All the rest ran for dear life. The deserted handful of regular soldiers and sailors was then overpowered; while Barney was severely wounded and taken prisoner. He and they, however, had saved their honour and won the respect and admiration of both friend and foe. Ross and Cockburn at once congratulated him on the stand he had made against them; and he, with equal magnanimity, reported officially that the British had treated him 'just like a brother.' That night the little British army of four thousand men burnt governmental Washington, the capital of a country with eight millions of people. Not a man, not a woman, not a child, was in any way molested; nor was one finger laid on any private property. The four thousand then marched back to the fleet, through an area inhabited by 93,500 militiamen on paper, without having so much as a single musket fired at them. Now, if ever, was Prevost's golden opportunity to end the war with a victory that would turn the scale decisively in favour of the British cause. With the one exception of Lake Erie, the British had the upper hand over the whole five thousand miles of front. A successful British counter-invasion, across the Montreal frontier, would offset the American hold on Lake Erie, ensure the control of Lake Champlain, and thus bring all the scattered parts of the campaign into their proper relation to a central, crowning triumph. On the other hand, defeat would mean disaster. But the bare possibility of defeat seemed quite absurd when Prevost set out from his field headquarters opposite Montreal, between La Prairie and Chambly, with eleven thousand seasoned veterans, mostly 'Peninsulars,' to attack Plattsburg, which was no more than twenty-five miles across the frontier, very weakly fortified, and garrisoned only by the fifteen hundred regulars whom Izard had 'culled out' when he started for Niagara.