he fire, and the flash and roar
of their cannonry in the gathering darkness and among the echoes of
the mountains increased the terrors of the strife. The works, however,
were too extensive to be manned by the scanty garrisons; they were
entered by different places and carried at the point of the bayonet;
the Americans fought desperately from one redoubt to another--some
were slain, some taken prisoners, and some escaped under cover of the
night to the river or the mountains. "The garrison," writes Clinton,
significantly, "had to fight their way out as many as could, as we
determined not to surrender."

His brother James was saved from a deadly thrust of a bayonet by a
garrison orderly-book in his pocket; but he received a flesh wound in
the thigh. He slid down a precipice, one hundred feet high, into the
ravine between the forts, and escaped to the woods. The governor
leaped down the rocks to the river side, where a boat was putting off
with a number of the fugitives. The boat crossed the Hudson in safety,
and before midnight the governor was with Putnam, at Continental
Village, concerting further measures.

Putnam had been completely outmanoeuvred by Sir Henry Clinton. He had
continued until late in the morning in the belief that Peekskill and
Fort Independence were to be the objects of attack. In the course of
the morning he sallied forth with Brigadier-general Parsons, to
reconnoitre the ground near the enemy. After their return they were
alarmed, he says, by "a very heavy and hot firing both of small arms
and cannon, at Fort Montgomery." Aware of the real point of danger, he
immediately detached five hundred men to reinforce the garrison. They
had six miles to march along the eastern shore, and then to cross the
river; before they could do so the fate of the forts was decided.

British historians acknowledge that the valor and resolution displayed
by the Americans in the defence of these forts were in no instance
exceeded during the war; their loss in killed, wounded and missing,
was stated at two hundred and fifty, a large proportion of the number
engaged. [Colonel Campbell, who commanded the enemy's detachment,
Major Grant of the New York volunteers, and Count Gabrouski, Sir
Henry's Polish aide-de-camp, were slain in the assault; their fall
exasperated the assailants, who revenged their loss with considerable
slaughter.]

On the capture of the forts, the American frigates and galleys
stationed for the protec