William Henry Winder (February 18, 1775 – May 24, 1824) was an American soldier and a Maryland lawyer. He was a controversial general in the U.S. Army during the War of 1812. On August 24, 1814, as a brigadier general, he led American troops in their disastrous defeat at the Battle of Bladensburg, which led to the Burning of Washington by British troops. Winder was court-martialed for his role in the battle, but acquitted of any wrongdoing. He later became a leading attorney of the Baltimore bar. Early life and career Winder was born in Somerset County, Maryland. He was the nephew of Levin Winder. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania, and from 1798 to 1812, practiced law in Baltimore. Winder testified at the impeachment trial of Associate Supreme Court Justice Samuel Chase in 1804. War of 1812 Winder was commissioned as a colonel in the U.S. Army at the start of the War of 1812. He participated in the battle of Frenchman's Creek in 1812. Promoted to brigadier general, he took command of the 3rd Brigade in Henry Dearborn's Army of the North and led his brigade in the amphibious landing on the Niagara Peninsula during the Battle of Fort George. He was one of two acting commanders of the American army at the Battle of Stoney Creek in July 1813, where he was captured, along with fellow commander, John Chandler. Battle of Bladensberg Exchanged the following year, Winder was appointed commander of the new 10th Military District, which composed the defenses of Washington and Baltimore, by fourth President James Madison on July 4, 1814. He received little logistical support from the government, especially Secretary of War John Armstrong Jr. who received much blame for the upcoming disaster and was later fired. In August, the British Maj. Gen. Robert Ross with several thousand troops advanced from the Royal Navy ships anchored in the upper Patuxent River at Benedict, Maryland (in Prince George's County) upon Washington along with a simultaneous small naval expedition under Capt. James Gordon up the Potomac River to attack the port at Alexandria, (then in the southeast corner of the ten-mile square District of Columbia, previously and later returned to the Commonwealth of Virginia), and provide naval support to Ross's troops once they reached the American capital, across the river to the northwest. Winder had only a few hundred regulars, and a mob of some