Then began a horrible mêlée, in which nearly every man fought on his own account, and many of them could not tell whether they were striking at comrades or enemies. Hearing a few shots fired in the rear of his camp, General Chandler imagined he was attacked from that direction also, and faced about a portion of his line, which increased the dreadful confusion. After this wild work in the darkness and tumult, the British managed somehow to retreat, carrying off with them two pieces of artillery, which, however, were afterward recovered. When the morning dawned, it was found that the American commanders, Chandler and Winder, were {121}both prisoners in the hands of the enemy; while the British commander, Vincent, had been thrown from his horse, lost his way in the woods, and after floundering about all night was discovered in a most pitiful and ridiculous plight. Chandler was taken while trying to manoeuvre a British regiment, which he had stumbled upon in the darkness and mistaken for one of his own. In this affair the Americans lost one hundred and fifty-four men, killed, wounded, or missing; the British, two hundred and fourteen. The victory, so far as there was any, must be accorded to the British, since it broke the advance of the Americans and caused them to turn back. When they had retreated as far as Forty-Mile Creek, they were attacked simultaneously on both flanks--on the land side by a band of Indians, and on the water side by the fleet under Sir James Yeo. But they succeeded in repelling both enemies, and returned to Fort George with the loss only of a part of their baggage, which was conveyed in boats. After this, Yeo coasted along the shore and captured stores in Charlotte, at the mouth of the Genesee, and in Sodus, on the bay of that name. As he met with some resistance at Sodus, and had difficulty in finding the stores, which were hidden, he burned the buildings there. {122}There was a British depot of supplies at Beaver Dams, about seven miles southwest of Queenstown and the same distance northwest of the Falls. General Dearborn planned its capture, and on the 23d of June sent against it, from Fort George, an expedition of five hundred and seventy men, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Charles G. Boerstler. The enemy had strong works at Beaver Dams, but at this time they were not very well manned.