assault began. Again the Americans took the silent battery.
Again the British drove them back. Again the opposing
lines swayed to and fro across the deadly crest of Battle
Rise, with nothing else to guide them through the hot,
black night but their own flaming musketry. The Americans
could not have been more gallant and persistent in attack:
the British could not have been more steadfast in defence.
Midnight came; but neither side could keep its hold on
Battle Rise. By this time Drummond was wounded; and Riall
was both wounded and a prisoner. Among the Americans
Brown and Winfield Scott were also wounded, while their
men were worn out after being under arms for nearly
eighteen hours. A pause of sheer exhaustion followed.
Then, slowly and sullenly, as if they knew the one more
charge they could not make must carry home, the foiled
Americans turned back and felt their way to Chippawa.

The British ranks lay down in the same order as that in
which they fought; and a deep hush fell over the whole,
black-shrouded battlefield. The immemorial voice of those
dread Falls to which no combatant gave heed for six long
hours of mortal strife was heard once more. But near at
hand there was no other sound than that which came from
the whispered queries of a few tired officers on duty;
from the busy orderlies and surgeons at their work of
mercy; and from the wounded moaning in their pain. So
passed the quiet half of that short, momentous, summer
night. Within four hours the sun shone down on the living
and the dead--on that silent battery whose gunners had
fallen to a man--on the unconquered Rise.