On the 2d of November, however, Colonel Festing again marched out from Dunquah with a hundred men of the 2d West India regiment, nine hundred native allies, and some Houssas with rockets, under Lieutenant Wilmot, towards the Ashanti camp. This time Ammon Quatia was not taken by surprise. His scouts informed him of the approach of the column, and moving out to meet them, he attacked them in the bush before they reached the camp. Crouching among the trees the Ashantis opened a tremendous fire. All the native allies, with the exception of a hundred, bolted at once, but the remainder, with the Houssas and West Indians, behaved with great steadiness and gallantry, and for two hours kept up a heavy Snider fire upon their invisible foes.
Early in the fight Lieutenant Wilmot, while directing the rocket tube, received a severe wound in the shoulder. He, however, continued at his work till, just as the fight was ended, he was shot through the heart with a bullet. Four officers were wounded as were thirteen men of the 2d West India regiment. One of the natives was killed, fifty severely wounded, and a great many slightly. After two hours' fighting Colonel Festing found the Ashantis were working round to cut off his retreat, and therefore fell back again on Dunquah. The conduct of the native levies here and in two or three smaller reconnaisances was so bad that it was found that no further dependence could be placed upon them, and, with the exception of the two partly disciplined regiments under Colonel Wood and Major Russell, they were in future treated as merely fit to act as carriers for the provisions.
Although the second reconnaissance from Dunquah had, like the first, been unsuccessful, its effect upon the Ashantis was very great. They had themselves suffered great loss, while they could not see that any of their enemies had been killed, for Lieutenant Wilmot's body had been carried off. The rockets especially appalled them, one rocket having killed six, four of whom were chiefs who were talking together. It was true that the English had not succeeded in forcing their way through the bush, but if every time they came out they were to kill large numbers without suffering any loss themselves, they must clearly in the long run be victorious.