Strength of the Army at Fort Erie, Aug. 31, 1814.
| Present for Duty. | Aggregate. | ||
| Non-com. Officers, rank-and-file. | Officers. | Present and absent. | |
| Dragoons | 27 | 1 | 48 |
| Bombardiers, etc. | 34 | 51 | |
| Artillery Corps | 206 | 10 | 369 |
| First Brigade | 725 | 39 | 2311 |
| Second Brigade | 698 | 42 | 1646 |
| Porter’s Brigade | 220 | 16 | 599 |
| First and Fourth Rifles | 217 | 11 | 504 |
| Total | 2127 | 119 | 5528 |
The regular force in Fort Erie numbered two thousand and thirty-three effectives[123] September 4, and though annoyed by the enemy’s fire and worn by hard work, they were in both these respects better situated than the besiegers. Sooner or later the British would be obliged to retreat; and Brown was informed by deserters that Drummond was then contemplating withdrawal.[124] Brown estimated the British force very loosely at three or four thousand;[125] and it was in fact about the smaller number.
Drummond’s situation was told in his reports to Sir George Prevost. September 8 be wrote[126] that he should not fail to seize any favorable opportunity to attack; “but should no such opportunity present itself, I feel it incumbent on me to prepare your Excellency for the possibility of my being compelled by sickness or suffering of the troops, exposed as they will be to the effects of the wet and unhealthy season which is fast approaching, to withdraw them from their present position to one which may afford them the means of cover. Sickness has, I am sorry to say, already made its appearance in several of the corps.” Three days afterward, September 11,[127] Drummond was warned by several signs that his lines were to be attacked by Brown, although “whether the account which is invariably given by deserters of his intention to act offensively ... be correct, I have not yet been able accurately to ascertain.” Drummond’s batteries had been almost silent for several days for want of ammunition, and he could do nothing till the arrival of reinforcements,—the Ninety-seventh regiment,—unaccountably delayed. Rain had begun, and he dreaded its effect on the troops. In his next despatch, dated September 14,[128] he said that the rain had been incessant, and “as the whole of the troops are without tents, and the huts in which they are placed are wholly incapable of affording shelter against such severe weather, their situation is most distressing.” The roads were impassable; the nearest depot of supplies was Fort George, and Drummond had not cattle enough to move a third of his heavy ordnance if a sudden movement should be necessary. The enemy seemed about to cross the river in his rear, and the Ninety-seventh regiment had not yet arrived:—
“In the mean time I have strong grounds for thinking that the enemy will risk an attack,—an event which though from the necessity of defending my batteries in the first instance with the pickets alone I shall have to meet under every possible disadvantage, yet I am very much disposed to hope may be the most fortunate circumstance which can happen, as it will bring us in contact with the enemy at a far cheaper rate than if we were to be the assailants.”
While Drummond struggled between the necessity of retreat and the difficulty of retreating, Brown was bent on attacking his lines. The plan was open to grave objections, and a council of war, September 9, discouraged the idea. Brown was much disappointed and irritated at the result of the council, especially with Ripley; but while giving the impression that he acquiesced, he brought over all the volunteers he could obtain.[129] The number was never precisely given, but according to the official reports of General Peter B. Porter who commanded them, and of General Brown himself, they did not exceed one thousand.[130] With these, and an equal number of regular troops, Brown undertook to assault Drummond’s entrenchments.
The nearest British line was about six hundred yards from old Fort Erie. From the first British battery on the Lake-shore, to Battery No. 3 in the woods, the line extended nearly half a mile, covered by abattis, but defended only by the brigade of troops on actual duty. If carried, the first line could not be held without capturing the second line, about fifty yards distant, and a third line, farther in the rear; while the main British force was encamped, for reasons of health and comfort, a mile behind, and was supposed to number at least three thousand six hundred men, or quite sufficient to recover their works. Brown professed no intention of fighting the British army. He proposed only “to storm the batteries, destroy the cannon, and roughly handle the brigade upon duty, before those in reserve could be brought into action.”[131]
Although Drummond expected and wished to be attacked, he kept no proper pickets or scouts in the woods, and all day of September 16 American fatigue parties were at work opening a path through the forest the distance of a mile, from Snake Hill on the extreme left to the extremity of the British line in the woods. So little precaution had Drummond’s engineers taken that they left the dense forest standing within pistol-shot of the flank and rear of their Battery No. 3 on their extreme right, and the American parties opened a path within one hundred and fifty yards of the flank of the British line without being discovered.
At noon, September 17, General Porter led a column of sixteen hundred men—of whom one thousand were militia volunteers, and a part were the Twenty-third regiment—along the path through the woods, in three divisions, commanded by Colonel Gibson of the Fourth Rifles, Colonel E. D. Wood of the Engineers, and Brigadier-General Davis of the New York militia. At three o’clock, under cover of heavy rain, the whole force fell suddenly on the blockhouse which covered the flank and rear of the British battery No. 3, and succeeded in capturing the blockhouse and mastering the battery held by DeWatteville’s regiment. While detachments spiked the guns and blew up the magazine, the main column advanced on Battery No. 2, while at the same time General Miller, promoted to the command of Scott’s old brigade, moved with “the remains of the Ninth and Eleventh Infantry and a detachment of the Nineteenth” from a ravine in front of Battery No. 3 to pierce the centre of the British line between Battery No. 3 and Battery No. 2.[132]
Within half an hour after the first gun was fired, Porter and Miller had effected their junction within the British lines, had captured Battery No. 2, and moved on Battery No. 1, by the Lake-shore. There the success ended. Battery No. 1 could not be carried. By that time the Royal Scots, the Eighty-ninth, the Sixth, and the Eighty-second British regiments had arrived,—probably about one thousand men.[133] A sharp engagement followed before Brown, after ordering his reserve under Ripley to the assistance of Porter and Miller, could disengage his troops. The three commanders of Porter’s divisions—Gibson, Wood, and Davis—were killed or mortally wounded,—Gibson at the second battery, Davis and Wood in assaulting the shore battery. Ripley was desperately wounded at the same time. General Porter, Lieutenant-Colonel Aspinwall of the Ninth, and Major Trimble of the Nineteenth, as well as a number of other officers, were severely wounded. That the last action was sharp was proved by the losses suffered by the British reinforcements. According to the British official return, the four regiments which came last into the field—the Royal Scots, Sixth, Eighty-second, and Eighty-ninth—lost thirty-six killed, one hundred and nine wounded, and fifty-four missing,—a total of two hundred men, in a short action of half an hour at the utmost, without artillery.