noon
`` Within the next twenty-four hours a fourth battery was opened . The British had been making mounds in the thickets near the angles of the fort , and that night a detachment of artillerists and engineers crossed the river and mounted guns and mortars upon them . One was a mortar battery , the other a three-gun gun battery . The Americans had expected something of the kind , and had raised traverses in time to foil their enemy ; and when toward noon of the 3d the three cannon and the howitzers suddenly began firing upon the rear angles of the fort , they did scarcely any damage . `` A few shots by our men from their eighteen-pounders soon silenced the gun battery , and the British hastily moved the cannon and placed them near the ravine . During the 3d they hurled shot and shell steadily upon the fort , but with so little effect that the besiegers grew discouraged , and on the 4th the fire was not nearly so constant . `` Then Proctor sent Major Chambers with a demand for the surrender of the fort , and Harrison promptly responded , ` Tell General Proctor that if he shall take the fort it will be under circumstances that will do him more honor than a thousand surrenders . '