American and British forces prepared for combat as American troops gathered at nearby Woodyard Plantation and then marched northwest to an encampment at Long Old Fields, while the British camped in what is now Andrews Air Force Base. Before the Americans fell back to Washington on August 23, 1814, barely two miles separated the enemy camps. The next day the armies clashed at Bladensburg. American Colonel Allen McClane wrote on August 22, 1814, that he arrived at the Woodyard about the time British Major General Ross arrived at Nottingham and believed that had his force moved a day sooner or faster, it might have struck a fine blow by capturing or killing Ross's whole party.