One tale of the day has it that another life was lost; a volunteer was fired at by a patriot, and in retaliation beat his assailant’s brains out; his own condition and that of the butt of his pistol corroborated his story on his return to the Canadian side. The matter for the extraordinarily sensational accounts given by the American press was chiefly furnished by Mackenzie.
Lieutenant Elmsley officered a guard on shore while the vessel was cut from her moorings—not an easy thing to accomplish, as she was made fast by chains frozen in the ice; but a young fellow named Sullivan seized an axe, cleared the chains, and set her free. This, Commander Drew’s own story, is denied by a survivor, one of his lieutenants. A lamp was placed in a basket used for carrying Indian corn, cross-bars from the windows were torn off and added to it, and the vessel was set alight in four different places. The material especially brought for this purpose, and known as a carcass, was at first quite forgotten. Care had been taken to rouse all sleepers, had any been able to sleep through such a scene; the invaders were ordered to their boats; the flames shot out fore and aft; and by this time Captain Drew found his stand on the paddle-box too uncomfortable, as those driven ashore had recovered from their surprise and the discharge of their muskets was disagreeably close. It was equally uncomfortably hot, and his gallant wish to be the last on board nearly left him there as she drifted down the current. He found a companion in a man emerging from below who declared it too hot to live in there, and together they got into the boat sent back for them, Drew’s shouts fortunately having risen above the din. So far there was no need for the beacon from the opposite shore; the Caroline herself, like a great torch, glided beside them, or rather they kept in the wake of her gold-dust covered ripples, a fine target for the island guns; but the days of bull’s-eyes were not yet. In spite of wounds the men rose superior to fear of shot, content with the result of their mission, and anxious to rejoin the cheering multitude that waited for them on the Canadian shore. The illumination made by burning vessel and beacon light threw every pebble on the shore-line into bright relief. Drew’s account states that no human ingenuity could have accomplished what the Caroline so easily did for herself. When free from the wharf at Fort Schlosser her natural course would have been to follow the stream, which would have taken her along the American shore and over the American Fall; but she behaved as if aware she had changed owners and navigated herself across the river, clearing the rapids above Goat Island; she went fairly over the British Fall of Niagara.[4]
An extract from one of the songs sung by the Canadian volunteers will give an idea of the sentiments of the singers:
“A party left the British shore,
Led on by gallant Drew, sir,
Who set the Yankee boat on fire
And beat their pirate crew, sir.
The Yankees said they did invent
The steamboat first of all, sir,
But Britain taught the Yankee boat
To navigate the Fall, sir.”
The Lewiston Telegraph on Saturday set this in type at 6 a.m.:
“Horrible! Most Horrible!!
“We stop the press to announce the following horrible intelligence which has just been communicated by two gentlemen direct from the bloody scene:
“The steamer Caroline, which was lying at the landing at Porter’s storehouse, was boarded this morning between the hours of twelve and one by about eighty men, who came in boats from the Canada side. The Caroline had on board from fifteen to twenty of our sleeping and defenceless citizens, who had lodgings on board. They are believed to have been mostly citizens of Buffalo, who came as lookers-on, with the expectation of witnessing the attack upon the island. Every individual was butchered except four, and three of these severely wounded. The engineer, who was thrust through and put on shore, says that after the bloody work was executed a small boy was found in a closet, who begged for mercy but found none. The Caroline was then towed out into the stream and sent over Niagara Falls. Three cheers were given, and at the same time beacon lights were raised at Chippewa. Our informant saw the lifeless body of one person who was shot upon the shore.”
For five years the question hung upon a thread whether England and the United States should go to war or not. It is always fair to give two sides of a question, but in the one given by Clio and Melpomene it will be seen their poetic license degenerates into something more than the flowery taradiddle of the average verse-maker: