In their plan, and in its execution, they showed all the courage, all the tenacity, heretofore displayed in their defensive operations, as well as the peculiar, stealthy rockcraft of a nation of hunters, which has equally characterised them.

It is not, however, too much to add that at the supreme moment, when man stands foot to foot and eye to eye, and when the issue depends upon superior aggressive momentum of temperament, the national trait, whether original or acquired, asserted itself; and the heroes who had scaled the heights barefoot, and clung with undying resolution to their rocky cover, exchanging shots almost muzzle to muzzle, did not muster the resolution which might, or might not--the true soldier recks not which at such an hour--have carried them, more than decimated, but triumphant, across the belt of withering fire to victory.

The reply {p.238} of the British colonel on the other side of the sixty yards of plateau that separated the opponents, "We will try"-- a phrase which Americans will remember fell in the same tongue from the lips of our own Colonel Miller at Lundy's Lane--expressed just the difference.

Of the three companies who then rose to their feet on Wagon Hill and rushed, every officer fell and fifty-five of the men; but the bayonets of the survivors reached the other side, and there followed the inevitable result.

The men that would not charge fled.
Of this affair, in which Ladysmith most nearly touched ruin, the salient details only must be briefly told.