As soon as he was able to move, General Drummond, who had succeeded to the command of the British forces, marched on Fort Erie. A detachment which he sent across the river to attack Buffalo was met and defeated at Black Rock, but a party in boats captured two of Perry's vessels which were moored under the guns of the fort. {245}At midnight on the 14th of August, the enemy, who had been busy for two weeks planting batteries and occasionally bombarding the works, attempted to carry them by storm. The Americans were expecting the attack, and the preparations for making it were not more careful and elaborate than those for receiving it. The flints were withdrawn from the British muskets, both to insure silence in the approach and because General Drummond had issued a secret order in which he "strongly recommended a free use of the bayonet," and after dark a great number of scaling-ladders were carried forward and placed in convenient positions. The Americans had their guns charged with grape and canister, dark lanterns burning, and every musket at hand and ready for immediate use. At one battery, for lack of canister, bags were made of tent-cloth, filled with musket-balls, and loaded into the guns. The storming party was in three columns. That which assaulted the American left, where Towson's battery was placed, marched up in the face of a continuous blaze of artillery and musketry, and, in spite of the storm of shot that rolled through it, tried to scale the defences, and actually crossed bayonets with the defenders. But in vain. Four such assaults were made by this column, and all were {246}bloodily repelled. The rapidity with which the guns of the American battery were served, making an almost constant flash, gave it the name of "Tow-son's lighthouse." On the right of the American works a similar assault was made at the same time by another column, which was met in a similar way. Major Douglass filled his guns to the muzzle with the bags of musket-balls, and though his cannoneers could not distinctly see their enemies, they were so familiar with the contour of the ground in front that they knew how to sweep it as effectively as if it had been broad daylight. Here also the attack failed.