=John Armstrong,[28] 1759-1843.=
From the Life of General Wayne.
=103.= STORMING OF STONY POINT.
Wayne, believing that few things were impracticable to discipline and valor, after a careful reconnoissance, adopted the project, and hastened to give it execution. Beginning his march on the 15th from Sandy Beach, he at eight o'clock in the evening took a position within a mile and a half of his object. By the organization given to the attack, the regiments of Febiger and Meigs, with Hull's detachment, formed the column of the right; and the regiment of Butler and Murfey's detachment, that of the left. A party of twenty men furnished with axes for pioneer duty, and followed by a sustaining corps of one hundred and fifty men with unloaded arms, preceded each column, while a small detachment was assigned to purposes merely of demonstration.
At half after eleven o'clock, the hour fixed on for the assault, the columns were in motion; but from delays made inevitable by the nature of the ground, it was twenty minutes after twelve before this commenced, when neither the morass, now overflowed by the tide, nor the formidable and double row of abattis, nor the high and strong works on the summit of the hill, could for a moment damp the ardor or stop the career of the assailants, who, in the face of an incessant fire of musketry and a shower of shells and grape-shot, forced their way through every obstacle, and with so much concert of movement, that both columns entered the fort and reached its centre, nearly at the same moment. Nor was the conduct of the victors less conspicuous for humanity than for valor. Not a man of the garrison was injured after the surrender; and during the conflict of battle, all were spared who ceased to make resistance.
The entire American loss in this enterprise, so formidable in prospect, did not exceed one hundred men. The pioneer parties, necessarily the most exposed, suffered most. Of the twenty men led by Lieutenant Gibbons of the Sixth Pennsylvania Regiment, seventeen were killed or wounded. Wayne's own escape on this occasion was of the hair-breadth kind. Struck on the head by a musket-ball, he fell; but immediately rising on one knee, he exclaimed, "March on, carry me into the fort; for should the wound be mortal, I will die at the head of the column." The enemy's loss in killed and captured amounted to six hundred and seven men. This affair, the most brilliant of the war, covered the commanding general with laurels.
[Footnote 28: An officer of the revolutionary army, and a conspicuous actor in the War of 1812; has written chiefly on military affairs.]
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=Charles Caldwell,[29] 1772-1853.=
From his "Autobiography."