At ten o'clock the British army moved toward the village in two columns, the right commanded by General Clinton, the left by De Heister and Sir William Erskine; in all thirteen thousand strong. Howe was with the second division, and when near the village, he held a council of war on horseback, which resulted in a change in the point of attack. Inclining to the left, the British placed fifteen or twenty pieces of artillery upon the slope southeast of the rail-way station, and, under cover of their fire, constructed a rude bridge over the Bronx, and attempted to cross and ascend the steep wooded heights to dislodge the Americans from their hastily constructed breastworks upon Chatterton's Hill. Hamilton had placed his two guns in battery, on a rocky ledge, and these swept whole platoons from the margin of the hill they were attempting to ascend.
The British recoiled, fell back to their artillery, and joined another division, under General Leslie (consisting of the second British brigade, the Hessian grenadiers under Colonel Rail, a battalion of Hessian infantry, and two hundred and fifty cavalry), who were then crossing the Bronx a quarter of a mile below. There the assailants joined, and the whole force pushed up the slopes and ravines along the southwestern declivities of Chatterton's Hill.
Gaining a gentle slope toward the top, they endeavored to turn M'Dongal's right flank. His advance, under Smallwood and Ritzema, gallantly opposed them while slowly retreating toward the crown of the eminence, until the British cavalry attacked the American militia on the extreme right and dispersed them. M'Dongal with only six hundred men, consisting chiefly of his own brigade and Haslet's corps, sustained an obstinate conflict for an hour. Twice the British light infantry and cavalry were repulsed, when an attack upon his flank by Rail compelled M'Dougal to give way
* A square redoubt of earth was erected in the main street of the village, the remains of which may yet be seen a little northeast of Mr. Swinburn's Literary Institution, and where now (1852) lies a shattered howitzer, dug up from the trenches a few years ago. From this redoubt-a line of breast-works extended westerly over the south side of Purdy's Hill to the Bronx, and easterly across the hills to Horton's Pond. These were not quite finished when the battle occurred on the twenty-eighth of October.—See Address of J. W. Tompkins, 1845, quoted by Bolton, ii., 368.