He died with his men, but once more British pluck attempted the impossible, and the Highland brigade was chosen to lead this forlorn hope. That night the pipers wailed _Lochaber no more_ for the mangled dead of the MacGregors, the MacLeans, and the MacDonalds who lay in windrows with their faces to the foe. This was no Bladensburg holiday, and the despised Americans were paying off many an old score. Two thousand of the flower of Britain's armies were killed or wounded in the few minutes during which the two assaults were so rashly attempted in parade formation. Coolly, as though at a prize turkey shoot on a tavern green, the American riflemen fired into these masses of doomed men, and every bullet found its billet. On the right of the line a gallant British onslaught led by Colonel Rennie swept over a redoubt and the American defenders died to a man. But the British wave was halted and rolled back by a tempest of bullets from the line beyond, and the broken remnant joined the general retreat which was sounded by the British trumpeters. An armistice was granted next day and in shallow trenches the dead were buried, row on row, while the muffled drums rolled in honor of three generals, seven colonels, and seventy-five other officers who had died with their men. Behind the log walls and earthworks loafed the unkempt, hilarious heroes of whom only seventy-one had been killed or hurt, and no more than thirteen of these in the grand assault which Pakenham had led. "Old Hickory" had told them that they could lick their weight in wildcats, and they were ready to agree with him.