 CHAPTER IV. BROCK AT DETROIT AND QUEENSTON HIGHTS. The prorogation which released Brock from his parliamentary duties on August 5th had been followed by eight days of the most strenuous military work, especially on the part of the little reinforcement which he was taking west to Amherstburg. The upper Canada militiamen, drawn from the United Empire Loyalists and from the British Born, had responded with hardy goodwill, all the way from Glen Gary to Niagara. But the population was so scattered and equipment so scarce that no attempt had been made to have whole battalions of select embodied militia ready for the beginning of the war, as in the more thickly peopled province of lower Canada. The best that could be done was to embody the two flank companies, the Light and Grenadier companies, of the most urgently needed battalions. But as these companies contained all the picked men who were readyest for immediate service, and as the Americans were very slow in mobilizing their own still more unready army, Brock found that, for the time being, York could be left and Detroit attacked with nothing more than his handful of regulars, backed by the flank company militiamen and the provincial marine. Leaving York the very day he closed the house there, Brock sailed over to Burlington Bay, marched across the neck of the Niagara Peninsula, and embarked at long point with every man the boats could carry, three hundred, all told, forty regulars of the forty first and two hundred and sixty flank company militiamen. Then for the next five days he fought his way inch by inch along the north shore of Lake Erie against a persistent westerly storm. The news, by the way, was discouraging. Hull's invasion had unsettled the Indians as far east as the Niagara Peninsula, which the local militia were consequently afraid to leave defenseless. But once Brock had reached the scene of action, his insight showed him what bold skill could do to turn the tide of feeling all along the western frontier. It was getting on for one o'clock in the morning of August fourteenth when Lieutenant Rowlett challenged Brock's leading boat from aboard the provincial marine schooner General Hunter. As Brock stepped ashore he ordered all commanding officers to meet him within an hour. He then read Hull's dispatches, which had been taken by Rowlett with the captured schooner and by Tecumseh at Brownstone. By two o'clock all the principal officers and Indian chiefs had assembled, not as a council of war, but simply to tell Brock everything they knew. Only Tecumseh and Colonel Nicol, the quartermaster of the little army, thought that Detroit itself could be attacked with any prospect of success. Brock listened attentively, made up his mind, told his officers to get ready for immediate attack, asked Tecumseh to assemble all the Indians at noon, and dismissed the meeting at four. Brock and Tecumseh read each other at a glance, and Tecumseh, beginning to the tribal chiefs, said simply, This is a man, accommodation approved by the Mall with laconic, deep, ho-hose. Tecumseh was the last great leader of the Indian race and perhaps the finest embodiment of all its better qualities. Like Pontiac, fifty years before, but in a nobler way, he tried to unite the Indians against the exterminating American advance. He was apparently on the eve of forming his Indian Alliance when he returned home to find that his brother, the Prophet, had just been defeated at Tipakannu. The defeat itself was no great thing, but it came precisely at a time when it could exert most influence on the unstable Indian character and be most effective in breaking up the Alliance of the tribes. Tecumseh, dividing this at once, lost no time in vain regrets, but joined the British next year at Amherstburg. He came with only thirty followers, but stray warriors kept on arriving, and many of the bolder spirits joined him when war became imminent. At the time of Brock's arrival there were a thousand effective Indians under arms. Their arming was only authorized at the last minute, for Brock's dispatch to Prevost shows how strictly neutral the Canadian government had been throughout the recent troubles between the Indians and the Americans. He mentions that the chiefs at Amherstburg had long been trying to obtain the muskets and ammunition which for years had been withheld, agreeably to the instructions received from Sir James Craig, and since repeated by Your Excellency. Precisely at noon Brock took his stand beneath a giant oak at Amherstburg surrounded by his officers. Before him sat Tecumseh. Behind Tecumseh sat the chiefs, and behind the chiefs a thousand Indians in their war paint. Brock then stepped forward to address them. Correct, alert, broad-shouldered and magnificently tall, blue-eyed, fair-haired, with frank and handsome countenance, he looked every inch the champion of a great and righteous cause. He said the long knives had come to take away the land from both the Indians and the British whites, and that now he would not be content merely to repulse them, but would follow and beat them on their own side of Detroit. After the pause that was usual on grave occasions, Tecumseh rose and answered for all his followers. He stood there, the ideal of an Indian chief, tall, stately and commanding, yet tense, lith, observant, and always ready for his spring. He the tiger, Brock the lion, and both unflinchingly at bay. Next morning, August 15, an early start was made for sandwich, some twelve miles north, where a five-gun battery was waiting to be unmasked against Detroit across the river. Inside a sandwich, Brock immediately sent across his aide to camp, Colonel MacDonald, with a letter summoning Hull to surrender. Hull wrote back to say he was prepared to stand his ground. Brock at once unmasked his battery and made ready to attack next day. With the men on detachment, Hull still had a total of twenty-five hundred. Brock had only fifteen hundred, including the provincial marine. But Hull's men were losing what discipline they had and were becoming distrustful, both of their leaders and of themselves, while Brock's men were gaining discipline, zeal, and inspiring confidence with every hour. Besides, the British were all affectives, while Hull had over five hundred absent from Detroit and as many more ineffective on the spot, which left him only fifteen hundred actual combatants. He also had a thousand noncombatants, men, women, and children, all cowering for shelter from the dangers of battle, and half dead with the far more terrifying apprehension of an Indian massacre. Brock's five-gun battery made excellent practice during the afternoon without suffering any material damage in return. One chance shell produced a most dismaying effect in Detroit by killing Hanks, the late commandant of Mackinac, and three other officers with him. At twilight, the firing ceased on both sides. Immediately after dark, Tecumseh led six hundred eager followers down to their canoes a little way below Sandwich. These Indians were told off by tribes, as battalions are by companies. There in silent dusky groups, moving soft-footed on their moccasins through the gloom, were Shawnees and Miami's from Tecumseh's own lost home beside the Wabash, Fox's and Sax from the Iowan Valley, Ottawa's and Wyandott's, Chippewa's and Potawatomie's, some braves from the middle prairies between the Illinois and the Mississippi, and even Winnebagos and Dakotas from the far northwest. The flotilla of crowded canoes moved stealthily across the river, with no louder noise than the rippling current made. As secretly, the Indians crept ashore, stole inland through the quiet night, and circling north cut off Hull's army from the woods. Little did Hull's anxious sentries think that some of the familiar cries of nightbirds round the fort were signals being passed along from scout to scout. As the beautiful summer dawn began to break at four o'clock that fateful Sunday morning, the British force fell in, only seven hundred strong, and more than half militia. The thirty gunners who had served in the sandwich battery so well the day before also fell in, with five little field pieces, in case Brock could force a battle in the open. Their places in the battery were ably filled by every man of the provincial marine, whom Captain Hull could spare from the Queen Charlotte, the flagship of the tiny Canadian flotilla. Brock's men and his light artillery were soon afloat and making for spring wells, more than three miles below Detroit. Then, as the Queen Charlotte ran up her sunrise flag, she and the sandwich battery roared out a challenge to which the Americans replied with random aim. Brock leaped ashore, formed front towards Hull, got into touch with Tecumseh's Indians on his left, and saw that the British land and water batteries were protecting his right as prearranged with Captain Hull. He had intended to wait in this position, hoping that Hull would march out to the attack. But even before his men had finished taking post, the whole problem was suddenly changed by the arrival of an Indian to say that MacArthur's four hundred picked men, whom Hull had sent south to bring in the convoy, were returning to Detroit at once. There was now only a moment to decide whether to retreat across the river, form front against MacArthur, or rush Detroit immediately. But within that fleeting moment Brock devined the true solution and decided to march straight on. With Tecumseh riding a gray Mustang by his side, he led the way in person. He wore his full dress, golden scarlet uniform, and rode his Charger Alfred, the splendid gray which Governor Craig had given him the year before, with the recommendation that the whole continent of America could not furnish you with so safe and excellent a horse, and for the good reason that I wished to secure from my old favorite a kind and careful master. The seven hundred red coats made a gallant show, all the more imposing because the militia were wearing some spare uniforms borrowed from the regulars, and because the confident appearance of the whole body led the discouraged Americans to think that these few could only be the vanguard of much greater numbers. So strong was this belief that Hull, in sudden panic, sent over to Sandwich to treat for terms, and was astounded to learn that Brock and Tecumseh were the two men on the big gray horses straight in front of him. While Hull's envoys were crossing the river and returning, the Indians were beginning to raise their war-whoops in the woods, and Brock was reconnoitering within a mile of the fort. This looked formidable enough, if properly defended, as the ditch was six feet deep and twelve feet wide. The parapet rose twenty feet, the palisades were of twenty-inch cedar, and thirty-three guns were pointed through the embrasures. But Brock correctly estimated the human element inside, and was just on the point of advancing to the assault when Hull's white flag went up. The terms were soon agreed upon. Hull's Hull Army, including all detachments, surrendered as prisoners of war, while the territory of Michigan passed into the military possession of King George. Places of food and military stores fell into British hands. Together with the Adams, a fine new brig that had just been completed. She was soon rechristened the Detroit. The Americans sullenly trooped out. The British elatedly marched in. The stars and stripes came down defeated. The Union Jack went up victorious and was received with a royal salute from all the British ordnance, a float and a shore. The Indians came out of the woods, yelling with delight in firing their muskets in the air. But grouped by tribes they remained outside the Fordon settlement, and not a single outrage was committed. Tecumseh himself rode in with Brock, and the two great leaders stood out in front of the British line while the colors were being changed. Then Brock, in view of all his soldiers, presented his sash and pistols to Tecumseh. Tecumseh in turn gave his many-colored Indian sash to Brock, who wore it till the day he died. The effect of the British success at Detroit far exceeded that which had followed the capture of Mackinac and the evacuation of Fort Dearborn. Those, however important to the West, were regarded as mainly Indian affairs. This was a white man's victory and a white man's defeat. Hull's proclamation, thenceforth, became a laughing stock. The American invasion had proved a fiasco. The First American Army, to take the field, had failed at every point. More significant still, the Americans were shown to be feeble in organization and egregiously mistaken in their expectations. Canada, on the other hand, had already found her champion, and men quite fit to follow him. Brock left Proctor in charge of the West and hurried back to the Niagara frontier. Arrived at Fort Erie on August 23rd he was dismayed to hear of a dangerously one-sided armistice that had been arranged with the enemy. This had been first proposed on even terms by Prevost, and then eagerly accepted by Dearborn after being modified in favor of the Americans. In proposing an armistice, Prevost had rightly interpreted the wishes of the Imperial Government. It was wise to see whether further hostilities could not be averted altogether, for the obnoxious orders in council had been repealed. But Prevost was criminally weak in assenting to the condition that all movements of men and materiel should continue on the American side when he knew that corresponding movements were impossible on the British side for life of transport. Dearborn, the American Commander-in-Chief was only a second-rate general, but he was more than a match for Prevost at making bargains. Prevost was one of those men who succeed halfway up and fail at the top. Pure Swiss by blood he had, like his father, spent his life in the British Army, and had risen to the rank of Lieutenant General. He had served with some distinction in the West Indies, and had been made a baronet for defending Dominica in 1805. In 1808 he became Governor of Nova Scotia, and in 1811, at the age of forty-four, Governor General and Commander-in-Chief of Canada. He and his wife were popular both in the West Indies and in Canada, and he undoubtedly deserved well of the Empire for having conciliated the French Canadians, who had been irritated by his predecessor, the abrupt and masterful Craig. A very important Army Bill Act was greatly due to his diplomatic handling of the French Canadians, who found him so congenial that they stood by him to the end. His native tongue was French. He understood French ways and manners to perfection, and he consequently had far more than the usual sympathy with the people whose nature and circumstances made them particularly sensitive to real or fancied slights. All this is more to his credit than his enemies were willing to admit, either then or afterwards. But in spite of all these good qualities, Prevost was not the man to safeguard British honour during the supreme ordeal of a war, and if he had lived in earlier times, when nicknames were more apt to become historic, he might well have gone down to posterity as Prevost the Pusilanimus. Day after day Prevost's armistice kept the British helpless, while supplies and reinforcements for the Americans poured in at every advantageous point. Brock was held back from taking either Sackett's Harbour, which was, meanwhile, being strongly reinforced from Ogdensburg or Fort Niagara, which was being reinforced from Oswego. Proctor was held back from taking Fort Wayne at the point of the salient angle south of Lake Michigan and the west of Lake Erie, a quite irretrievable loss. For the moment the British had the command of all the lakes, but their golden opportunity passed, never to return. By land their chances were also quickly disappearing. On September 1, a week before the armistice ended, there were less than seven hundred Americans directly opposed to Brock, who commanded in person at Queenston and Fort George. On the day of the battle in October there were nearly ten times as many along the Niagara frontier. The very day Brock heard that the disastrous armistice was over, he proposed an immediate attack on Sackett's Harbour, but Prevost refused to sanction it. Brock then turned his whole attention to the Niagara frontier, where the Americans were assembling in such numbers that to attack them was out of the question. The British began to receive a few supplies and reinforcements, but the Americans now had got such a long start that on the fateful thirteenth of October they outnumbered Brock's men four to one, four thousand to one thousand along the critical fifteen miles between the Falls and Lake Ontario, and sixty eight hundred to seventeen hundred along the whole Niagara River from Lake to Lake, a distance of thirty three miles. The factors which helped to address the adverse balance of these odds were Brock himself, his disciplined regulars, the intense loyalty of the militia, and the telegraph. This telegraph was a system of visually signalling by semaphore, much the same as that which Wellington had used along the lines of Torres Fedros. The immediate moral effect, however, were even more favourable to the Americans than the mere physical odds, for Prevost's armistice both galled and chilled the British, who were eager to strike a blow. American confidence had been much shaken in September by the site of the prisoners from Detroit, who had been marched along the River Road in full view of the other side, but it increased rapidly in October as reinforcements poured in. On the eighth the Council of War decided to attack Fort George and Queenston Heights, simultaneously with every available man. But Smith, the American general commanding above the falls, refused to cooperate. This compelled the adoption of a new plan in which only a faint was to be made against Fort George, while Queenston Heights were to be carried by storm. The change entailed a good deal of extra preparation. But when Lieutenant Elliot of the American Navy cut out two British vessels at Fort Erie on the ninth, the news made the American troops so clamours for an immediate invasion that their general, Ben Rennisler, was afraid either to resist them or to let their ardour cool. In the American camp opposite Queenston all was bustle on the tenth of October, and at three the next morning the whole army was again a stir, waiting till the vanguard had seized the landing on the British side. But a wrong leader had been chosen, mistakes were plentiful, and confusion followed. Nearly all the oars had been put into the first boat, which having overshot the mark was made fast on the British side, whereupon its commander disappeared. The troops on the American shore shivered in the drenching autumn rain till after daylight. Then they went back to their sodden camp, wet, angry and disgusted. While the rain came down in torrents the principal officers were busy revising their plans. Smith was evidently not to be depended upon, but it was thought that, with all the other advantages of the initiative, the four thousand other Americans could overpower the one thousand British and secure a permanent hold on the Queenston Heights just above the village. These heights ran back from the Niagara River along Lake Ontario for sixty miles west, curving northeastwards round Burlington Bay to Dundas Street, which was the one regular landline of communication running west from York. Therefore, if the Americans could hold both the Niagara and the Heights, they would cut upper Canada in two. This was of course quite evident to both sides. The only doubtful questions were, how should the first American attack be made, and how should it be met? The American general, Stephen van Rennesler, was a civilian who had been placed at the head of the New York State Militia by Governor Tompkins, both to emphasize the fact that expert regulars were only wanted as subordinates and to win a cunning move in the game of party politics. Van Rennesler was not only one of the greatest of the old patroons who formed the landed aristocracy of Dutch New York, but he was also a Federalist. Tompkins, who was a Democrat, therefore hoped to gain his party ends whatever the result might be. Victory would mean that van Rennesler had been compelled to advance the cause of a war to which he objected, while the feat would discredit both him and his party, besides providing Tompkins with the excuse that it would have all happened very differently if a Democrat had been in charge. CHAPTER IV Van Rennesler, a man of sense and honor, took the expert advice of his cousin, Colonel Solomon van Rennesler, who was irregular in the chief of the staff. It was Solomon van Rennesler who had made both plans, the one of the eighth for attacking Fort George and the Heights together, and the one of the tenth for fainting against Fort George while attacking the Heights. Brock was puzzled about what was going to happen next. He knew that the enemy were four to one and that they could certainly attack both places if Smith would cooperate. He also knew that they had boats and men ready to circle around Fort George from the American Four Mile Creek on the lake shore behind Fort Niagara. Moreover, he was naturally inclined to think that when the boats prepared for the eleventh were left opposite Queenston all day long and the next day too, they were probably intended to distract his attention from Fort George, where he had fixed his own headquarters. On the twelfth the American plan was matured and concentration began at Lewiston opposite Queenston. Such detachments came in, under perfect cover, from Four Mile Creek behind Fort Niagara. A smaller number marched down from the falls and from Smith's command still higher up. The camps at Lewiston and the neighboring Tuscarora village were partly concealed from every point on the opposite bank, so that the British could form no safe idea of what the Americans were about. Solomon van Rennesler was determined that the advanced guards should do its duty this time, so he took charge of it himself and picked out forty gunners, three hundred regular infantry, and three hundred of the best militia to make the first attack. These were to be supported by seven hundred regulars. The rest of the four thousand men available were to cross over afterwards. The current was strong, but the river was little more than two hundred yards wide at Queenston, and it could be crossed in less than ten minutes. The Queenston Heights themselves were a more formidable obstacle, even if defended only by a few men, as they rose three hundred and forty-five feet above the landing place. There were only three hundred British in Queenston to meet the first attack of over thirteen hundred Americans, but they consisted of the two flank companies of Brock's Old Regiment, the Forty Knight, supported by some excellent militia. A single gun stood on the heights. Another was at Vrooman's Point a mile below. Two miles farther, at Brown's Point, stood another gun with another detachment of militia. Four miles further still was Fort George, and Brock and his second in command Colonel Sheaf of the Forty-ninth. About nine miles above the heights was the little camp at Chippewa, which, as we shall see, managed to spare one hundred and fifty men for the second phase of the battle. The few hundred British above this had to stand by their own posts in case Smith should try and attack on his own account, somewhere between the Falls and Lake Erie. At half-past three in the dark morning of the thirteenth of October, Solomon van Rennesler, with two hundred and twenty-five regulars, sprang ashore at the Queenston ferry-landing and began to climb the bank. But hardly had they shown their heads above the edge before the Grenadier Company of the Forty-ninth, under Captain Dennis, poured in a stinging volley which sent them back to cover. Van Rennesler was badly wounded and was immediately ferried back. The American supports, under Colonel Christie, had trouble in getting across, and the immediate command of the invaders devolved upon another regular, Captain Wool. As soon as the rest of the first attachment had landed, Wool took some three hundred infantry and a few gunners, half of all who were then present, and led them upstream, in a single file, by a fisherman's path which curved round and came out on top of the heights, behind the single British gun there. Progress was very slow in this direction, though the distance was less than a mile, as it was still pitch-dark and the path was narrow and dangerous. The three hundred left at the landing were soon reinforced, and the crossing went on successfully, though some of the American boats were carried downstream to the British post at Vroomins, where all the men in them were made prisoners and marched off to Fort George. Meanwhile, down at Fort George, Brock had been roused by the cannonade only three hours after he had finished his dispatches. Twenty-four American guns were firing hard at Queenston from the opposite shore, and two British guns were replying. Fort Niagara, across the river from Fort George, then began to speak, whereupon Fort George answered back. Thus the sound of musketry, five to seven miles away, was drowned, and Brock waited anxiously to learn whether the real attack was being driven home at Queenston or whether the Americans were circling round from their four-mile creek against his own position at Fort George. Four o'clock passed. The roar of battle still came down from Queenston. But this might be a faint. Not even Dennis at Queenston could tell as yet whether the main American army was coming against him or not. But he knew they must be crossing in considerable force, so he sent a dragoon galloping down to Brock, who was already in the saddle giving orders to Sheef and to the next senior officer, Evans, when this messenger arrived. Sheef was to follow towards Queenston the very instant the Americans had shown their hand decisively in that direction, while Evans was to stay at Fort George and keep down the fire from Fort Niagara. Then Brock set spurs to Alfred and raced for Queenston Heights. It was a race for more than his life, for more even than his own and his army's honour. It was a race for the honour, integrity, and very life of Canada. Miles ahead he could see the spurting flashes of the guns, the British too against the American twenty-four. Presently his quick eye caught the fitful running flicker of the opposing lines of musketry above the landing-place at Queenston. As he dashed on he met a second messenger, Lieutenant Jarvis, who was riding down full speed to confirm the news first brought by the dragoon. Brock did not dare draw rain, so he beckoned Jarvis to Gallup back beside him. A couple of minutes sufficed for Brock to understand the whole situation and make his plan accordingly. Then Jarvis wheeled back with orders for Sheef to bring up every available man, circle round inland, and get in touch with the Indians. A few strides more, and Brock was ordering the men on from Brown's point. He paused another moment at Vroomans to note the practice being made by the single gun there. Then urging his gallant gray to one last turn of speed, he burst into Queenston through the misty dawn just where the grenadiers of his own old regiment stood at bay. In his full dress red and gold, with the arrow-pattern sash Tecumseh had given him as a badge of honour at Detroit, he looked from plume to spur a hero who could turn the tide of battle against any odds. A ringing cheer broke out in greeting, but he paused no longer than just enough to wave a greeting back and take a quick look round before scaling the heights, to where eight gunners with their single eighteen pounder were making a desperate effort to check the Americans at the landing place. Here he disbouted to survey the whole seat of action. The Americans attacking Queenston seemed to be at least twice as strong as the British. The artillery odds were twelve to one, and over two thousand Americans were drawn up on the farther side of the narrow Niagara waiting their turn for the boats. Nevertheless the British seemed to be holding their own. The crucial question was, could they hold it till sheaf came up from Fort George, till Bullock had come down from Chippewa, till both had formed front on the heights with Indians on their flanks and artillery support from below? A loud, exultant cheer sounded straight behind him, a crackling fire broke out, and he saw wolves Americans coming over the crest and making straight for the gun. He was astounded, and well he might be, since the fisherman's path had been reported impassable by the troops. But he instantly changed the order he happened to be giving from try a longer fuse to spike the gun and follow me. With a sharp clang the spike went home, and the gunners followed Brock downhill towards Queenston. There was no time to mount, and Alfred trotted down beside his swiftly running master. The elated Americans fired hard, but their bullets all flew high. Wolves three hundred then got into position on the heights, while Brock and the village below was collecting the nearest hundred men that could be spared for an assault on the invaders. Brock rapidly formed his men and led them out of the village at a fast run to a low stone wall, where he halted and said, Take breath boys, you'll need it presently, on which they cheered. He then dismounted and padded Alfred, whose flanks still heed from his exertions. The men felt the sockets of their bayonets, took breath, and then followed Brock, who presently climbed the wall and drew his sword. He first led them a short distance inland, with the intention of gaining the heights at the enemy's own level, before turning riverwards for the final charge. Wolve immediately formed front with his back to the river, and Brock led the one hundred British straight at the American center, which gave way before him. Still he pressed on, waving his sword as an encouragement for the rush that was to drive the enemy down the cliff. The spiked eighteen pounder was recaptured and success seemed certain. But just as his men were closing in, and Americans slipped out of the trees only thirty yards away, took deliberate aim and shot him dead. The nearest men at once clustered round to help him, and one of the forty-ninth fell dead across his body. The Americans made the most of this target and hit several more. Then the remaining British broke their ranks and retired, carrying Brock's body to a house at Queenston, where it remained throughout the day, while the battle raged all around. Wolve now reformed his three hundred and ordered his gunners to drill out the eighteen pounder and turn it against Queenston, where the British were themselves reforming for a second attack. This was made by two hundred men of the forty-ninth and York Militia, led by Colonel John MacDonald, the Attorney General of Upper Canada, who was acting as aid to camp to Brock. Again the Americans were driven back. Again the gun was recaptured. Again the British leader was shot at the critical moment. Again the attack failed. And again the British retreated into Queenston. Wolve then hoisted the stars and stripes over the fiercely disputed gun, and several more boatloads of soldiers at once crossed over to the Canadian side, raising the American total there to sixteen hundred men. With this force on the heights, with a still larger force waiting impatiently to cross, with twenty-four guns in action, and with the heart of the whole defence known to be lying dead in Queenston, an American victory seemed to be so well assured that a courier was sent post-haste to announce the good news, both at Albany and at Dearborn's headquarters just across the Hudson. This done, Stephen Van Renesler decided to confirm his success by going over to the Canadian side of the river himself. Arrived there, he consulted the senior regulars and ordered the troops to entrench the heights, fronting Queenston while the rest of his army was crossing. But just when the action had reached such an apparently victorious stage, there was first a pause, and then a slightly adverse change, which soon became decidedly ominous. It was as if the flood tide of invasion had already passed the full and the ebb was setting in. Far off, downstream, at Fort Niagara, the American fire began to falter and gradually grow dumb. But at the British Fort George opposite the guns were served as well as ever, till they had silenced the enemy completely. While this was happening, the main garrison, now free to act elsewhere, were marching out with swinging step and taking the road for Queenston Heights. Nearby at Lewiston, the American twenty-four gun battery was slackening its noisy cannonade, which had been comparatively ineffective from the first, while the single British gun at Vroomans, vigorous and effective as before, was reinforced by two most accurate field pieces under Holcroft in Queenston Village, where the wounded but undaunted Dennis was rallying his disciplined regulars and loyalist militiamen for another fight. On the Heights themselves the American musketry had slackened, while most of the men were entrenching, but the Indian fire kept growing closer and more dangerous. Upstream, on the American side of the falls, a half-hearted American detachment had been reluctantly sent down by the egregious Smith, while on the other side a hundred and fifty eager British were pressing forward to join chiefsmen from Fort George. As the converging British drew near them, the Americans on the Heights began to feel the ebbing of their victory. The least disciplined soon lost confidence and began to slink down to the boats, and very few boats returned when once they had reached their own side safely. These slinkers naturally made the most of the dangers they had been expecting, a ruthless Indian massacre included. The boatmen, nearly all civilians, began to desert. Alarming doubts and rumors quickly spread confusion through the masked militia, who now perceived that instead of crossing to celebrate a triumph they would have to fight a battle. John Lovett, who served with credit in the big American battery, gave a graphic description of the scene. The name of Indian, or the side of the wounded, or the devil, or something else, petrified them. Not a regiment, not a company, scarcely a man would go. Ben Rennesler went through the disintegrating ranks and did his utmost to revive the Arter which had been so impetuous only an hour before, but he ordered, swore, and begged in vain. Meanwhile, the tide of resolution, hope, and coming triumph was rising fast among the British. They were the attackers now, they had one distinct objective, and their leaders were men whose lives had been devoted to the art of war. Sheep took his time. Arrived near Queenston, he saw that his three guns and two hundred muskets there could easily prevent the two thousand disorganized American militia from crossing the river. So he wheeled to his right, marched to St. David's, and then, wheeling to his left, gained the heights two miles beyond the enemy. The men from Chippewa marched in and joined him. The line of attack was formed, with the Indians spread out on the flanks and curving forward. The British in Queenston, seeing the utter impotence of the Americans who refused to cross over, turned their fire against the heights, and the invaders at once realized that their position had now become desperate. When Sheep struck inland, an immediate charge of the American front was required to meet him. Hitherto the Americans on the heights had faced downstream, towards Queenston, at right angles to the river. Now they were obliged to face inward, with their backs to the river. Wadsworth, the American militia brigadier, a very gallant member of a very gallant family, immediately waved his rank in favor of Colonel Winfield Scott, a well-trained regular. Scott and Wadsworth then did all that men could do in such a dire predicament. But most of the militia became unmanageable. Some of the regulars were comparatively raw. There was confusion in front, desertion in the rear, and no coherent whole to meet the rapidly approaching shock. On came the steady British line, with the exultant Indians thrown well forward on the flanks, while the indomitable single-gun at Vrooman's Point backed up Holcroft's two guns in Queenston, and the two hundred muskets under Dennis joined in this distracting fire against the American right, till the very last moment. The American left was in almost as bad a case, because it had got entangled in the woods beyond the summit and become enveloped by the Indians there. The rear was even worse, as men slank off from it at every opportunity. The front stood fast under Winfield Scott and Wadsworth, but not for long. The British brought their bayonets down and charged. The Indians raised the war-whoop and bounded forward. The Americans fired a hurried, nervous, straggling fusillade, then broke and fled in wild confusion. A very few climbed down the cliff and swam across. Not a single boat came over from the petrified militia. Some more Americans, attempting flight, were killed by falling headlong or by drowning. Most of them clustered among the trees near the edge and surrendered at discretion when Winfield Scott, seeing all was lost, waved his handkerchief on the point of his sword. The American loss was about a hundred killed, two hundred wounded, and nearly a thousand prisoners. The British loss was trifling by comparison, only a hundred and fifty altogether. But it included Brock and his irreparable death alone was thought, by friend and foe alike, to have more than redressed the balance. This indeed was true in a much more pregnant sense than those who measure by mere numbers could ever have supposed. For genius is a thing apart from mere addition and subtraction. It is the incarnate spirit of great leaders, whose influence raises to its utmost height the worth of every follower. So when Brock's fuse stood fast against the invader's army, they had his soaring spirit to uphold them, as well as the solemn body of their own disciplined strength. Brock's proper fame may seem to be no more than that which can be won by any conspicuously gallant death at some far outpost of a mighty empire. He ruled no rich and populist dominions. He commanded no well-martialed host. He fell, apparently defeated, just as his first real battle had begun. And yet, despite of this, he was the undoubted savior of a British Canada. Living, he was the heart of her preparation during ten long years of peace. Dead, he became the inspiration of her defence for two momentous years of war. Chapter 5 Part 1 of A Chronicle of 1812 The remaining operations of 1812 are of quite minor importance. No more than two are worthy of being mentioned between the greater events before and after them. Both were abortive attempts at invasion, one across the upper Niagara, the other across the frontier south of Montreal. After the Battle of Queenston Heights, Schaeff succeeded Brock in command of the British, and Schaeff succeeded Van Ressler in command of the Americans. Schaeff was a harsh martinet and a third-rate commander. This myth and notorious braggart was no commander at all. He did, however, succeed in getting Schaeff to conclude an armistice that fully equaled provosts in its disregard of British interests. After making the most of it for a month, he ended it on November 19th, and began manoeuvring round his headquarters at Blackrock, near Buffalo. After another eight days, he decided to attack the British posts at Red House and Frenchman's Creek, which were respectively two-and-a-half and five miles from Fort Erie. The whole British line of the upper Niagara, from Fort Erie to Chippewa, a distance of 17 miles by road along the river, was under the command of an excellent young officer, Colonel Bishop, who had between five and six hundred men to hold his seven posts. Fort Erie had the largest garrison, only 130 men. Some 40 men of the 49th and two small guns were stationed at Red House, while the light company of the 41st guarded the bridge over Frenchman's Creek. About two o'clock in the morning of the 28th, one party of Americans pulled across to the ferry a mile below Fort Erie, and then shearing off after being fired at by the Canadian militia and guard, made for Red House a mile and a half lower down. There they landed at three, and fought a most confused and confusing action in the dark. Friend and foe became mixed up together, but the result was a success for the Americans. Meanwhile, the other party landed near Frenchman's Creek, reached the bridge, damaged it a little, and had a fight with the 41st, who could not drive the invaders back till reinforcements arrived. At daylight the men from Chippewa marched into action. Indians began to appear, and the whole situation was re-established. The victorious British lost nearly a hundred, which was more than a quarter of those engaged. The beaten Americans lost more, but being in superior numbers they could the better afford it. Smythe was greatly disconcerted, but he held a boat review on his own side of the river, and sent over a summons to Bishop, demanding the immediate surrender of Fort Erie to spare the effusion of blood. Bishop rejected the summons, but there was no effusion of blood in consequence. Smythe planned, talked, and maneuvered for two days more, and then tried to make his real effort on the first of December. By the time it was light enough for the British to observe him, he had 1,500 men in boats, who all wanted to go back, and 3,000 on shore, who all refused to go forward. He then held a council of war, which advised him to wait for a better chance. This closed the campaign with what, according to Porter, one of his own generals, was a scene of confusion difficult to describe, about 4,000 men without order or restraint discharging their muskets in every direction. Next day the Committee of Patriotic Citizens undertook to rebuke Smythe, but he retorted, not without reason, that the affair at Queenston is a caution against relying on crowds who go to the banks of the Niagara to look at a battle as on a theatrical exhibition. The other abortive attempt at invasion was made by the advance guard of the Commander-in-Chief's own army. Dearborn had soon found out that his disorderly masses at Greenbush were quite unfit to take the field, but four months after the declaration of war, a small detachment, thrown forward from his new headquarters at Plattsburgh on Lake Champlain, did manage to reach St. Regis, where the frontier first meets the St. Lawrence, near the upper end of Lake St. Francis, 60 miles southwest of Montreal. Here the Americans killed Lieutenant Rotat and a sergeant, and took the little post, which was held by a few voyagers. Exactly a month later, on November 23rd, these Americans were themselves defeated and driven back again. Three days earlier than this a much stronger force of Americans had crossed the frontier at Oteltown, just north of which there was a British blockhouse beside the River Lacolle, a muddy little western tributary of the Richelieu, 47 miles due south of Montreal. The Americans fired into each other in the dark, and afterwards retired before the British reinforcements. Dearborn then put his army into Whittier quarters at Plattsburgh, thus ending his much heralded campaign against Montreal before it had well begun. The American government was much disappointed at the failure of its efforts to make war without armies, but it found a convenient scapegoat in Hull, who was far less to blame than his superiors in the cabinet. These politicians had been wrong in every important particular. Wrong about the attitude of the Canadians. Wrong about the whole plan of campaign. Wrong in separating Hull from Dearborn. Wrong in not getting men of war afloat on the lakes. Wrong above all in trusting to untrained and undisciplined levies. To complete their mortification, the ridiculous gunboats in which they had so firmly believed had done nothing but divert useful resources into useless channels. While on the other hand the frigates, which they had proposed to lay up all together so as to save themselves from the ruinous folly of a navy, had already won a brilliant series of duels out at sea. There were some searchings of heart at Washington when all these military and naval misjudgments stood revealed. The Americans soon followed Hull into enforced retirement and great plans were made for the campaign of 1813, which was designed to wipe out the disgrace of its predecessor and to affect the conquest of Canada for good and all. John Armstrong, the new war secretary, and William Henry Harrison, the new general in the west, were great improvements on Eustace and Hull, but even now the American commanders could not decide on a single decisive attack supported by subsidiary operations elsewhere. The country all remained their prime objective, but they only struck at it last of all. Michela Mackenac kept their enemy in touch with the west, but they left it completely alone. The general advance ought to have been secured by winning the command of the lakes and by the seizure of suitable positions across the line. But they let the first blows come from the Canadian side and they still left Lake Champlain to shift for itself. Their plan was undoubtedly better than that of 1812, but still all parts and no whole. The various events were so complicated by the overlapping of time and place all along the line that we must begin by taking a bird's-eye view of them in territorial sequence, starting from the farthest inland flank and working eastward to the sea. Everything west of Detroit may be left out altogether, because operations did not recommend in that quarter until the campaign of the following year. In January the British struck successfully at French Town, more than 30 miles south of Detroit. They struck unsuccessfully still further south at Fort Myges in May and at Fort Stevenson in August, after which they had to remain on the defensive, all over the Lake Erie region, till their flotilla was annihilated at Putin Bay in September, and their army was annihilated at Moravian Town on the Thames in October. In the Lake Ontario region the situation was reversed. Here the British began badly and ended well. They surrendered York in April and Fort George at the mouth of the Niagara in May. They were also repulsed in a grossly mismanaged attack on Sackett's Harbor, two days after their defeat at Fort George. The opposing flotillas, meanwhile, fought several maneuvering actions of an indecisive kind, neither daring to risk battle and possible annihilation. But as the season advanced the British regained their hold on the Niagara Peninsula by defeating the Americans at Stony Creek and the Beaver Dams in June, and by clearing both sides of the Niagara River in December. On the upper St. Lawrence they took Ogdensburg in February. They were also completely successful in their defensive Montreal. In June they took the American gun boats at Iolot Noir on the Richelieu. In July they raided Lake Champlain, while in October and November they defeated the two divisions of the invading army at Chitaugwe and Chrysler's Farm. The British news from sea also improved as the year wore on. The American frigate victories began to stop. The Shannon beat the Chesapeake, and the shadow of the great blockade began to fall on the coast of the Democratic South. The operations of 1813 are more easily understood if taken in this purely territorial way. But in following the progress of the war we must take them chronologically. No attempt can be made here to describe the movements on either side in any detail. An outline must suffice. Two points, however, need special emphasis, as they are both markedly characteristic of the war in general, and of this campaign in particular. First, the combined effect of the American victories of Lake Erie and the Thames affords a perfect example of the inseparable connection between the water and the land. Secondly, the British victories at the Beaver Dams and Chitaugwe are striking examples of the interracial connections among the forces that defended Canada so well. The Indians did all the real fighting at the Beaver Dams. The French-Canadians fought practically alone at Chitaugwe. The first move of the invaders in the west was designed to recover Detroit and cut off Mackinac. Harrison, victorious over the Indians at Tippecanoe in 1811, was now expected to strike terror into them once more, both by his reputation and by the size of his forces. In midwinter he had one wing of his army on the Sandusky, under his own command, and the other on the Mami, under Winchester, a rather commonplace general. The French towns stood a little British post defended by 50 Canadians and 100 Indians. Winchester moved north to drive these men away from American soil. But Proctor crossed the Detroit from Amherstburg on the ice and defeated Winchester's 1,000 whites with his own 500 whites and 500 Indians at dawn on January 22nd, making Winchester a prisoner. Proctor was unable to control the Indians who ran wild. They hated the westerners who made up Winchester's force as the men who had deprived them of their lands, and they now wreaked their vengeance on them for some time before they could be again brought within the bounds of civilized warfare. After the battle Proctor retired to Amherstburg. Harrison began to build fort Migs on the Mami, and a pause of three months followed all over the western scene. But winter warfare was also going on elsewhere. A month after Proctor's success, pre-vost, when passing through Prescott on the upper St. Lawrence, reluctantly gave Colonel McDonnell of Glengarry provisional leave to attack Ogdensburg, from which the Americans were forwarding supplies to Sackett's harbour, sending out raiding parties and threatening the British line of communication to the west. No sooner was pre-vost clear of Prescott than McDonnell led his 400 regulars and 100 militia over the ice against the American fort. His direct assault failed. But when he had carried the village at the point of the bayonet, the garrison ran, McDonnell then destroyed the fort, the barracks, and four vessels. He also took 70 prisoners, 11 guns, and a large supply of stores. With the spring came new movements in the west. On May 9th Proctor broke camp and retired from an unsuccessful siege of Fort Migs, now Toledo, at the southwestern corner of Lake Erie. He had started this siege a fortnight earlier with a thousand whites and a thousand Indians under Tecumseh, and at first had seemed likely to succeed. But after the first encounter the Indians began to leave, while most of the militia had soon to be sent home to their farms to prevent the risk of starvation. Thus Proctor presently found himself with only 500 effectives in the face of a much superior and constantly increasing enemy. In the summer he returned to the attack, this time against the American position on the lower Sandusky, nearly 30 miles east of Fort Migs. There on August 2nd he tried to take Fort Stevenson, but his light guns could make no breach, and he lost a hundred men in the assault. Meanwhile, Dearborn, having first moved up from Plattsburg to Sackett's Harbor, had attacked York on April 27th, with the help of the new American flotilla on Lake Ontario. This flotilla was under the personal orders of Commodore Chauncey, an excellent officer who in the previous September had been promoted from superintendent of the New York Navy Yard to commander-in-chief on the lakes. As Chauncey's Forte was building an organization he found full scope for his peculiar talents at Sackett's Harbor. He was also a good leader at sea, and thus a formidable enemy for the British forces at York, where the third-rate Shafe was now in charge, and where provost had paved the way for a British defeat by allowing the establishment of an exposed Navy Yard instead of keeping all construction safe in Kingston. Shafe began his mistakes by neglecting to mount some of his guns before Dearborn and Chauncey arrived, though he knew these American commanders might come at any moment, and though he also knew how important it was to save a new British vessel that was building at York, because the command of the lake might well depend upon her. He then made another mistake by standing to fight in an untenable position against overwhelming odds. He finally retreated with all the effective regulars left, less than two hundred, burning the ship and yard as he passed, and leaving behind three hundred militia to make their own terms with the enemy. He met the light company of the Eighth on its way up from Kingston and turned it back. With this retreat he left the front for good, and became a commandant of bases, a position often occupied by men whose failures are not bad enough for Court's Marshall, and whose saving qualities are not good enough for any more appointments in the field. The Americans lost over two hundred men by an explosion in a British battery at York, just as Shafe was marching off. Forty British had also been blown up in one of the forts a little while before. Shafe appears to have been a slack inspector of powder magazines. But the Americans, who naturally suspected other things than slack inspection, thought a mine had been sprung on them after the fight was over. They consequently swore revenge, burnt the parliament buildings, looted several private houses, and carried off books from the public library, as well as plate from the church. Chauncey, much to his credit, afterwards sent back all the books and plate he could recover. Exactly a month later, on May 27th, Chauncey and Dearborn appeared off Fort George after a run back to Sackett's Harbour in the meantime. Vincent, Shafe's successor in charge of Upper Canada, had only a thousand regulars and four hundred militia there. Dearborn had more than four times as many men, and Perry, soon to become famous on Lake Erie, managed the naval part of landing them. The American men of war brought the long, low, flat ground of Mississauga Point under an irresistible crossfire, while three thousand troops were landing on the beach below the covering bluffs. No support could be given to the opposing British force by the fire at Fort George, as the village of Newark intervened. So Vincent had to fight it out in the open. On being threatened with annihilation he retired towards Burlington, withdrawing the garrison of Fort George, and sending orders for all the other troops on the Niagara to follow by the shortest line. He had lost a third of the whole force defending the Niagara frontier, both sides of which were now possessed by the Americans. But by nightfall on May 29th he was standing at Bay, with his remaining sixteen hundred men, in an excellent strategic position on the heights, halfway between York and Fort George, in touch with Dundas Street, the main road running east and west, and beside Burlington Bay, where he hoped to meet the British flotilla commanded by Yoh. Captain Sir James Lucas Yoh was an energetic and capable young naval officer of 30, whom the Admiralty had sent out with a few seamen to take command on the lakes under Prevost's orders. He had been only seventeen days at Kingston when he sailed out with Prevost on May 27th to take advantage of Chauncey's absence at the western end of the lake. Arrived before Sackett's Harbor, the attack was planned for the 29th. The landing force of 750 men was put in charge of Baines, the adjutant general, a man only too well fitted to do the dirty work of the general staff under a weak commander and chief like Prevost. All went wrong at Sackett's Harbor. Prevost was present but not in command. Baines landed at the wrong place. Nevertheless the British regulars scattered the American militiamen, pressed back the American regulars, set fire to the barracks and halted in front of the fort. The Americans, thinking the day was lost, set fire to their stores and to Chauncey's new ships. Then Baines and Prevost suddenly decided to retreat. Baines explained to Prevost and Prevost explained in a covering dispatch to the British government that the fleet could not cooperate, that the fort could not be taken, and that the landing party was not strong enough. But if this was true, why did they make an attack at all? And if it was not true, why did they draw back when success seemed to be assured? Meanwhile Chauncey, after helping to take Fort George, had started back for Sackett's Harbor, and earborne, left without the fleet, had moved on slowly and disjointedly in rear of Vincent, with whom he did not regain touch for a week. On June 5th the Americans camped at Stony Creek, five miles from the site of Hamilton. This deep zigzagging bank of the creek, which formed their front, was about twenty feet high. Their right rested on a mile wide swamp, which ran down to Lake Ontario. Their left touched the heights, which ran from Burlington to Queenstown. They were also in superior numbers, and ought to have been quite secure. But they thought so much more of pursuit than of defense, that they were completely taken by surprise when 704 firelocks under Colonel Harvey suddenly attacked them just after midnight. Harvey, Chief Staff Officer to Vincent, was a first-rate leader for such daring work as this, and his men were all well disciplined. But the whole enterprise might have failed for all that. Some of the men opened fire too soon, and the nearest Americans began to stand to their arms. But while Harvey ran along, reforming the line, Major Plenderleaf, with some of Brock's old regiment, the 49th, charged straight into the American Center, took the guns there, and caused so much confusion that Harvey's following charge carried all before it. Next morning, June 6th, the Americans began a retreat which was hastened by Yo's arrival on their Lakeward flank, by the Indians on the heights, and by Vincent's reinforcements in their rear. Not till they reached the shelter of Fort George did they attempt to make a stand. The two armies now faced each other as dried of the Lakeshore road and the heights. The British left advanced post, between 10 and 12 mile creeks, was under Major Deheron of the 104th, a regiment which, in the preceding winter, had marched on snowshoes through the woods all the way from the middle of New Brunswick to Quebec. The corresponding British post inland, near the Beaver Dams, was under Lieutenant Fitzgibbon of the 49th, a cool, quick-witted and adventurous Irishman who had risen from the ranks by his own good qualities and Brock's recommendation. Between him and the Americans at Queenstown and St. David's was a picked force of Indian scouts, with a son of the great chief, Joseph Brant. These Indians never gave the Americans a minute's rest. They were up at all hours, pressing round the flanks, sniping the sentries, worrying the outposts, and keeping four times their own numbers on the perpetual alert. What exasperated the Americans even more was the wonderfully elusive way in which the Indians would strike their blow and then be lost to sight and sound the very next moment, if indeed they ever were seen at all. Finally, this endless skirmish with an invisible foe became so harassing that the Americans sent out a flying column of six hundred picked men under Colonel Borsler on June 24th to break up Fitzgibbon's post at the Beaver Dams and drive the Indians out of the intervening bush altogether. But the American commanders had not succeeded in hiding their preparations from the vigilant eyes of the Indian scouts, or from the equally attentive ears of Laura Seacord, the wife of an ardent United Empire loyalist, James Seacord, who was still disabled by the wounds he had received when fighting under Brock's command at Queenston Heights. Early in the morning of the twenty third, while Laura Seacord was going out to milk the cows, she overheard some Americans talking about the surprise in store for Fitzgibbon next day. Without giving the slightest sign, she quietly drove the cattle in behind the nearest fence, hid her milk pill, and started to thread her perilous way through twenty miles of bewildering by-paths to the Beaver Dams. Keeping off the beaten tracks and always in the shadow of the full-leaved trees, she stole along through the American lines, crossed the No Man's Land between the two desperate enemies, and managed to get inside the ever-shifting fringe of Indian scouts without being seen by friend or foe. The heat was intense, and the whole forest steamed with it after the tropical rain. But she held her course without a pause, over the swollen streams on fallen tree-trunks, through the dense underbrush, and in and out of the mazes of the forest, where a bullet might come from either side without a moment's warning. As she neared the end of her journey, a savage yell told her she was at last discovered by the Indians. She and they were on the same side, but she had hard work to persuade them that she only wished to warn Fitzgibbon. Then came what, to a lesser patriot, would have been a crowning disappointment. For when, half dead with fatigue, she told him her story, she found he had already heard it from the scouts. But just because this forestelment was no real disappointment to her, it makes her the Anglo-Canadian heroine whose fame for bravery and wars were the gist of being remembered with that of her French-Canadian sister, Madeleine de Verchère. Footnote, for Madeleine de Verchère, see The Fighting Governor in this series. by David Lawrence. A Chronicle of 1812 by William Wood, Chapter 5, Part 2, 1813, The Beaver Dams, Lake Erie, and Chateau-Gueuil. Bolsterer's six hundred had only ten miles to go in a straight line, but all the thickets, woods, creeks, streams, and swamps were closely beset by a body of expert, persistent Indians, who gradually increased from two hundred and fifty to four hundred men. The Americans became discouraged and bewildered, and when Fitzgibbon rode up at the head of his red coats, they were ready to give in. The British posts were all an excellent touch with each other, and the Haran arrived in time to receive the actual surrender. He was closely followed by the second Lincoln militia under Colonel Clark, and these again by Colonel Bishop, with the whole of the advanced guard. But it was the Indians alone who won the fight, as Fitzgibbon generously acknowledged. Not a shot was fired at our side by any but the Indians. They beat the American detachment into a state of terror, and the only share I claim is taking advantage of a favorable moment to offer protection from the tomahawk and scalping knife. June was a lucky month for the British at sea as well as on the land, and its glorious first, so-called after house victory nineteen years before, now became doubly glorious in a way which had a special interest for Canada. The American frigate Chesapeake was under orders to attack British supply ships entering Canadian waters, and the victorious British frigate Shannon was taken out of action and into a Canadian port by a young Canadian in the Royal Navy. The Chesapeake had a new captain, Lawrence. With new young officers, she carried fifty more men than the British frigate Shannon, but many of her ship's company were new to her on recommissioning in May, and some were comparatively untrained for service on board a man of war. The frigates themselves were practically equal in size and armament, but Captain Broke had been in continuous command of the Shannon for seven years, and had trained her crew into the utmost perfection of naval gunnery. The vessels met off Boston in full view of many thousands of spectators. Not one British shot flew high. Every day in the Shannon seven years of preparation told in that fight of only fifteen minutes, and when Broke led his borders over the Chesapeake side, her fate had been sealed already. The stars and stripes were soon replaced by the Union Jack. Then, with Broke severely wounded and his first lieutenant killed, the command fell on Lieutenant Wallace, who sailed both vessels into Halifax. This young Canadian, afterwards known as Admiral of the Fleet Sir Provo Wallace, lived to become the longest of all human lengths between the past and present of the Navy. He was by far the last survivor of those officers who were specially exempted from technical retirement on account of having held any ship or fleet command during the Great War that ended on the field of Waterloo. He was born before Napoleon had been heard of. He went through a battle before the death of Nelson. He outlived Wellington by forty years. His name stood on the active list for all but the final decade of the nineteenth century. And, as an honoured centenarian, he is vividly remembered by many who were still called young a century after the battle that brought him into fame. The summer campaign on the Niagara Frontier ended with three minor British successes. Fort Slosser was surprised on July 5. On the eleventh, Bishop lost his life in destroying Black Rock. And, on August 24, the Americans were driven in under the guns of Fort George. After this there was a lull which lasted throughout the autumn. Down by the Montreal Frontier, there were three corresponding British successes. On June 3, Major Taylor of the one-hundredth captured two American gun boats, the Growler and the Eagle, which had come to attack Il-Onois in the Richelieu River and renamed them the Broke and the Shannon. Early in August, Captains Pring and Everard of the Navy and Colonel Murray with nine hundred soldiers raided Lake Champlain. They destroyed the barracks, yard, and stores at Platsburg and sent the American militia flying home. But a still more effective blow was struck on the opposing side of Lake Champlain at Burlington, where General Hampton was preparing the right wing of his new army of invasion. Stores, equipment, barracks, and armaments were destroyed to such an extent that Hampton's preparations were set back until late in the autumn. The left wing of the same army was at Sackett's Harbour, under Dearborn's successor, General Wilkinson, whose plan was to take Kingston, go down the St. Lawrence, meet Hampton, who was to come up from the south, and then make a joint attack with him on Montreal. In September, the scene of action shifted to the west, where the British were trying to keep the command of Lake Erie, while the Americans were trying to rest it from them. Captain Oliver Perry, a first-rate American naval officer of only twenty-eight, was at Prescale, now Erie, completing his flotilla. He had his troubles, of course, especially with the militia garrison, who would not do their proper tour of duty. I tell the boys to go, but the boys won't go. Was the only report forthcoming from one of several worthless colonels? A still greater trouble for Perry was getting his vessels over the bar. This had to be done without any guns on board, and with the cumbersome aid of camels, which are any kind of air-tank made fast to the sides low down, in order to raise the hull as much as possible. But, lucky for Perry, his opponent, Captain Barclay, of the Royal Navy, an energetic and capable young officer of thirty-two, was called upon to face worse troubles still. Barclay was, indeed, the first to get a float, but he had to give up the blockade of Prescale and Salat Perry out because he had the rust of crews, the scantiest of equipment, and nothing left to eat. Then, when he ran back to Amherstburg, he found Proctor also facing a state of semi-starvation, while thousands of Indian families were clamoring for food. Thus there was no choice but either to fight or starve, for there was not the slightest chance of replenishing stores, unless the line of the lake was clear. So Barclay sailed out with his six little British vessels, armed by the odds and ends of whatever ordinance could be spared from Amherstburg, and manned by almost any crews but sailors. Even the flagship, Detroit, had only ten real seamen, all told. Ammunition was likewise very scarce and so defective that the guns had to be fired by the flash of a pistol. Perry also had a makeshift flotilla, manned partly by drafts from Harrison's Army, but on the whole the odds in his favor were fairly shown by the number of vessels and the respective flotillas, nine American against the British six. Barclay had only thirty miles to make in a direct southeasterly line from Amherstburg to reach Perry in Put-In Bay in the Bass Islands, where, on the morning of September 10, the opposing forces met. The battle raged for two hours at the very closest quarters till Perry's flagship, Lawrence, struck to Barclay's own Detroit. But Perry had previously left the Lawrence for their fresh Niagara, and now he bore down on the battered Detroit, which had meanwhile fallen foul of the only other sizable British vessel, the Queen Charlotte. This was fatal for Barclay. The whole British flotilla surrendered after a desperate resistance and an utterly disabling loss. From that time on to the end of the war Lake Erie remained completely under American control. Proctor could hardly help seeing that he was doomed to give up the whole Lake Erie region, but he lingered and was lost. While Harrison was advancing with overwhelming numbers, Proctor was still trying to decide when and how to abandon Amherstburg. Then when he did go, he carried with him an inordinate amount of baggage, and he retired so slowly that Harrison caught and crushed him near Morvanian town beside the Thames on the 5th of October. Harrison had three thousand exultant Americans in action. Proctor had barely a thousand worn out, dispirited men, more than half of them Indians, under Tecumseh. The red coats, spread out in single rank in open order, were ridden down by Harrison's cavalry, backed by the mass of his infantry. The Indians on the inland flank stood longer and fought with greater determination against five times their numbers till Tecumseh fell. Then they broke and fled. This was their last great fight and Tecumseh their last great leader. The scene now shifts once more to the Montreal frontier, which was being threatened by the converging forces of Hampton from the south and Wilkinson from the west. Each had about seven thousand men, and their common objective was the island of Montreal. Hampton crossed the line at Odletown on September the 20th, but he presently moved back again, and it was not till October 21 that he began his definite attack by advancing down the left bank of the Chateau Gai, after opening communication with Wilkinson, who was still near Sackett's Harbour. Hampton naturally expected to brush aside all the opposition that could be made by the few hundred British between him and the St. Lawrence. But to celebrate, the commander of the British Advanced Posts determined to check him near La Forge, where several little tributaries of the Chateau Gai made a succession of good positions, if strengthened by Abitus and held by trained defenders. The British force was very small when Hampton began his slow advance, but Red George MacDonnell marched to help it just in time. MacDonnell was commanding a crack core of French Canadians. All picked from the best, select embodied militia, and now at the end of six months of extra service, as good as a battalion of regulars. He had hurried to Kingston when Wilkinson had threatened it from Sackett's Harbour. Now he was urgently needed at Chateau Gai. When can you start? asked Privo, who was himself on the point of leaving Kingston for Chateau Gai. Directly the men have finished their dinners, sir. Then follow me as quick as you can, said Privo, as he stepped on board his vessel. There were 210 miles to go. A day was lost collecting boats enough for this sudden emergency. Another day was lost en route by a gale so terrific that even the French-Canadian voyageur were unable to face it. The rapids, where so many of Amherst's men had been drowned in 1760, were at their very worst, and the final 40 miles had to be made overland by marching all night through dense forest and along a particularly difficult trail. Yet MacDonnell got into touch with the Salabary long before Privo, to whom he had the satisfaction of reporting later in the day. All correct and present, sir, not one man missing. The advanced British forces under the Salabary were now, on October 25, the eve of battle, occupying the left or north bank of the Chateauge, 15 miles south of the Cascade Rapids of the St. Lawrence, 25 miles southwest of Conagua, and 35 miles southwest of Montreal. Immediately in rear of these men, under Del Salabary, said MacDonnell's command. While in more distant support, nearer to Montreal, stood various posts under General De Watville, with whom Privo spent that night, and most of the 26th, the day on which the battle was fought. As Hampton came on with his cumbrous American thousands, De Salabary felt justifiable confidence in his own well-disciplined French-Canadian hundreds. He and his brothers were officers in the Imperial Army. His voltageurs were regulars. The supporting fensibles were also regulars, and of 10 years standing. MacDonnell's men were practically regulars. The so-called Select Militia present had been permanently embodied for 18 months, and the only real militiamen on the scene of action, most of whom never came under fire at all, had already been twice embodied for service in the field. The British total present was 1,590, of whom less than a quarter were militiamen and Indians. But the whole firing line comprised no more than 460, of whom only 66 were militiamen, and only 22 were Indians. The Indian total was about one-tenth of the whole. The English-speaking total was about one-twentieth. It is therefore perfectly right to say that the battle of Chateau-gay was practically fought and won by French-Canadian regulars against American odds of four to one. De Salabary's position was peculiar. The head of his little column faced the head of Hampton's big column on a narrow front, bounded on his own left by the river of Chateau-gay, and on his own right by Woods, into which Hampton was afraid to send his untrained men. But crossing a right-angled bend of the river, beyond De Salabary's left front, was a ford. While in rear of De Salabary's own column was another ford which Hampton thought he could easily take with 1,500 men under Purdy, as he had no idea of Macdonnell's march, and no doubt of being able to crush De Salabary's other troops between his own 5,000 attacking from the front and Purdy's 1,500 attacking from the rear. Purdy advanced overnight, crossing to the right flank of the Chateau-gay by the ford clear of De Salabary's front, and made toward the ford in De Salabary's rear. But his men lost their way in the dark and found themselves not in rear of, but opposite to, and on the left flank of De Salabary's column in the morning. They drove into of De Salabary's companies, which were protecting his left flank on the right, or what was now Purdy's side of the river. But they were checked by a third, which Macdonnell sent forward, across the rear ford, at the same time that he occupied this rear ford himself. Purdy and Hampton had now completely lost touch with one another. Purdy was astounded to see Macdonnell's main body of red coats behind the rear ford. He paused, waiting for support from Hampton, who was still behind the front ford. Hampton paused, waiting for him to take the rear ford, now occupied by Macdonnell. De Salabary mounted a huge tree stump and at once saw his opportunity. Holding back Hampton's crowded column with his own front, which fought under cover of his first Abbotay, he wheeled the rest of his men into line on the left, and thus took Purdy in flank. Macdonnell was out of range behind the rear ford. But he played his part by making his buglers sound the advance from several different quarters, while his men, joined by De Salabary's militiamen and by the Indians in the bush, cheered vociferously and raised the war-whoop. This was too much for Purdy's fifteen hundred. Their broken confusion ran away from the river into the woods, under a storm of bullets, fired into each other, and finally disappeared. Hampton's attack on De Salabary's first Abbotay then came to a full stop, after which the whole American army retired, beaten from the field. Ten days after Chateau Gay, Delatory Wilkinson, tired of waiting for defeated Hampton, left the original rendezvous at French Creek, fifty miles below Sackett's Harbor. Like Dearborn in 1812, he began his campaign just as the season was closing. But, again, like Dearborn, he had the excuse of being obliged to organize his army in the middle of the war. Four days later again, on November the 9th, Brown, the successful defender of Sackett's Harbor against Prevost's attack in May, was landed at Williamsburg, on the Canadian side, with two thousand men, to clear the twenty miles down to Cornwall opposite the rendezvous at St. Regis, where Wilkinson expected to find Hampton ready to join him for the combined attack on Montreal. But Brown had to reckon with Dennis, the first defender of Queenston, who now commanded the little garrison of Cornwall and who disputed every inch of the way by breaking the bridges and resisting each successive advance till Brown was compelled to deploy for attack. Two days were taken up with these harassing maneuvers, during which another two thousand Americans were landed at Williamsburg under Boyd, who immediately found himself still more harassed in Rear than Brown had been in front. This new British force in Boyd's Rear was only a thousand strong, but as it included every human element engaged in the defense of Canada, it has a quite peculiar interest of its own. A float, it included blue jackets of the Royal Navy, men of the provincial marine, French-Canadian voyageurs, and Anglo-Canadian boatmen from the trading posts, all under a first-rate fighting seamen, Captain Mulcaster R.N. A shore, under a good regimental leader, Colonel Morrison, whose chief staff officer was Harvey of Stony Creek, renowned, it included imperial regulars, Canadian regulars of both races, French-Canadian and Anglo-Canadian militiamen, and a party of Indians. Early on the 11th, Brown had arrived at Cornwall with his two thousand Americans. Wilkinson was staring down from Williamsburg in boats with three thousand more, and Boyd was starting down a shore with eighteen hundred. But Mulcaster's vessels pressed in on Wilkinson's Rear, while Morrison pressed in on Boyd's. Wilkinson then ordered Boyd to turn about and drive off Morrison, while he hurried his own men out of reach of Mulcaster, whose armed vessels could not follow down the rapids. Boyd thereupon attacked Morrison, and a stubborn fight ensued at Chrysler's Farm. The field was of the usual type, woods on one flank, water on the other, and the more or less flat clearing in the center. Boyd tried hard to drive his wedge in between the British and the river, but Morrison foiled him in maneuver, and the eight hundred British stood fast against their eighteen hundred enemies all along the line. Boyd then withdrew, having lost four hundred men, and Morrison's remaining six hundred defectives slept on their hard one ground. Next morning the energetic Morrison resumed his pursuit, but the campaign against Montreal was already over. Wilkinson had found that Hampton had started back for Lake Champlain while the battle was in progress, so he landed at St. Regis just inside his own country and went into winter quarters at French Mills on the Salmon River. In December the scene of strife changed back again to the Niagara, where the American commander, McClure, decided to evacuate Fort George. At dusk on the tenth he ordered four hundred women and children to be turned out of their homes at Newark into the biting midwinter cold, and then burnt the whole settlement down to the ground. If he had intended to hold a position he might have been justified in burning Newark under more humane conditions, because this village undoubtedly interfered with the defensive fire of Fort George, but as he was giving up Fort George his act was an entire wanton deed of shame. Meanwhile the new British general, Gordon Drummond, second in ability to block a loan, was hurrying to the Niagara front. He was preceded by Colonel Murray who took possession of Fort George on the twelfth, the day McClure crossed the Niagara River. Murray at once made a plan to take the American Fort Niagara opposite, and Drummond at once approved it for immediate execution. On the night of the eighteenth six hundred men were landed on the American side three miles up the river. At four the next morning Murray led them down to the fort, rushing the sentries and pickets by the way with the bayonet in dead silence. He then told off two hundred men to take a bastion at the same time that he was to lead the other four hundred straight through the main gate, which he knew would soon be open to let the reliefs pass out. Everything worked to perfection. When the reliefs came out they were immediately charged and bayoneted as were the first astonished men off duty who ran out of their quarters to see what the matter was. A stiff hand-to-hand fight followed, but every American attempt to form was instantly broken up and presently the whole place surrendered. Drummond, who was delighted with such an excellent beginning, took care to underline the four significant words referring to the enemy's killed and wounded, all with the bayonet. This was done in no mere vulgar spirit of bravado, still less in abominable bloody-mindedness. It was a soldierly recognition of a particularly gallant feet of arms carried out with such conspicuously good discipline that its memory is cherished even to the present day by the one hundredth, afterwards raised again as the royal Canadians, now known as the Prince of Wales Lenster Regiment. A facsimile of Drummond's underlined orders is one of the most highly honoured souvenirs in the officer's mess. Not a moment was lost in following up the splendid feet of arms. The Indians drove the American militia out of Lewiston, which the advancing redcoats burnt to the ground. Fort Slosser next fell, then Blackrock, and finally Buffalo. Each was laid in ashes. Thus before 1813 ended, the whole American side of the Niagara was nothing but one long bare line of black indecilation with the sole exception of Fort Niagara, which remained secure in British hands until the war was over. END OF CHAPTER VI PART ONE OF A CRONICLE OF 1812 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. A Chronicle of 1812 by William Wood. CHAPTER VI. 1814. Lundy's Lane, Plattsburgh, and the Great Blockade. PART ONE. In the closing phase of the struggle by land and sea the fortunes of war may, with a single exception of Plattsburgh, be most conveniently followed territorially, from one point to the next along the enormous irregular curve of five thousand miles which was the scene of operations. This curve begins at Prairie du Chien, where the Wisconsin joins the Mississippi and ends at New Orleans, where the Mississippi is about to join the sea. It runs easterly along the Wisconsin across to the Fox, into Lake Michigan, across to Mackinac, eastward towards Lake Huron, Erie, and Ontario, down the St. Lawrence, round to Halifax, round from there to Maine, and thence along the whole Atlantic coast, south and west, about into the Gulf of Mexico. The blockade of the Gulf of Mexico was an integral part of the British plan. But the Battle of New Orleans, which was a complete disaster for the British army, stands quite outside the actual war, since it was fought on January 8, 1815, more than two weeks after the terms of peace had been settled by the Treaty of Ghent. This peculiarity about its date, taken in conjunction with its extreme remoteness from the Canadian frontier, puts it beyond the purview of the present chronicle. All the decisive actions of the campaign proper were fought within two months. They began at Prairie du Chien in July and ended at Plattsburgh in September. Plattsburgh is the one exception to the order of place. The tide of war and British fortune flowed east and south to reach its hide at Washington in August. It turned at Plattsburgh in September. Neither friend nor foe went west in 1813. But in April 1814 Colonel McDool set out with ninety men, mostly of the Newfoundland Regiment, to reinforce Mackinaw. He started from the Little Depot, which had been established on the Natoa Saga, a river flowing into the Georgian Bay and accessible by the Overland Trail from York. After surmounting the many difficulties of the inland route which he had to take in order to avoid the Americans in the Lake Erie region, and after much hard work against the Lake Huron Ice, he at last reached Mackinaw on the 18th of May. Some good fighting Indians joined him there, and towards the end of June he felt strong enough to send Colonel McKay against the American post at Prairie du Chien. McKay arrived at this post in the middle of July and captured the whole position, Fort, Guns, Garrison, and a vessel on the Mississippi. Meanwhile, seven hundred Americans under Krogan, the American officer who had repulsed Proctor at Fort Stevenson the year before, were making for Mackinaw itself. They did some private looting at the Sioux, burned the houses at St. Joseph's Island, and landed in full force at Mackinaw on the Fourth of August. McDool had less than two hundred men, Indians included. But he at once marched out to the attack and beat the Americans back to their ships, which immediately sailed away. The British thenceforth commanded the whole three western lakes until the war was over. The Lake Erie region remained quite as decisively commanded by the Americans. They actually occupied only the line of the Detroit, but they had the power to cut any communications which the British might try to establish along the north side of the lake. They had suffered a minor reverse at Chatham in the previous December. But in March they more than turned the tables by defeating Bayston's attack in the Longwoods at Delaware near London, and in October seven hundred of their mounted men raided the line of the Thames and only just stopped short of the Grand River, the western boundary of the Niagara Peninsula. The Niagara Frontier as before was the scene of desperate strife. The Americans were determined to wrest it from the British, and they carefully trained their best troops for the effort. Their prospects seemed bright, as the whole of Upper Canada was suffering from want of men and means, both civil and military. Drummond, the British Commander-in-Chief there, felt very anxious not only about the line of the Niagara, but even about the neck of the whole peninsula, from Burlington westward to Lake Erie. He had no more than four thousand four hundred troops all told, and he was obliged to place them so as to be ready for an attack either from the Niagara or from Lake Erie or from both together. Keeping his base at York with a thousand men, he formed his line with its right on Burlington and its left on Fort Niagara. He had five hundred men at Burlington, one thousand at Fort George, and seven hundred at Fort Niagara. The rest were thrown well forward, so as to get into immediate touch with any Americans advancing from the south. There were three hundred men at Queenston, five hundred at Chippewa, one hundred and fifty at Fort Erie, and two hundred and fifty at Long Point on Lake Erie. Brown, the American General who had beaten Prevost at Sackets Harbor, and who had now superseded Wilkinson, had made his advanced field base at Buffalo. His total force was not much more than Drummond's, but it was all concentrated into a single striking body which possessed the full initiative of maneuver and attack. On July 3rd Brown crossed the Niagara to the Canadian side. The same day he took Fort Erie from its little garrison and at once began to make it a really formidable work, as the British found out to their cost later on. Next day he advanced down the River Road to Streets Creek. On hearing this, General Rial, Drummond's second-in-command, gathered two thousand men and advanced against Brown, who had recommended his own advance with four thousand. They met on the fifth between Streets Creek and the Chippewa River. Rial had once sent six hundred men, including all his Indians and militia, against more than twice their number of American militia, who were in a strong position on the inland flank. The Canadians went forward in excellent style and the Americans broke and fled in wild confusion. Seizing such an apparently good chance, Rial then attacked the American regulars with his own, though the odds he had to face here were more than three against two. The opposing lines met face to face unflinchingly. The Americans, who had now been trained and disciplined by proper leaders, refused to yield an inch. Their two regular brigadiers, Winfield Scott and Ripley, kept them well in hand, maneuvered their surplus battalions to the best advantage, overlapped the weaker British flank, and won the day. The British loss was five hundred, or one in four, the American four hundred, or only one in ten. Brown then turned Rial's flank by crossing the Chippewa higher up, and prepared for the crowning triumph of crushing Drummond. He proposed a joint attack with Chauncey on Fort Sniagra and George. But Chauncey happened to be ill at the time, he had not yet defeated Yao, and he strongly resented being made apparently subordinate to Brown. So the proposed combination failed at the critical moment. But for the eighteen days between the battle of Chippewa on the fifth of July, and Brown's receipt of Chauncey's refusal on the twenty-third, the Americans carried all before them, right up to the British line that ran along the western end of Lake Ontario, from Fort Sniagra to Burlington. During this period no great operations took place. But two minor incidents served to exasperate feelings on both sides. Eight Canadian traitors were tried and hanged at Ancaster near Burlington, and loyalists openly expressed their regret that Wilcox and others had escaped the same fate. Wilcox had been the ringleader of the parliamentary opposition to Brock in eighteen twelve, and had afterwards been exceedingly active on the American side, harrying every loyalist he and his raiders could lay their hands on. He ended by cheating the gallows, after all, as he fell in a skirmish towards the end of the present campaign on the Niagara frontier. The other exasperating incident was the burning of St. David's on July nineteenth by Colonel Stone, partly because it was a Tory village, and partly because the American militia mistakenly thought that one of their officers, Brigadier General Swift, had been killed by a prisoner to whom he had given quarter. When, on the twenty-third of July, Brown at last received Chauncey's disappointing answer, he immediately stopped maneuvering along the lower Niagara and prepared to execute an alternative plan of marching diagonally across the Niagara peninsula, straight for the British position at Burlington. To do this, he concentrated at the Chippewa on the twenty-fourth. But by the time he was ready to put his plan into execution, on the morning of the twenty-fifth, he found himself in close touch with the British in his immediate front. Their advance guard of a thousand men, under Colonel Pearson, had just taken post at Lundy's Lane, near the Falls. Their main body, under Rial, was clearing both banks of the lower Niagara. And Drummond himself had just arrived at Fort Niagara. Neither side knew the intentions of the other. But as the British were clearing the whole country up to the Falls, and as the Americans were bent on striking diagonally inland from a point beside the Falls, it inevitably happened that each met the other at Lundy's Lane, which runs inland from the Canadian side of the Falls, at right angles to the river, and therefore between the two opposing armies. When Drummond, hurrying across from York, landed at Fort Niagara in the early morning of the fateful twenty-fifth, he found that the orders he had sent over on the twenty-third were already being carried out, though in a slightly modified form. Colonel Tucker was marching off from Fort Niagara to Lewiston, which he took without opposition. Then, first making sure that the heights beyond were also clear, he crossed over the Niagara to Queenston, whereas men had dinner with those who had marched up on the Canadian side from Fort George. Immediately after dinner, half the total sixteen hundred present marched back to Garrison, Fort's George in Niagara, while the other half marched forward, upstream, on the Canadian side with Drummond, towards Lundy's Lane, whether Rial had preceded them with reinforcements for the advanced guard under Colonel Pearson. In the meantime, Brown had heard about the taking of Lewiston, and fearing that the British might take Fort's loss or two, had at once given up all idea of his diagonal march on Burlington, and had decided to advance straight against Queenston instead. Thus both the American and the British main bodies were marching on Lundy's Lane from opposite sides, and in successive detachment throughout that long, intensely hot, Midsummer afternoon. Presently, Rial got a report saying that the Americans were advancing in one massed force instead of in successive detachments. He thereupon ordered Pearson to retire from Lundy's Lane to Queenston, sent back orders that Colonel Hercules Scott, who was marching up twelve hundred men from near St. Catharines on Twelve Mile Creek, was also to go to Queenston, and reported both these changes to Drummond, who was hurrying along the Queenston Road towards Lundy's Lane as fast as he could. While the orderly officers were galloping back to Drummond and Hercules Scott, and while Pearson was getting his men in their order of march, Winfield Scott's brigade of American regulars suddenly appeared on the Chippewa Road, deployed for attack, and halted. There was a pause on both sides. Winfield Scott thought he might have Drummond's whole force in front of him. Rial thought he was faced by the whole of Browns. But Winfield Scott, presently realizing that Pearson was unsupported, resumed his advance, while Pearson and Rial, not realizing that Winfield Scott was himself unsupported for the time being, immediately began to retire. At this precise moment Drummond dashed up and drew rain. There was not a minute to lose. The leading Americans were coming on in excellent order, only a musket shot away. Pearson's thousand were just in the act of giving up the key to the whole position, and Drummond's eight hundred were plotting along a mile or so in rear. But within that fleeting minute Drummond made the plan that brought on the most desperately contested battle of the war. He ordered Pearson's thousand back again. He brought his own eight hundred forward at full speed. He sent post-haste to Colonel Scott to change once more and march on Lundy's Lane. And so by the time the astonished Americans were about to seize the key themselves, they found him ready to defend it. Too long for a hillock, too low for a hill, this key to the whole position in that stern fight has never had a special name. But it may well be known as Battle Rise. It stood a mile from the Niagara River, and just a step inland beyond the crossing of two roads. One of these, Lundy's Lane, ran lengthwise over it, at right angles to the Niagara. The other, which did not quite touch it, ran in the same direction as the river, all the way from Fort Erie to Fort George, and of course through both Chippewa and Queenston. The crest of Battle Rise was a few yards on the Chippewa side of Lundy's Lane, and there Drummond placed his seven field guns. Round these guns, the thickest of the battle raged, from first to last. The odds were four thousand Americans against three thousand British altogether. But the British were in superior force at first, and neither side had its full total inaction at any one time, as casualties and reinforcements kept the numbers fluctuating. It was past six in the evening of that stifling twenty-fifth of July, when windfields got attacked with the utmost steadiness and gallantry. Though the British outnumbered his splendid brigade, and though they had the choice of ground as well, he still succeeded in driving a wedge under their left flank, a move which threatened to break them away from the road along the river. But they retired in good order, reformed, and then drove out his wedge. By half past seven the American army had all come into action, and Drummond was having hard work to hold his own. Brown, like Windfields got, at once saw the supreme importance of taking battle rise, so he sent two complete battalions against it, one of regulars leading, the other of militia in support. At the first salvo from Drummond's seven guns the American militia broke and ran away. But Colonel Miller worked some of the American regulars very cleverly along the far side of a creeper covered fence, while the rest engaged the battery from a distance. In the heat of action the British artillerymen never saw their real danger, till, on a given signal, Miller's advanced party all sprang up and fired a point blank folly which killed or wounded every man beside the guns. Then Miller charged and took the battery. But he only held it for a moment. The British center charged up their own side of battle rise and drove the intruders back, after a terrific struggle with the bayonet. But again success was only for the moment. The Americans rallied and pressed the British back. The British then rallied and returned. And so the desperate fight swayed back and forth across the coveted position till finally both sides retired exhausted and the guns stood dumb between them. It was now pitch dark and the lull that followed seemed almost like the end of the fight. But after a considerable pause the Americans, all regulars this time, came on once more. This put the British in the greatest danger. Drummond had lost nearly a third of his men. The effective American regulars were a little less than double his present twelve hundred effectives of all kinds and were the fresher army of the two. Miller had taken one of the guns from battle rise. The other six could not be served against close quarter musketry and the nearest Americans were actually resting between the crossroads and the deserted rise. Defeat looked certain for the British. But just as the attackers and defenders began to stir again, Colonel Hercules Scott's twelve hundred weary reinforcements came plodding along the Queenston Road, wheeled round the corner into Lundy's Lane and stumbled in amongst these nearest Americans, who being the more expectant of the two drove them back in confusion. The officers however rallied the men at once. Drummond told off eight hundred of them, including three hundred militia to the reserve, prolonged his line to the right with the rest and thus reestablished the defense. Hardly had the new arrivals taken breath before the final assault began. Again the Americans took the silent battery. Again the British drove them back. Again the opposing lines swayed to and fro across the deadly crest of battle rise, with nothing else to guide them through the hot black night but their own flaming musketry. The Americans could not have been more gallant and persistent in attack. The British could not have been more steadfast in defense. Midnight came, but neither side could keep its hold on battle rise. By this time Drummond was wounded and Rial was both wounded and a prisoner. Among the Americans, Brown and Winfield Scott were also wounded, while their men were worn out after being under arms for nearly eighteen hours. A pause of sheer exhaustion followed. Then, slowly and sullenly, as if they knew the one more charge they could not make must carry home, the foiled Americans turned back and felt their way to Chippewa. The British ranks lay down in the same order as that in which they fought, and a deep hush fell over the hull, black shrouded battlefield. The immemorial voice of those dread falls to which no combatant gave heed for six long hours of mortal strife was heard once more. But near at hand there was no other sound than that which came from the whispered queries of a few tired officers on duty, from the busy orderlies and surgeons at their work of mercy, and from the wounded moaning in their pain. So passed the quiet half of that short, momentous summer night. Within four hours the sun shone down on the living and the dead, on that silent battery whose gunners had fallen to a man on the unconquered rise. The tide of war along the Niagara frontier favored neither side for some time after Lundy's Lane, though the Americans twice appeared to be regaining the initiative. On August fifteenth there was a well-earned American victory at Fort Erie, where Drummond's assault was beaten off with great loss to the British. A month later an American sortee was repulsed. On September twenty-first Drummond retired beaten, and on October thirteenth he found himself again on the defensive at Chippewa, with little more than three thousand men, while Izard, who had come with American reinforcements from Lake Champlain in Sackett's Harbor, was facing him with twice as many. But Yeo's fleet had now come up to the mouth of the Niagara, while Chauncey's had remained at Sackett's Harbor. Thus the British had the priceless advantage of a movable naval base at hand, while the Americans had none at all within supporting distance. Every step towards Lake Ontario hampered Izard more and more, while it added corresponding strength to Drummond. An American attempt to work around Drummond's flank, twelve miles inland, was also foiled by a heavy skirmish on October nineteeth at Cook's Mills, and Izard's definite abandonment of the invasion was announced on November fifth by his blowing up Fort Erie and retiring into winter quarters. This ended the war along the whole Niagara. The campaign on Lake Ontario was very different. It opened two months earlier. The naval competition consisted rather in building than in fighting. The British ships built in Kingston, the Americans in Sackett's Harbor, and reports of progress soon traveled across the intervening space of less than forty miles. The initiative of combined operations by land and water was undertaken by the British instead of by the Americans. Yell and Drummond wished to attack Sackett's Harbor with four thousand men. But Prevost said he could only spare them three thousand, whereupon they changed their objective to Oswego, which they took an excellent style on May sixth. The British suffered a serious reverse, though on a very much smaller scale, on May thirtieth at Sandy Creek, between Oswego and Sackett's Harbor, when a party of marines and blue jackets sent to cut out some vessels with naval stores for Chauncey was completely lost, every man being either killed, wounded, or taken prisoner. From Lake Ontario down to the sea, the Canadian frontier was never seriously threatened, and the only action of any consequence was fought to the south of Montreal in the early spring. On March thirtieth the Americans made a last, inglorious attempt in this direction. Wilkinson started with four thousand men to follow the line of Lake Champlain and the Richelieu River, the same that was tried by Dearborn in eighteen twelve and by Hampton in eighteen thirteen. At Lacoy, only four miles across the frontier, he attacked major Hancock's posts of two hundred men. The result was like a second Chateau Guy. Hancock drew in three hundred reinforcements and two gun boats from Île-Oise-Noix. Wilkinson's advanced guard lost its way overnight. In the morning he lacked the resolution to press on, even with his overwhelming numbers, and so after a part of his army had executed some disjointed maneuvers, he withdrew the whole and gave up in despair. From this point of the Canadian frontier to the very end of the five thousand mile loop, that is, from Montreal to Mexico, the theatre of operations was directly based upon the sea, where the British navy was by this time undisputedly supreme. A few small American men of war were still at large, together with a much greater number of privateers. But they had no power of whatever even to mitigate the irresistible blockade of the whole coastline of the United States. American seaborne commerce simply died away, for no mercantile marine could have carried on any independent life when its trade had to be carried on by a constantly decreasing tonnage, when, too, it could go to sea at all only by furtive evasion, and when it had to take cargo at risks so great that they could not be covered, either by insurance or by any attainable profits. The Atlantic being barred by this great blockade, and the Pacific being inaccessible, the only practical way left open to American trade was through the British lines by land or sea. Some American seamen shipped in British vessels. Some American ships sailed under British colours. But the chief external American trade was done illicitly, by underground, with the British West Indies and with Canada itself. This was, of course, in direct defiance of the American government, and to the direct detriment of the United States as a nation. It was equally to the direct benefit of the British colonies in general and of Nova Scotia in particular. American harbours had never been so dull. Quebec and Halifax had never been so prosperous. American money was drained away from the war-like south and west and either concentrated in the northern states, which were opposed to the war, or paid over into British hands. End of chapter 6 part 1