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 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 down 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 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

wall. A fierce but short fight followed in the intense darkness, which was lit only by the flashes from the British muskets. The Americans did not fire, trusting solely to the bayonet. The two columns had kept almost equal pace, and they swept into the fort from opposite sides at the same moment. The three men who first got over the walls were all wounded, but one of them hauled down the British flag. The Americans had the advantage which always comes from delivering an attack that is thrust home. Their muskets were unloaded and they could not hesitate; so, running boldly into close quarters, they fought hand to hand with their foes and speedily overthrew them. For a moment the bayonets flashed and played; then the British lines broke as their assailants thronged against them, and the struggle was over. The Americans had lost a hundred in killed and wounded. Of the British sixty-three had been slain and very many wounded, every one of the dead or disabled having suffered from the bayonet. A curious coincidence was that the number of the dead happened to be exactly equal to the number of Wayne's men who had been killed in the night attack by the English general, Grey.

There was great rejoicing among the Americans over the successful issue of the attack. Wayne speedily recovered from his wound, and in the joy of his victory it weighed but slightly. He had

performed a most notable feat. No night attack of the kind was ever delivered with greater boldness, skill, and success. When the Revolutionary War broke out the American armies were composed merely of armed yeomen, stalwart men, of good courage, and fairly proficient in the use of their weapons, but entirely without the training which alone could enable them to withstand the attack of the British regulars in the open, or to deliver an attack themselves. Washington's victory at Trenton was the first encounter which showed that the Americans were to be feared when they took the offensive. With the exception of the battle of Trenton, and perhaps of Greene's fight at Eutaw Springs, Wayne's feat was the most successful illustration of daring and victorious attack by an American army that occurred during the war; and, unlike Greene, who was only able to fight a drawn battle, Wayne's triumph was complete. At Monmouth he had shown, as he afterward showed against Cornwallis, that his troops could meet the renowned British regulars on even terms in the open. Stony Point he showed that he could lead them to a triumphant assault with the bayonet against regulars who held a fortified place of strength. No American commander has ever displayed greater energy and daring, a more resolute courage, or readier resource, than the chief of the hard-fighting Revolutionary generals, Mad Anthony Wayne.

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