noon
The battle went on for hours . It seemed days to Robert . Mass after mass of British and Colonials continued to charge upon the wooden wall , always to be broken down by the French fire , leaving heaps of their dead among those logs and boughs and on that bristling array of spikes . At last they advanced no more , twilight came over the field , the terrible fire that had raged since noon died , and the sun set upon the greatest military triumph ever won by France in the New World . Twilight gathered over the most sanguinary field America had yet seen . In the east the dark was already at hand , but in the west the light from the sunken sun yet lingered , casting a scarlet glow alike over the fallen and the triumphant faces of the victors . Within the works where the French had stood fires were lighted , and everything there was brilliant , but outside , where so much valor had been wasted , the shadows that seemed to creep out of the illimitable forest grew thicker and thicker .