Meanwhile the sun had risen, the fog was rolling away, Pakenham was impatient, and before Thornton could get near his enemy he saw the signal {343}rocket which announced the attack. The Americans understood the signal quite as well as he did, and were ready to meet the shock. One thirty-two pounder was loaded to the muzzle with musket-balls. A deserter had told the British commander that the weak spot in Jackson's line was the extreme left; true enough when he said it, but now that spot was strengthened by two thousand Tennessee and Kentucky riflemen. The heaviest attack was accordingly made at this point, a column of three thousand men, under General Gibbs, moving against it. They were to be preceded by an Irish regiment bearing the fascines and ladders. At the same time, a column of one thousand moved along the river road, under the cross-fire from Patterson's battery, to attack Jackson's right. These were to be preceded by a West India black regiment with the necessary fascines and ladders. Midway between stood nearly a thousand Highlanders, under General Keane, ready to support either column, as circumstances might require. The British had also a battery of six eighteen-pounders; and, drawn up behind all, a considerable reserve. The battle was what Bunker Hill would have been if the Americans had had stronger works and plenty of ammunition. The beautiful British columns moved forward only to be mowed down. When {344}the thirty-two pounder discharged its musket-balls, the head of one column melted away before it, two hundred men being disabled. Both the Irish and the Negro regiment failed in their duty, so that when the main columns arrived at the ditch they had no means of crossing, and the terrible blunder had to be remedied under a continuous and withering fire. The ranks were badly broken. Pakenham, trying to re-form them, was killed, falling into the arms of Captain McDougall, the same officer who had caught General Ross when he fell at North Point. General Gibbs was wounded mortally; General Keane seriously. Colonel Dale fell at the head of the Highland regiment, which was almost entirely destroyed. It went into the fight with over nine hundred men, and came out with one hundred and forty. A major and a lieutenant, with twenty men, crossed the ditch before the American left, and the two officers mounted the breastwork. The major was instantly riddled with bullets; the lieutenant demanded the swords of two officers who confronted him, and was told to look behind him. He turned, and saw, as he expressed it, that the men he supposed to be following "had vanished as if the earth had opened and swallowed them up." On the American right, the British carried a small outwork; but the guns of the main line were turned {345}upon it and cleared it. Of this column, only three men--a colonel, a major, and a captain--reached the breastwork, and as they mounted they were all shot and tumbled into the ditch together.