Major-General Sheaffe had, early in the morning, in obedience to a summons from General Brock, prepared to march to Queenston with about four companies of the 41st, three hundred and eighty rank and file, and nearly the same number of militia, together with the car brigade under Captain Holcroft. News of the repulse and the loss of the general was followed by a second despatch, telling of Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell's attempt to take the hill, which had ended so disastrously.
General Sheaffe, with the field pieces of the car brigade, arrived at Vrooman's Point about eleven o'clock, and found there the handful of troops who had retreated to that place to await his arrival. Captain Holcroft's company, with the heavy guns, was placed in position to command the landing at Lewiston, and to prevent any more troops from crossing. The general decided that it was useless to attempt a charge up the hill in the face of the addition that had been made to the enemy's force, and their commanding position on the heights. He determined, therefore, to make a long detour through the fields and woods behind Queenston. His force had been strengthened by about one hundred and fifty Mohawk Indians, under Chief Norton, who had come from the lake shore near Niagara, had skirted the village of St. Davids near Queenston, and then had silently moved eastwards through the dense forest, hemming the Americans in. About two p.m. Major Merritt's troop of cavalry appeared on the scene, and later still, a detachment of the 41st and two flank companies of militia arrived from Chippawa.
The battle
It was three o'clock in the afternoon when the real battle of Queenston Heights began. General Sheaffe had gradually advanced towards the battery on the mountain held by the enemy. One spirit animated all the men, a fierce desire to avenge the death of their beloved chief, and to drive the aggressors back from Canadian soil. The main body on the right consisted of the 41st, and the flank companies of the Niagara militia, with two field pieces, 3-pounders, which had been dragged up the hill. The left consisted of the Mohawk Indians and a company of coloured troops, refugee slaves from the United States. The Light Company of the 49th, with the companies of York and Lincoln militia, formed the centre. In all a little over a thousand men, of whom half were regulars.
The Indians were the first to advance, and the Americans, who were expecting an attack from quite another direction, were completely taken by surprise. General Sheaffe had succeeded in reaching their rear unseen. There was scarcely time for them to change their front when a fierce onslaught was made on them from all sides, the Indians uttering their terrific war whoop, and the rest of the troops joining in the shout.
In vain did the American officers, among them Winfield Scott, attempt to rally their men. A panic seized them in the face of the determined fire that was poured upon them, and, scarcely waiting to fire a volley, they fled by hundreds down the mountain, only to meet more of their enemies below. There was no retreat possible for them. It was indeed a furious and avenging force that pressed upon them, and drove them to the brink of that river whose deep waters seemed to offer a more merciful death than that which awaited them above. They fell in numbers. "The river," says one who was present,[[6]] "presented a shocking spectacle, filled with poor wretches who plunged into the stream with scarcely a prospect of being saved." Many leaped from the side of the mountain, and were dashed to pieces on the rocks below.
At last the fire from the American batteries at Lewiston ceased, and the battle was over in one short hour. Brock was indeed avenged. Two officers were now seen approaching bearing a white flag. They were conducted up the mountain to General Sheaffe, and with difficulty the slaughter was stopped. By the surrender, General Wadsworth and over nine hundred men, including sixty officers, were made prisoners of war. It was a complete victory, but dimmed by a national loss. That loss was felt through the two years of fighting that followed the battle of Queenston Heights. Sheaffe, who succeeded the fallen general, was lacking in the qualities that are requisite for a successful commander. His conduct at the taking of York in 1813, proved his unfitness for the position. Procter who had been left in command on the western frontier also lacked the firmness in action and fertility of resource that characterized the leader who had opened the campaign so brilliantly. But the influence which the lost leader wielded on the youth of the province lived after him, and stimulated them throughout the long struggle "to keep the land inviolate." Under Vincent and Harvey and Drummond and Macdonell and de Salaberry they fought as veterans, and when at the close of the war they laid down their arms not one foot of Canadian territory was occupied by the enemy.
Three times were Sir Isaac Brock's funeral rites observed. First, on that sad October day when a pause came in the conflict, and minute guns from each side of the river bore their token of respect from friend and foe for the general who had fallen in the midst of the battle. He was laid to rest first in the cavalier bastion of Fort George which he himself had built. Dark days were yet to fall on Canada, when shot and shell poured over that grave in the bastion, and fire and sword laid the land desolate; but the spirit kindled by Brock in the country never failed, and though his voice was stilled, the echo of his words remained and the force of his example.
His monument
When peace came again, a grateful country resolved to raise to his memory a monument on the field where he fell, and twelve years afterwards a solemn procession passed again over that road by the river, and from far and near those who had served under him gathered to do him honour. A miscreant from the United States shattered this monument on April 13th, 1840, a crime that was execrated in that country as well as in Canada.