The volunteers took position on the left of the second line of defence. The right was occupied by dismounted light dragoons, and the centre by regular infantry and artillery. The enemy, elated, as he had cause to be, at his first success, came steadily { 115}on to attack this line, and as he approached was subjected to an artillery fire from a small work called Fort Tompkins. He struck the right flank of the Americans, but found it made of different stuff from militia. Again and again the attempt was made to force this part of the line; but the dragoons, commanded by Backus in person, stood firm, delivered their fire with coolness, and drove back the assailants. The fight was kept up for an hour, and at length the weight of numbers told, and the Americans fell back.
A portion of them next took possession of the log barracks, and here made a third stand. The enemy came on as gallantly as ever, intent upon driving everything before him. Colonel Gray, Quartermaster-General, led the red-coats, and as they came up to the attack, an American drummer-boy picked up a musket, levelled it at the Colonel, and shot him down. Lieutenant Fanning, who had been severely wounded at York, and was not expected to be on duty, took charge of a gun. As the enemy approached, he carefully sighted the piece, and gave them three rounds of grapeshot in quick succession, which broke the force of their onset, and they began to fall back in some disorder. At this moment Colonel Backus fell mortally wounded.
The officer in charge of the stores had been in{ 116}structed to set fire to them in case the enemy seemed likely to capture the place. Seeing the probability of this, he now applied the torch, not only to the storehouses but also to a new vessel that was almost ready to be launched, and to one that had been recently captured from the enemy.
With the Americans driven to their last stronghold, and the smoke from their burning stores rolling over their heads, the day appeared to be irretrievably lost. But though the enemy was strong in good troops, gallantly led, he had a weak spot in the constitutional timidity of the commander, Sir George Prevost. And General Brown at this point of time made a fortunate movement which struck that weak spot in a most effective way. He had succeeded in rallying about three hundred of the militia, with whom he suddenly emerged from the woods, and made a feint of marching for the boats by which the expedition had landed. Sir George took the alarm at once, imagining he was to be surrounded by a superior force and entrapped. He therefore issued an order for retreat, and his victorious forces withdrew to their ships without securing any result of their victory, or even bearing off their wounded. A reënforcement of six hundred men, under Lieutenant-Colonel Tuttle, who had inarched forty miles in one day, reached the vil { 117}lage just as the enemy were pushing off in their boats.