Count Donop, with four battalions, consisting of twelve hundred picked Hessians, was sent by Howe to attack Fort Mercer, at Red Bank. They crossed the Delaware, and landed at Cooper's Ferry, on the 21st of October. The same evening they marched [[1777]] to Haddonsfield, in New Jersey, a little above Gloucester. As they approached Timber Creek, on their way down the river, the Americans took up the bridge, and the enemy were obliged to march four miles up the stream to a shallow ford. They arrived at the edge of a wood, within cannon-shot of Fort Mercer, on the morning of the 22d. Their appearance, full-armed for battle, was the first intimation the garrison had of their approach. Although informed that the number of Hessians was twenty-five hundred, the little garrison of four hundred men, in a feeble earth fort, and with only fourteen pieces of cannon, were not intimidated. They made immediate preparations for defense. While thus engaged, a Hessian officer, who was permitted to approach the fort with a flag and a drummer, rode up, and insolently proclaimed, "The King of England orders his rebellious subjects to lay down their arms; and they are warned that, if they stand the battle, no quarters whatever will be given!" ** "We ask no quarters, nor will we give any!" was the prompt reply of Colonel Greene. The Hessian and the drummer rode hastily back to Donop, and the assailants began at once the erection of a battery within half cannon-shot of the outworks of Fort Mercer. All was activity and eagerness for combat within the fort. The outworks were unfinished, but the redoubt was a citadel upon which the garrison placed much reliance. Skill and bravery were called to combat fierceness, discipline, and overwhelming numbers.
It was four o'clock in the afternoon when a brisk cannonade was opened from the Hessian battery, and at a quarter before five a battalion advanced to the attack, on the north part of the fort, near a morass that covered it. Finding the first advance post and the outworks abandoned, but not destroyed, the enemy imagined that they had frightened the Americans away. Filled with this idea, they raised the shout of victory, and, with the drummer just mentioned beating a lively march, rushed toward the redoubt, where not a man was to be seen. They were about to ascend the ramparts, to plant the flag of conquest upon a merlon, when, from the embrasures in front, and from a half-masked battery upon their left flank, formed by an angle of an old embankment, a shower of grape-shot and musket-balls poured upon them with terrible effect, driving them back to the remote intrenchments.