MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE NIAGARA FRONTIER
Brock's victory demoralized the rabble under the American Van Rensselaer. Desertions increased daily, and discipline was so notoriously bad Van Rensselaer and his staff dared not punish desertion for fear of the army—as one of them put it—"falling to pieces." Van Rensselaer saw that he must strike, and strike at once, and strike successfully, or he would not have any army left at all. Two thousand Pennsylvanians had joined him; and on October 9, at one in the morning, Lieutenant Elliott led one hundred men with muffled paddles from the American side to two Canadian ships lying anchored off Fort Erie. One was the brig captured from Hull at Detroit, the other a sloop belonging to the Northwest Fur Company, loaded with peltries. Before the British were well awake, Elliott had boarded decks, captured the fur ship with forty prisoners, and was turning her guns on the other ship when Port Erie suddenly awakened with a belch of cannon shot. The Americans cut the cables and drifted on the captured ship downstream. The fur ship was worked safely over to the American side, where it was welcomed with wild cheers. The brig was set on fire and abandoned.
Van Rensselaer decided to take advantage of the elated spirit among the troops and invade Canada at once.
Over on the Canadian side, Brock, at Fort George, wanted to offer an exchange of Detroit prisoners for the voyageurs on the captured fur ship, and Evans was ordered to paddle across to Lewiston with the offer, white handkerchief fluttering as a flag of truce. Evans could not mistake the signs as he landed on the American shore. Sentries dashed down to stop his advance at bayonet point. He was denied speech with Van Rensselaer and refused admittance to the American camp; and the reason was plain. A score of boats, capable of holding thirty men each, lay moored at the Lewiston shore. Along the rain-soaked road behind the shore floundered and marched troops, fresh troops joining Van Rensselaer's camp. It was dark before Evans returned to Queenston Heights and close on midnight when he reached Major General Brock at Fort George. Brock thought Evans over anxious, and both went to bed, or at least threw themselves down on a mattress to sleep. At two o'clock they were awakened by a sound which could not be mistaken,—the thunderous booming of a furious cannonade from Queenston Heights. Brock realized that the two hundred Canadians on the cliff must be repelling an invasion, but he was suspicious that the attack from Lewiston was a feint to draw off attention from Fort Niagara opposite Fort George, and he did not at once order troops to the aid of Queenston Heights.
GENERAL BROCK
Evans' predictions of invasion were only too true. After one attempt to cross the gorge, which was balked by storm, Van Rensselaer finally got his troops down to the water's edge about midnight of October 12-13. The night was dark, moonless, rainy,—a wind which mingled with the roar of the river drowning all sound of marching troops. Three hundred men embarked on the first passage of the boats across the swift river, the poor old pilot literally groaning aloud in terror. Three of the boats were carried beyond the landing on the Canadian side, and had to come back through the dark to get their bearings; but the rest, led by Van Rensselaer, had safely landed on the Canadian side, when the batteries of Queenston Heights flashed to life in sheets of fire, lighting up the dark tide of the river gorge and sinking half a dozen boat loads of men now coming on a second traverse. Instantly Lewiston's cannon pealed furious answer to the Canadian fire, and in the sheet-lightning flame of the flaring batteries thousands could be seen on the American shore watching the conflict. As the Americans landed they hugged the rock cliff for shelter, but the mortality on the crossing boats was terrible; and each passage carried back quota of wounded. Van Rensselaer was shot in the thigh almost as he landed, but still he held his men in hand. A second shot pierced the same side. A third struck his knee. Six wounds he received in as many seconds; and he was carried back in the boats to the Lewiston side. Then began a mad scramble through the darkness up a fisherman's path steep as trail of mountain goat, sheer against the face of the cliff. When day dawned misty and gray over the black tide of the rolling river, the Canadian batterymen of Queenston Heights were astounded to see American sharp-shooters mustered on the cliff behind and above them. A quick rush, and the Canadian batterymen were driven from their ground, the Canadian cannon silenced, and while wild shoutings of triumph rose from the spectators at Lewiston, the American boats continued to pour soldiers across the river.
It was at this stage Brock came riding from Fort George so spattered with mud from head to heel he was not recognized by the soldiers. One glance was enough. The Canadians had lost the day. Sending messengers to bid General Sheaffe hurry the troops from Fort George, and other runners to bring up the troops from Chippewa behind the Americans on Queenston Heights, Brock charged up the hill amid shriek of bombs and clatter of sharpshooters. He had dismounted and was scrambling over a stone wall. "Follow me, boys!" he shouted to the British grenadiers; then at the foot of the hill, waving his sword: "Now take a breath; you will need it! Come on! come on!" and he led the rush of two hundred men in scarlet coats to dislodge the Americans. A shot pierced his wrist. "Push on, York volunteers," he shouted. His portly figure in scarlet uniform was easy mark for the sharpshooters hidden in the brush of Queenston Heights. One stepped deliberately out and took aim. Though a dozen Canadian muskets flashed answer, Brock fell, shot through the breast, dying with the words on his lips, "My fall must not be noticed to stop the victory." Major Macdonnell led in the charge up the hill, but the next moment his horse plunged frantically, and he reeled from the saddle fatally wounded. For a second time the British were repulsed, and the Americans had won the Heights, if not the day.