"Before daylight on the morning of the 3rd of December a mixed force of two hundred and seventy-six men, including a strong body of cavalry, quietly left the camp for the purpose of taking the stockade. At early dawn they reached the neighbourhood of the position sought, and the advance files were fired at by a sentinel within the stockade. The order to attack was given, and the 40th regiment, led by Captain Thomas, the chief officer in command, made a quick advance upon the double breastwork which formed the stronghold of the insurgents. After several volleys had been fired on both sides, a barrier of ropes, slabs, and overturned carts was crossed, and the defenders driven out or into the shallow pits with which the place was spotted, and in which many were put to death in the first heat of the conflict either by bullets or by bayonet thrusts." Raffello says--"I awoke on Sunday morning. A discharge of musketry--then a round from a bugle--the command 'Forward'--and another discharge of musketry was sharply kept up by the red-coats for a couple of minutes. The shots whizzed by my tent. I jumped out of my stretcher and rushed to my chimney facing the stockade. The force within could not muster then above one hundred and fifty diggers. The shepherds' holes inside the lower part of the stockade were turned into rifle pits.... The dragoons from the south and troopers from the north were trotting at full speed towards the stockade. Peter Lalor was on top of the first logged-up hole within the stockade, and by his decided gestures pointed to the men to retire among the holes. He was shot down in his shoulder at this identical moment. It was a chance shot. I recollect it well, for the discharge of musketry from the military now mowed down all who had heads above the barricades.... Those who suffered most were the pikemen, who stood their ground from the time the whole division had been posted on top, facing the Melbourne road from Ballarat, in double file under the slabs to stick the cavalry with their pikes. The old command 'Charge' was distinctly heard, and the red-coats ran with fixed bayonets to storm the stockade. A few cuts and kicks, a little pulling down, and the job was done; too quickly for their wonted ardour, for they actually thrust their bayonets through the bodies of the dead and wounded strewed about the ground. A wild hurrah burst out, and the 'Southern Cross' was torn down. Of the armed diggers, some made off the best way they could, others surrendered themselves as prisoners, and were collected in groups and marched down the gully.... The red-coats were now ordered to 'fall in,' their bloody work being over, and were marched off, dragging with them the 'Southern Cross.'"