The fort was invested on the 26th of April, and from that period up to the 5th of May, a constant fire had been kept up by the British batteries on the opposite side of the river, without serious injury to the works. General Clay, with a reinforcement of twelve hundred Kentucky militia, arrived in the neighborhood on the 4th, and received orders to detach eight hundred men to attack the British batteries while the remainder was to aid a sortie against the Indians, who had established themselves in the immediate vicinity of the fort, and who were a source of great annoyance to its garrison. Colonel Dudley was placed in command of the larger party, and, agreeably to his instructions, landed on the right bank, and completely succeeded in driving the enemy from his works, and in spiking the cannon. His orders were peremptory to return immediately to his boats on the accomplishment of this object, and repair to the fort; but his men had tasted the sweets of victory, and the rashness which follows success on the part of militia, proved their ruin. They allowed themselves to be amused by some faint attempt at resistance on the part of a small body of Indians in the woods, until the main body of the British, which was some distance in the rear, could be brought up, and a severe and bloody action soon followed. It can hardly be called an action, for the militia were in detached parties, pursuing the scattering troops, when they suddenly found themselves confronted and surrounded by a force double their number, and after a manly effort to retain the victory they had won, they attempted to retreat but found themselves cut off from the river by a force which had got into their rear, to whom they were obliged to surrender themselves prisoners of war. Out of the eight hundred who landed in the morning, only one hundred and fifty escaped massacre or captivity. Colonel Dudley was severely wounded, and afterward tomahawked and scalped. A large portion of the prisoners were marched to the British fort lower down the river, where they immediately became the sport and prey of the Indians, who commenced an indiscriminate slaughter of the unarmed men, until the entreaties of some of the more humane British officers checked it for a time. Another party were placed in charge of a Sergeant and fifty men for the purpose of being embarked in the gunboats, where it was supposed they would be safe from the attacks of the infuriated savages. Upon reaching the encampment, which at that time happened to be deserted by the troops, they were met by a band of Indians who had not been engaged in the contest at all, but, actuated by a brutal thirst for blood, and disappointed at not having a share of the plunder, to which they thought themselves entitled, they determined to satisfy their desires by murdering and stripping the prisoners before them. Perhaps they were actuated by a spirit of revenge for the loss which had been sustained by their friends in the action.