After burning the Capitol, Executive Mansion and other public buildings of Washington, the expedition re-embarked at Benedict, Maryland[1] and sailed back down for refitting at Tangier Island in the lower Chesapeake Bay.

Then, the next month, up to the mouth of the Patapsco River, where the troops were to land and advance on Baltimore,[1] a major port city and "nest of pirates" for the substantial numbers of "privateers" that had raided British commercial shipping during the War.

During the land attack from the town's east side, the fleet's ships were to force their way up the Middle and Northwest Branches of the river and bombard Fort McHenry which guarded the port.

"By the fall of our gallant leader," wrote Ensign George Gleig in his eyewitness account, "the command now devolved on Colonel Brooke, of the 44th, an officer of decided personal courage but perhaps better calculated to lead a battalion than to guide an army.

Brooke advanced and attacked a powerful force of militia on 12 September[1] advanced earlier from the town, as the City Brigade of Brig Gen. John Stricker to the narrow part of the "Patapsco Neck" peninsula between Bread and Cheese Creek, which flowed north into Back River and Bear Creek (flowing south into the Patapsco), an area known as "Godly Wood".

After facing the forces of several bastions including "Rodgers' Bastion" manned by sailors of the U.S. Navy under Commodore John Rodgers, after the experience at Bladensburg, he expected Baltimore was supposedly then at his mercy, but on finding that the sailors of the bombarding ships of the Royal Navy could not come further up the river's Northwest Branch to his assistance[1] after a two-day bombardment by subduing the still active guns of the fort, even after a night-time landing party expedition by barge during the driving rainstorm to the fort's western flank under Capt.

[1] The fleet sailed southward, and was joined at sea by a battalion of the 93rd, five companies of the 95th, and by Major-General John Keane, who superseded Brooke, after delivering to him a most eulogistic despatch from the commander-in-chief.

[1] He was gazetted a Knight Commander of the Bath in 1833, and died on 26 July 1843 at his residence on George Street, Portman Square in London[1] and was buried at Kensal Green Cemetery.