Page:History of the Fenian raid on Fort Erie with an account of the Battle of Ridgeway.djvu/66

Rh against the bullets, which whistled through it by scores. When our forces entered Fort Erie this building showed proofs of the desperate nature of the fight which had taken place about it. The walls were perfectly riddled, one small room having some 32 bullet holes through it, all the windows were broken, and it seems a perfect miracle that any of them escaped. Seeing at length that it was impossible to prolong the resistance, this gallant little band of men were obliged to surrender.

Those who with Capt. King fought around the pile of cordwood behaved with the greatest gallantry, fighting desperately against overwhelming odds even until the Fenians had closed in upon them, some of them using the bayonet freely. There is no doubt that one man was killed by a bayonet thrust while endeavouring to effect an entrance into Lewis' house, and I myself found among the prisoners taken by my command the next morning, one man who had a terrible bayonet wound in his chest close up to his neck, this man was wounded by one of those fighting with Capt. King.

Capt. King himself behaved nobly, he stayed with his men encouraging them to fight to the last, and even when struck to the ground by a shot that caused him the loss of his leg, he still cheered on his men setting the example by emptying his revolver at the Fenians while lying on the ground. Seeing the enemy closing in upon him, and not wishing to be taken, he rolled himself off the dock into the river, and was carried by the current under the wharf used by the Waterloo ferry boat, where he held on to one of the piles keeping himself above water. After the fight was over he was taken out by some of the citizens and was sent over to Buffalo with Col. O'Neil's consent.

It would be useless to particularise instances of bravery in this affair, where all behaved so well, Capt. L. McCallum, with fifteen men, after fighting gallantly for some time, retreated along the river road, firing as they went, and were able, some distance down the river, to got on board the tug,