In the dark, the British main attack column under Colonel Victor Fischer approached the American picket line enroute to the gap at the far end of the American camp. The pickets sounded the alarm and the Second Brigade was waiting for them. Drummond had ordered Fischer's men to remove their flints so that no accidental firing would warn the Americans of their approach, this was to be a bayonet assault. As they approached the American camp, the defenders opened a horrific fire of musket and cannon and threw the attack back with terrible losses.
As the remnants of Fischer's broken column receded back into the forest, the next prong of Drummond's attack moved forward. Colonel Hercules Scott led his regiment forward, easily pushing back the American pickets. As had those in the woods at the south end of camp, these American sentinels did their job well. They fired at the attackers, giving ample warning to the men at the walls, and fell back rapidly to avoid the friendly fire soon to follow. The defenders could hear Scott's officers issuing orders to their men to close ranks and prepare to charge. Not waiting, however, for the British to come into view, the American cannon and muskets opened up a horrendous firing which smashed Scott's assault before it fairly began. Scott was mortally wounded early in the fight by a single bullet penetrating his forehead. His major and fourteen other officers were felled. Without leadership, and in the confusion of a plan gone bad, the men broke into small groups. Some sought the protection of the woodline but others moved to their right to join the attack starting against the nearest bastions of Fort Erie.
Of the three prongs of the British attack, this one against Fort Erie proper enjoyed the most success. Lieutenant Colonel William Drummond's column made it to the ditch below the bastion with few casualties. His men threw up ladders and scrambled up and over the walls but were thrown back.. Again and again they came on. Finally success came. In a desperate hand-to-hand fight in which quarter was not granted, two American artillery officers, Captain Williams and Lieutenant McDonough, died defending their guns. The surviving artillerists fled to a stone barracks and the bastion fell to Drummond's men. However, they could not push the attack further into the interior of the fort against Trimble's men firing from the security of the barracks. Lieutenant Colonel Drummond had not ordered his men to remove their flints; thus, they not only returned the American fire but also handily defeated the two or three counterattacks sent to dislodge them.
Gaines sent for reinforcements and both Ripley and Porter responded, feeding men into the growing brawl in and around the bastion. Lieutenant Douglass turned the guns of his battery to the left and swept the approaches to the bastion, thus discouraging any reinforcements from aiding Drummond's beleaguered men. As the minutes accumulated into an hour, the stalemate continued. Then the fates interceded and tipped the balance decisively in favor of the Americans. Lieutenant Douglass later described what happened next: “But suddenly, every sound was hushed by the sense of an unnatural tremor, beneath our feet, the first heave of an earthquake; and, almost at the same instant, the center of the bastion burst up, with a terrific explosion and a jet of flame, mingled with fragments of timber, earth, stone, and bodies of men rose, to the height of one or two hundred feet, in the air, and fell, in a shower of ruins, to a great distance, all around.”
Drummond broke off the assault and both sides eased back into a lengthy siege marked by near constant bombardment and frequent skirmishing in no man's land.
Overshadowed Heroes Part III: The Siege of Fort Erie
Part II: Chippawa and Lundy’s Lane
Part I: Third Brigade of the Left Division
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© Copyright 2002 by Rich Barbuto.
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