During the night attack on Stony Point, Captain Francis Tew stood near the abatis with four companies of the 17th Regiment, part of a British garrison of 564 men. At this spot, a small defensive position called flech #2 held two Cohorn mortars to guard the approach to the Outer Works. Stony Point was bounded on the west by a marsh that turned the peninsula into an island at high tide. At about midnight, an officer’s picket, part of the 88 sentries on duty, heard the advancing Americans, fired warning shots, and retreated. Lieutenant William Simpson of Tew’s company recalled that about ten minutes later he heard a party of about 30 men in confusion on his right and mistook them for British troops until he was wounded and taken prisoner. Soon afterward, Lieutenant Colonel Johnson, the commander of Stony Point, also mistook the attackers in the extreme darkness for his own men, tried to give them orders to face the enemy, was challenged, and then narrowly escaped when he realized his error and saw bayonets turned on him.