The War of 1812 raged on land and sea, touching every border of the young nation. On August 24, 1814, after two years at war, Americans faced the British at Bladensburg. While the American militia were unable to hold back the British attack at the Anacostia River, Marines and sailors, including U.S. Chesapeake Flotillamen, set up a defense blocking the road outside present-day Fort Lincoln Cemetery. After hours of intense fighting, American forces were overrun and British troops marched to invade the nation's capital. In the summer of 1814, the battlefield landscape was very different from today: once outside the village of Bladensburg in what are now Cottage City and Colmar Manor, buildings gave way to open countryside with gently rolling terrain, farm fields, orchards, and forests.
