regular siege while the British frigates lay in the river, and
the defenses ere so strong that open assault by daylight was
equally out of the question. Accordingly Washington suggested to
Wayne that he try a night attack. Wayne eagerly caught at the
idea. It was exactly the kind of enterprise in which he
delighted. The fort was on a rocky promontory, surrounded on
three sides by water, and on the fourth by a neck of land, which
was for the most part mere morass. It was across this neck of
land that any attacking column had to move. The garrison was six
hundred strong. To deliver the assault Wayne took nine hundred
men. The American army was camped about fourteen miles from Stony
Point. One July afternoon Wayne started, and led his troops in
single file along the narrow rocky roads, reaching the hills on
the mainland near the fort after nightfall. He divided his force
into two columns, to advance one along each side of the neck,
detaching two companies of North Carolina troops to move in
between the two columns and make a false attack. The rest of the
force consisted of New Englanders, Pennsylvanians, and
Virginians. Each attacking column was divided into three parts, a
forlorn hope of twenty men leading, which was followed by an
advance guard of one hundred and twenty, and then by the main
body. At the time commanding officers still carried spontoons,
and other old-time weapons, and Wayne, who himself led the right
column, directed its movements spear in hand. It was nearly
midnight when the Americans began to press along the causeways
toward the fort. Before they were near the walls they were
discovered, and the British opened a heavy fire of 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