CHAPTER XXXII.
It was July before Colonel Battersby's column, after a long march from Montreal, reached Kingston and joined the forces of General Drummond, and none too soon, for word had been forwarded of the disastrous invasion of the Niagara frontier under Brigadier-Generals Scott and Ripley. Fort Erie had been taken, and Commander-in-Chief Brown, with a heavy force, had advanced against Major-General Riall and defeated the British forces at Chippewa. The country was ravaged, St. Davids burned, Niagara threatened.
With all possible speed General Drummond pressed forward his troops, but it was the 25th of the month before Niagara was reached and Riall reinforced. Part of Colonel Battersby's command was left with the veterans stationed at Queenston, to oppose the landing of American troops there; while the balance, including Battersby himself, as well as Captain Morris and his company, continued with the main force in the advance toward Lundy's Lane.
At six o'clock of that memorable night, when Drummond's forces met Riall's at the junction of Queenston Road and Lundy's Lane, they were retreating before the superior force of the enemy. Countermanding the retreat, the Generals at once placed their guns in strong position on the hill. Eight hundred soldiers, however, added to the British troops still came short of balancing the forces. Nevertheless, the famous battle of Lundy's Lane commenced, and before night it was fiercely raging. As it progressed, reinforcements were received on both sides. This only added fuel to the flame, and it was not until midnight that the battle ceased.
Among orchards laden with fruit on hillside and summit, in little copses of woodland, in open plain, throughout that long twilight, until the pale moon sank in the west:
"Roar of baleful battle rose And brethren of a common tongue To mortal strife like tigers sprung."
What gave enthusiasm to Canadians and British in the contest was that they were fighting for home and country. The attitude of defender and invader can never be the same. The struggle of heart and soul against mere mentality cannot be equal. The one has virile force in every fibre of its being, ready to sacrifice life and limb to principle; the other mere elusive energy, begotten of baser metal.
