At this momentous crisis a droll occurrence took place; a company of blacks emerged out of the mist, carrying ladders, which were intended for the three light companies for the left attack, but these Ethiopians were so confounded at the multiplicity of noises, that without farther ado, they dropped the ladders and fell flat on their faces, and without doubt, had their claws been of sufficient length, they would have scratched holes and buried themselves from such an unpleasant admixture of sounds and concatenation of iron projectiles, which seemed at war with one another, coming from two opposite directions at one and the same time.
If these blacks were only intended to carry the ladders to the three light companies on the left, they were too late. The great bulk of them were cut to pieces before the ladders were within reach of them; even if the best troops in the world had been carrying them, they would not have been up in time. This was very odd, and more than odd; it looked as if folly stalked abroad in the English camp. One or two officers went to the front in search of some responsible person to obtain orders _ad interim_; finding myself the senior officer, I at once, making a double as it were, or, as Napoleon recommended, marched to the spot where the heaviest firing was going on; at a run we neared the American line. The mist was now rapidly clearing away, but, owing to the dense smoke, we could not at first distinguish the attacking columns of the British troops to our right.
We now also caught a view of the seventh and the forty-third regiments in _echelon_ on our right, near the wood, the royal fusileers being within about 300 yards of the enemy's lines, and the forty-third deploying into line 200 yards in _echelon_ behind the fusileers. These two regiments were every now and then almost enveloped by the clouds of smoke that hung over their heads, and floated on their flanks, and the echo from the cannonade and musketry was so tremendous in the forests, that the vibration seemed as if the earth were cracking and tumbling to pieces, or as if the heavens were rent asunder by the most terrific peals of thunder that ever rumbled; it was the most awful and the grandest mixture of sounds to be conceived; the woods seemed to crack to an interminable distance, each cannon report was answered one hundred fold, and produced an intermingled roar surpassing strange. And this phenomenon can neither be fancied nor described, save by those who can bear evidence of the fact. And the flashes of fire looked as if coming out of the bowels of the earth, so little above its surface were the batteries of the Americans.