But the history of Niagara has not been always scenic and industrial. In 1763 occurred the horrible massacre of the "Devil's Hole," alongside the gorge of the Lower Rapids, when a band of Senecas ambushed a French commissary train with an escort, the whole force but two, who escaped, being killed, while reinforcements, hurried from Lewiston at the sound of the muskets, were nearly all caught and tomahawked in a second ambush. Many of the victims were thrown alive from the cliffs into the boiling Niagara rapids, their horses and wagons being hurled down after them. There were repeated actions near Niagara in the War of 1812. In October, 1812, the battle of Queenston Heights was fought, the Americans storming the terrace and killing General Brock, the British commander, whose monument is erected there, but being finally defeated and most of them captured. There were various contests near by in 1813, and the battle of Chippewa took place above the falls on July 5, 1814, the British being defeated. On July 25th the battle of Lundy's Lane was fought just west of the falls, between sunset and midnight of a summer night, a contest with varying success and doubtful result, the noise of the conflict commingling with the roar of the cataract, and the dead of both armies being buried on the field, so that, in the words of Lossing, "the mighty diapason of the flood was their requiem."
"O'er Huron's wave the sun was low,
The weary soldier watched the bow
Fast fading from the cloud below
The dashing of Niagara.
"And while the phantom chained his sight
Ah! little thought he of the fight,—
The horrors of the dreamless night,
That posted on so rapidly."