f the masts. A second parallel was completed, and batteries
erected within three hundred yards of the enemy's works. The British had
two redoubts about three hundred yards in front of their lines, and it
was resolved to take them by assault. The one on the left of the enemy
bordering the banks of the river was assigned to a brigade of light
infantry under La Fayette, the advanced corps being conducted by Colonel
Alexander Hamilton, assisted by Colonel Gimat. The attack commenced at
eight o'clock in the evening, and the assailants entered the fort with
the point of the bayonet, without firing a gun. The American loss was
eight killed and thirty wounded. Major Campbell, who commanded the
redoubt, was wounded and made prisoner, with about thirty soldiers; the
rest escaped. During the assault, the British kept up a fire along their
whole line. Washington, Lincoln, and Knox, having dismounted, stood in
an exposed position awaiting the result. The other redoubt, on the right
of the British, was taken at the same time by a detachment of the French
commanded by Baron De Viomenil. He lost about one hundred men killed and
wounded. Of the enemy at this redoubt eighteen were killed and
forty-five captured, including three officers.

By this time many of the British guns were silenced, and their works
were becoming ruinous. About four o'clock in the morning of the
sixteenth, Colonel Abercrombie, with four hundred men, made a sortie
against two unfinished redoubts occupied by the French; the British,
after spiking some cannon, were driven back, with a small loss on each
side. One hundred pieces of heavy artillery were now in full play
against the enemy, and he had nearly ceased firing. In this extremity,
Lord Cornwallis formed a desperate design of attempting to force his way
to New York, his plan being to leave his sick and baggage behind, to
cross over the York River in the night to Gloucester Point with his
effective force, and, overwhelming De Choisy there, his lordship
intended to mount his men on captured horses, and, by forced marches,
gain the fords of the rivers, and thus make his way through Maryland,
Pennsylvania, and Jersey, to New York. Boats were in readiness under
other pretexts, at ten o'clock of the night of the sixteenth, and the
arrangements were conducted with so much secrecy that the first division
arrived at Gloucester Point unperceived, and part of the troops were
landed, when a violent storm drove the boats dow