Joe Whitehorn, American Historian Further Reading Washington and Baltimore Index of Historians

On the British retreat from Baltimore You had two phases. Of course, General Ross would be killed in the moment of contact. He had the Battle of North Point. Colonel Brook, who succeeded the general, presumed that he had defeated the defense, and he'll proceed in a rain storm the next day. And as he came around a bend in the ... it's called Long Log Lane... he will look two miles to the south and there he will see earth works extending perhaps three miles on high ground, with all the ground cleared between him and it. He'll hear drums, he will see the movement of over 10,000 troops, and behind that an artillery park of a hundred guns. And I think that's the moment when Colonel Brook realized that Baltimore was untakeable. He's rather in the position of the bulldog and the bear. Once you bite the leg, what do you do? You're in deep trouble. He made the only decision possible, which will ruin his reputation forever, as the man who marched away from Baltimore. I don't know what else he could have done. But I think at that moment early on that rainy morning when he came around that bend and saw that, and realized that he had just dealt with the advanced force, that he realized it was all over. Now, traditionally it's the battle for Fort McHenry, the artillery bombardment... That's certainly important because the plan was that the navy would get into the inner harbour and would support the troop movement. My view is the navy may support the troop movement, but it would still, given the determination of Smith and the huge number of troops that he had there - and their quality - it would still have all the portents of a really big disaster for the British, if they'd persisted.