took nine hundred men.

The American army was camped about fourteen miles from Stony Point. One
July afternoon Wayne stalled, and led his troops in single file along
the narrow rocky roads, reaching the hills on the mainland near the fort
after nightfall. He divided his force into two columns, to advance one
along each side of the neck, detaching two companies of North Carolina
troops to move in between the two columns and make a false attack. The
columns themselves consisted of New-Englanders, Pennsylvanians, and
Virginians. Each attacking column was divided into three parts; a
forlorn hope of twenty men leading, which was followed by an
advance-guard of one hundred and twenty, and then by the main body. At
that time commanding officers still carried spontoons and other old-time
weapons; and Wayne, who himself led the right column, directed its
movements spear in hand.

It was towards midnight when the Americans began to press along the
causeways toward the fort. Before they were near the walls they were
discovered, and the British opened a heavy fire of great guns and
musketry, to which the Carolinians, who were advancing between the two
columns, responded in their turn, according to orders; but the men in
the columns were forbidden to fire. Wayne had warned them that their
work must be done with the bayonet, and their muskets were not even
loaded. Moreover, so strict was the discipline that no one was allowed
to leave the ranks, and when one of the men did so an officer promptly
ran him through the body.

No sooner had the British opened fire than the charging columns broke
into a run, and in a moment the forlorn hopes had plunged into the
abattis of fallen timber which the British had constructed just without
the walls. On the left the forlorn hope was very roughly handled, no
less than seventeen of the twenty men being either killed or wounded;
but as the columns came up both burst through the timber and swarmed up
the long sloping embankments of the fort. The British fought well,
cheering loudly as their volleys rang, but the Americans would not be
denied, and pushed silently on to end the contest with the bayonet. A
bullet struck Wayne in the head. He fell, but struggled to his feet and
pushed forward, two of his officers supporting him. A rumor went among
the men that he was dead, but it only impelled them to charge home more
fiercely than ever. With a rush the troops swept to the top of the
walls. A fierce