9th. About 3 o’clock P.M. the French opened a battery on our extreme left, of 4 Sixteen pounders, and Six Morters & Hawitzers and at 5 oclock an American battery of Six 18s & 24s; four Morters & 2 Hawitzers, began to play from the extremity of our right—both with good effect as they compelled the Enemy to withdraw from their ambrazures the Pieces which had previously kept up a constant firing.1
1. According to Dr. James Thacher, “his Excellency General Washington put the match to the first gun, and a furious discharge of cannon and mortars immediately followed, and Earl Cornwallis has received his first salutation” (, 283).