After a long interval the British line was reformed, and brought to the attack. General Drummond’s report said nothing of this movement, but according to the American account the two lines were closely engaged their whole length at a distance of ten or twelve yards. In the darkness the troops could aim only at the flash of the muskets. “We having much the advantage of the ground, the enemy generally fired over our heads,” said Captain McDonald of Ripley’s staff; “but the continual blaze of light was such as to enable us distinctly to see their buttons.” After a sharp combat of some twenty minutes the enemy retreated. Three times, at intervals of half an hour or more, the British line moved up the hill, and after the exchange of a hot fire retired; between the attacks, for half an hour at a time, all was darkness and silence, hardly interrupted by a breath of air. Brown and Scott were with Porter on the extreme left. In the centre, by the captured cannon, Ripley sat on his horse, ten or twelve paces in rear of his line. Two bullets passed through his hat, but he was unhurt. Captain Ritchie was killed at his battery on the left; Jesup was wounded on the right. Each attack sorely diminished the number of men in the ranks, until at the close of the third about seven hundred rank-and-file, with few officers, were believed to remain in position.[82]
Scott, with Leavenworth’s consolidated battalion, after ranging somewhat wildly the entire length of the line in the attempt to turn the enemy’s flank, and receiving the fire of both armies, joined Jesup’s Twenty-fifth regiment on the right, and was at last severely wounded.[83] At about the same time Brown was wounded on the extreme left,[84] where Porter’s volunteers held the line. Major Leavenworth, with the remnants of the first brigade, moving from the left to reinforce Jesup on the right after the third repulse of the enemy, met Scott retiring from the field, and soon afterward was hailed by General Brown, who was also returning to camp severely wounded. The time was then about eleven o’clock, and every one felt that the army must soon retreat.[85] Farther in the rear General Brown met Major Hindman of the artillery, who was bringing up his spare ammunition wagons. Brown ordered Hindman to collect his artillery as well as he could, and retire immediately; “we shall all march to camp.” He said that they had done as much as they could do; that nearly all their officers were killed or wounded; that he was himself wounded, and he thought it best to retire to camp. Hindman on arriving at the hill, firing having wholly ceased, immediately began to withdraw the guns. Ripley first learned the order to withdraw by discovering the artillery to be already gone.[86] Next came a peremptory order to collect the wounded and retire.[87] The order was literally obeyed. The enemy in no way molested the movement; and at about midnight the wearied troops marched for camp, in as good order and with as much regularity as they had marched to the battle-field.[88]
Hindman withdrew his own guns, and having with some difficulty procured horses to haul off the British pieces, on returning to the hill after Ripley’s withdrawal found the enemy again in possession, and some men and wagons captured.[89] He left the field at once, with the British in possession of their guns, and followed the retreating column.
Lieutenant-General Drummond’s report of the battle, though silent as to the repeated British repulses, declared that the Americans fought with uncommon gallantry:—
“In so determined a manner were the attacks directed against our guns that our artillery-men were bayoneted by the enemy in the act of loading, and the muzzles of the enemy’s guns were advanced within a few yards of ours. The darkness of the night during this extraordinary conflict occasioned several uncommon incidents; our troops having for a moment been pushed back, some of our guns remained for a few minutes in the enemy’s hands.”
Drummond’s “few minutes” were three hours. According to the British account, the One-Hundred-and-third regiment, with its two field-pieces, arrived on the field just at nine, and “passed by mistake into the centre of the American army now posted upon the hill.”[90] The regiment “fell back in confusion” and lost its two field-pieces, which were captured by Miller, with Riall’s five pieces. By British report, Miller was at nine o’clock “in possession of the crest of the hill and of seven pieces of captured artillery.”[91] Drummond admitted that in retiring “about midnight” the Americans carried away one of his light pieces, having limbered it up by mistake and leaving one of their own. During the entire action after nine o’clock Drummond did not fire a cannon, although, according to Canadian authority, the fighting was desperate:—
“The officers of the army from Spain who have been engaged in Upper Canada have acknowledged that they never saw such determined charges as were made by the Americans in the late actions.... In the action on the 25th July the Americans charged to the very muzzles of our cannon, and actually bayoneted the artillery-men who were at their guns. Their charges were not once or twice only, but repeated and long, and the steadiness of British soldiers alone could have withstood them.”[92]
CHAPTER III.
The battle of Lundy’s Lane lasted five hours, and Drummond believed the American force to be five thousand men. In truth, at no moment were two thousand American rank-and-file on the field.[93] “The loss sustained by the enemy in this severe action,” reported Drummond,[94] “cannot be estimated at less than fifteen hundred men, including several hundred prisoners left in our hands.” Drummond’s estimate of American losses, as of American numbers, was double the reality. Brown reported a total loss, certainly severe enough, of eight hundred and fifty-three men,—one hundred and seventy-one killed, five hundred and seventy-two wounded, one hundred and ten missing. Drummond reported a total loss of eight hundred and seventy-eight men,—eighty-four killed, five hundred and fifty-nine wounded, one hundred and ninety-three missing, and forty-two prisoners. On both sides the battle was murderous. Brown and Scott were both badly wounded, the latter so severely that he could not resume his command during the war. Drummond and Riall were also wounded. On both sides, but especially on the American, the loss in officers was very great.
The effect of the British artillery on Scott’s brigade, while daylight lasted, had been excessive, while at that period of the battle the British could have suffered comparatively little. Among Scott’s battalions the severest loss was that of Brady’s Twenty-second regiment, from Pennsylvania,—at the opening of the campaign two hundred and twenty-eight strong, officers and men. After Lundy’s Lane the Twenty-second reported thirty-six killed, ninety wounded, and seventeen missing. The Ninth, Leavenworth’s Massachusetts regiment, which was returned as numbering three hundred and forty-eight officers and men June 31, reported sixteen killed, ninety wounded, and fifteen missing at Lundy’s Lane. The Eleventh, McNeil’s Vermont battalion, which numbered three hundred and four officers and men June 30, returned twenty-eight killed, one hundred and two wounded, and three missing. The Twenty-fifth, Jesup’s Connecticut corps, numbering three hundred and seventy officers and men at the outset, reported twenty-eight killed, sixty-six wounded, and fifteen missing. These four regiments, composing Scott’s brigade, numbered thirteen hundred and eighty-eight officers and men June 30, and lost in killed, wounded, and missing at Lundy’s Lane five hundred and six men, after losing two hundred and fifty-seven at Chippawa.