"I could stand it no longer. I placed my hand on his shoulder, 'For Heaven's sake, tell us what you know.' In choking accents he revealed his melancholy information: 'The general is killed; the enemy has possession of Queenston Heights.'
"Every man in the battery was paralyzed; the battery ceased firing.
"A cheer by the enemy from the opposite side of the river recalled us to our duty. They had heard of their success down the river. Our men, who had in various ways evinced their feelings—some in weeping, some in swearing, some in mournful silence—now exhibit demoniac energy. The heavy guns are loaded, traversed and fired, as if they were field-pieces—too much hurry for precision. 'Take your time, men; don't throw away your fire, my lads.' 'No, sir, but we will give it to them hot and heavy.'
"All the guns were worked by the 49 men of my own company, and they wished to avenge their beloved chief Brock, whom they knew and valued with that correct appreciation peculiar to the British soldier. They had all served under him in Holland and at Copenhagen.
"I had a very excellent reconnoitring-glass; and as I kept a sharp look-out for the effect of our fire, and the movements of the enemy, I observed that powder was being removed from a large wooden barrack into ammunition waggons. The only man of the Royal Artillery I had with me was a bombardier, Walker. I called his attention to the fact I had observed, and directed him to lay a gun for that part of the building wherein the powder was being taken. At my request he took a look through my glass, and, having satisfied himself, he lay the gun as ordered. I, with my glass, watched the spot aimed at. I saw one plank of the building fall out, and at the same instant the whole fabric went up in a pillar of black smoke, with but little noise, as it was no more. Horses, waggons, men, and building all disappeared; not a vestige of any was seen.
"Now was our turn to cheer; and we plied the enemy in a style so quick and accurate, that we silenced all their guns just as a third dragoon come galloping up to us, shouting 'Victory! Victory!' Then again we cheered lustily; but no response from the other side. Night now hid the enemy from our sight.
"The commissariat made its appearance with biscuit, pork, rum, and potatoes; and we broke our fast for that day about nine p.m.
"How strange and unaccountable are the feelings induced by war! Here were men of two nations, but of a common origin, speaking the same language, of the same creed, intent on mutual destruction, rejoicing with fiendish pleasure at their address in perpetrating murder by wholesale, shouting for joy as disasters propagated by the chances of war hurled death and agonizing wounds into the ranks of their opponents! And yet the very same men, when chance gave them the opportunity, would readily exchange, in their own peculiar way, all the amenities of social life, extending to one another a draw of the pipe, and quid, or glass; obtaining and exchanging information from one and the other of their respective services, as to pay, rations, and so on—the victors, with delicacy, abstaining from any allusion to the victorious day. Though the vanquished would allude to their disaster, the victors never named their triumphs.
"Such is the character of acts and words between British and American soldiers which I have witnessed, as officer commanding a guard over American prisoners.
"J. Driscoll,