This needless cruelty produced its natural result; Drummond determined upon swift and ample retaliation. In the night of December 18th, just one week after the burning of Newark, he threw across the Niagara a force of five hundred and fifty men. They landed at Five Mile Meadows, three miles above Fort Niagara, and marched upon it at once, arriving there at four o'clock in the morning. McClure, who had received an intimation of the enemy's intention to devastate the American fron{ 163}tier, had gone to Buffalo to raise a force to oppose him. The garrison of the fort consisted of about four hundred and fifty men, a large number of whom were in the hospital. The command had been left to a Captain Leonard, who at this time was three miles away, sleeping at a farm-house.
The most elaborate preparations had been made for the capture of the fort, including scaling-ladders for mounting the bastions. But the Americans seemed to have studied to make the task as easy as possible. The sentries were seized and silenced before they could give any alarm, and the main gate was found standing wide open, so that the British had only to walk straight in and begin at once the stabbing which had been determined upon.
The guard in the south-east block-house fired one volley, by which the British commander, Colonel Murray, was wounded, and a portion of the invalids made what resistance they could. A British lieutenant and five men were killed, and a surgeon and three men wounded. Sixty-five Americans, two thirds of whom were invalids, were bayoneted in their beds; fifteen others, who had taken refuge in the cellars, were despatched in the same manner, and fourteen were wounded; twenty escaped, and all the others, about three hundred and forty, were made prisoners. Some accounts say also that the { 164}women, in the fort were treated with great cruelty and indignity.
On the same morning, General Riall, with a detachment of British troops and five hundred Indians, crossed from Queenstown and attacked Lewiston. The small force of Americans here, under Major Bennett, fought till they were surrounded, and then cut their way out through the enemy, losing eight men. The village was then plundered and burned, the savages adding all the atrocities characteristic of their mode of warfare.