After the British abandoned the siege, the reinforced American army followed up cautiously and forced a second retreat at Cook's Mills but, with the onset of winter and shortage of supplies, they withdrew.

Ripley advocated abandoning the fort and retreating across the Niagara, but Brown overruled him and summoned Brigadier General Edmund P. Gaines from Sackets Harbor to assume command.

The ditch was used as a garbage dump and a sewer by the defenders, creating a slippery and smelly swamp at the base that would slow enemy attacks and likely cause disease in any wounds.

Since the fort was too small to hold the entire American force, they extended the earth wall to the south for an additional 800 metres (0.50 mi) to a rise made of sand, known as Snake Hill, where they constructed a gun battery.

At the time, three small craft from the British naval squadron on Lake Ontario were blockaded in the mouth of the Niagara River by three larger American vessels.

The largest column, of 1,300 soldiers led by Lieutenant Colonel Victor Fischer would outflank the south end of the defenses at Snake Hill.

Finally, a column of 360 soldiers, sailors and marines led by Lieutenant Colonel William Drummond would attack the fort once the other assaults were under way, with the objective of capturing the old British barrack buildings.

A reserve of nearly 700 men (the 1st Battalion of the Royal Scots, the Glengarry Light Infantry, the Incorporated Militia of Upper Canada and those soldiers from the Regiment de Watteville who had not volunteered to take part in Fischer's attack on the Snake Hill battery) was left in the siege lines under Lieutenant Colonel Tucker.

De Watteville's nominally Swiss regiment was made up of men from all over Europe, many of them former prisoners of war or deserters from the armies of Napoleon Bonaparte, and the British commanders suspected their loyalty.

Except for a few steady men, the entire column was ordered to remove their firearms' flints and take the enemy battery on the hill with the bayonet.

Surprise was nearly achieved but because of the rainy weather, the British troops' advance was betrayed by the loud swishing sound made as they passed through high grass.

Those who did try to scale the defenses found that many of the siege ladders built for the attack had been made without taking the ditches into account and were as much as 5 feet (1.5 m) too short to get over the wall.

", and the fighting ceased for almost an entire minute until an American officer, unconvinced by the unfamiliarly accented appeal, shouted back "To Hell with you!"

Using the cover of darkness and the heavy smoke that hung over the field, Drummond then moved his men through the defensive ditch to assault the northeast bastion.

Those under Captain John Williams and Lieutenant Patrick McDonogh who stood and fought were quickly killed[22] as Drummond cried out "Give no Quarter to the Damn Yankees!"

A group of soldiers from the 19th US Infantry (recruits from Ohio who had arrived late the previous evening under Major William Trimble)[citation needed] reorganized themselves in the parade square and poured fire into the bastion.

General Drummond sent only two companies of the 1st Battalion of the Royal Scots to reinforce the attackers; they lost half their men and very few of them even reached the fort.

Major General Jacob Brown had only partly recovered from his wounds received at Lundy's Lane, but he nevertheless returned to Fort Erie to replace the pessimistic Ripley in command.

On 4 September, a detachment of Brigadier General Peter B. Porter's brigade of volunteers from the New York and Pennsylvania Militia was sent out to attack the British Battery No.

At noon on 17 September, Porter's force of volunteers from the militia with the 23rd U.S. Infantry, numbering 1,600 in total,[31] moved along the trail, covered by heavy rain.

They completely surprised the remnants of De Watteville's regiment, who were covering the end of the British siege works, and captured Battery No.

Pattison immediately sprung forward, and called out to the American officer in command to surrender, as resistance would only cause loss of life and could do no good.

[nb 5] The Americans took 382 prisoners (11 officers and 371 enlisted men), indicating that 66 of the British troops marked down as "killed" in the official casualty report were in fact captured.

[39] The thickly wooded nature of the battlefield[40] may have led the compilers of the casualty return to assume that these men were lying dead among the trees and undergrowth.

[43] In a letter to Sir George Prevost, the British commander-in-chief in North America, Drummond cited the continual heavy rain, illness among his men and lack of camp equipment as his reasons for breaking off the siege.

On 21 September, the American naval squadron on Lake Ontario under Commodore Isaac Chauncey ferried the main part of the division to the Genesee River a few miles west of the Niagara, from where they marched to reinforce Brown.

Izard instead waited until 13 October before he began a cautious advance, by which time the British had recovered much of their health and morale, and had strongly fortified the line of the Chippawa Creek.

After some indecisive exchanges of artillery fire at the mouth of the river and a minor success against a British outpost at Cook's Mill on 19 October, Izard withdrew.

On 15 October, the British had launched the first-rate ship of the line HMS St Lawrence on Lake Ontario, and Chauncey's squadron promptly withdrew into Sackett's Harbor.

[45] Many officers (including Brown) accused Izard of cowardice, and he was nearly court martialled as a result, but because of his military expertise and excellent service record, he was moved to a civil position and was eventually made Governor of Arkansas.