Brown then turned Riall's flank, by crossing the Chippawa higher up, and prepared for the crowning triumph of crushing Drummond. He proposed a joint attack with Chauncey on Forts Niagara and George. But Chauncey happened to be ill at the time; he had not yet defeated Yeo; and he strongly resented being made apparently subordinate to Brown. So the proposed combination failed at the critical moment. But, for the eighteen days between the battle of Chippawa on the 5th of July and Brown's receipt of Chauncey's refusal on the 23rd, the Americans carried all before them, right up to the British line that ran along the western end of Lake Ontario, from Fort Niagara to Burlington. During this period no great operations took place. But two minor incidents served to exasperate feelings on both sides. Eight Canadian traitors were tried and hanged at Ancaster near Burlington; and Loyalists openly expressed their regret that Willcocks and others had escaped the same fate. Willcocks had been the ring-leader of the parliamentary opposition to Brock in 1812; and had afterwards been exceedingly active on the American side, harrying every Loyalist he and his raiders could lay their hands on. He ended by cheating the gallows, after all, as he fell in a skirmish towards the end of the present campaign on the Niagara frontier. The other exasperating incident was the burning of St David's on July 19 by a Colonel Stone; partly because it was a 'Tory village' and partly because the American militia mistakenly thought that one of their officers, Brigadier-General Swift, had been killed by a prisoner to whom he had given quarter.
When, on the 23rd of July, Brown at last received Chauncey's disappointing answer, he immediately stopped manoeuvring along the lower Niagara and prepared to execute an alternative plan of marching diagonally across the Niagara peninsula straight for the British position at Burlington. To do this he concentrated at the Chippawa on the 24th. But by the time he was ready to put his plan into execution, on the morning of the 25th, he found himself in close touch with the British in his immediate front. Their advanced guard of a thousand men, under Colonel Pearson, had just taken post at Lundy's Lane, near the Falls. Their main body, under Riall, was clearing both banks of the lower Niagara. And Drummond himself had just arrived at Fort Niagara. Neither side knew the intentions of the other. But as the British were clearing the whole country up to the Falls, and as the Americans were bent on striking diagonally inland from a point beside the Falls, it inevitably happened that each met the other at Lundy's Lane, which runs inland from the Canadian side of the Falls, at right angles to the river, and therefore between the two opposing armies.
When Drummond, hurrying across from York, landed at Fort Niagara in the early morning of the fateful 25th, he found that the orders he had sent over on the 23rd were already being carried out, though in a slightly modified form. Colonel Tucker was marching off from Fort Niagara to Lewiston, which he took without opposition. Then, first making sure that the heights beyond were also clear, he crossed over the Niagara to Queenston, where his men had dinner with those who had marched up on the Canadian side from Fort George. Immediately after dinner half the total sixteen hundred present marched back to garrison Forts George and Niagara, while the other half marched forward, up-stream, on the Canadian side, with Drummond, towards Lundy's Lane, whither Riall had preceded them with reinforcements for the advanced guard under Colonel Pearson. In the meantime Brown had heard about the taking of Lewiston, and, fearing that the British might take Fort Schlosser too, had at once given up all idea of his diagonal march on Burlington and had decided to advance straight against Queenston instead. Thus both the American and the British main bodies were marching on Lundy's Lane from opposite sides and in successive detachments throughout that long, intensely hot, midsummer afternoon.
Presently Riall got a report saying that the Americans were advancing in one massed force instead of in successive detachments. He thereupon ordered Pearson to retire from Lundy's Lane to Queenston, sent back orders that Colonel Hercules Scott, who was marching up twelve hundred men from near St Catharine's on Twelve Mile Creek, was also to go to Queenston, and reported both these changes to Drummond, who was hurrying along the Queenston road towards Lundy's Lane as fast as he could. While the orderly officers were galloping back to Drummond and Hercules Scott, and while Pearson was getting his men into their order of march, Winfield Scott's brigade of American regulars suddenly appeared on the Chippawa road, deployed for attack, and halted. There was a pause on both sides. Winfield Scott thought he might have Drummond's whole force in front of him. Riall thought he was faced by the whole of Brown's. But Winfield Scott, presently realizing that Pearson was unsupported, resumed his advance; while Pearson and Riall, not realizing that Winfield Scott was himself unsupported for the time being, immediately began to retire.
At this precise moment Drummond dashed up and drew rein. There was not a minute to lose. The leading Americans were coming on in excellent order, only a musket-shot away; Pearson's thousand were just in the act of giving up the key to the whole position; and Drummond's eight hundred were plodding along a mile or so in rear. But within that fleeting minute Drummond made the plan that brought on the most desperately contested battle of the war. He ordered Pearson's thousand back again. He brought his own eight hundred forward at full speed. He sent post-haste to Colonel Scott to change once more and march on Lundy's Lane. And so, by the time the astonished Americans were about to seize the key themselves, they found him ready to defend it.
Too long for a hillock, too low for a hill, this key to the whole position in that stern fight has never had a special name. But it may well be known as Battle Rise. It stood a mile from the Niagara river, and just a step inland beyond the crossing of two roads. One of these, Lundy's Lane, ran lengthwise over it, at right angles to the Niagara. The other, which did not quite touch it, ran in the same direction as the river, all the way from Fort Erie to Fort George, and, of course, through both Chippawa and Queenston. The crest of Battle Rise was a few yards on the Chippawa side of Lundy's Lane; and there Drummond placed his seven field-guns. Round these guns the thickest of the battle raged, from first to last. The odds were four thousand Americans against three thousand British, altogether. But the British were in superior force at first; and neither side had its full total in action at any one time, as casualties and reinforcements kept the numbers fluctuating.
It was past six in the evening of that stifling 25th of July when Winfield Scott attacked with the utmost steadiness and gallantry. Though the British outnumbered his splendid brigade, and though they had the choice of ground as well, he still succeeded in driving a wedge through their left flank, a move which threatened to break them away from the road along the river. But they retired in good order, re-formed, and then drove out his wedge.
By half-past seven the American army had all come into action, and Drummond was having hard work to hold his own. Brown, like Winfield Scott, at once saw the supreme importance of taking Battle Rise; so he sent two complete battalions against it, one of regulars leading, the other, of militia, in support. At the first salvo from Drummond's seven guns the American militia broke and ran away. But Colonel Miller worked some of the American regulars very cleverly along the far side of a creeper-covered fence, while the rest engaged the battery from a distance. In the heat of action the British artillerymen never saw their real danger till, on a given signal, Miller's advanced party all sprang up and fired a point-blank volley which killed or wounded every man beside the guns. Then Miller charged and took the battery. But he only held it for a moment. The British centre charged up their own side of Battle Rise and drove the intruders back, after a terrific struggle with the bayonet. But again success was only for the moment. The Americans rallied and pressed the British back. The British then rallied and returned. And so the desperate fight swayed back and forth across the coveted position; till finally both sides retired exhausted, and the guns stood dumb between them.
It was now pitch-dark, and the lull that followed seemed almost like the end of the fight. But, after a considerable pause, the Americans—all regulars this time—came on once more. This put the British in the greatest danger. Drummond had lost nearly a third of his men. The effective American regulars were little less than double his present twelve hundred effectives of all kinds and were the fresher army of the two. Miller had taken one of the guns from Battle Rise. The other six could not be served against close-quarter musketry; and the nearest Americans were actually resting between the cross-roads and the deserted Rise. Defeat looked certain for the British. But, just as the attackers and defenders began to stir again, Colonel Hercules Scott's twelve hundred weary reinforcements came plodding along the Queenston road, wheeled round the corner into Lundy's Lane, and stumbled in among these nearest Americans, who, being the more expectant of the two, drove them back in confusion. The officers, however, rallied the men at once. Drummond told off eight hundred of them, including three hundred militia, to the reserve; prolonged his line to the right with the rest; and thus re-established the defence.
Hardly had the new arrivals taken breath before the final assault began. Again the Americans took the silent battery. Again the British drove them back. Again the opposing lines swayed to and fro across the deadly crest of Battle Rise, with nothing else to guide them through the hot, black night but their own flaming musketry. The Americans could not have been more gallant and persistent in attack: the British could not have been more steadfast in defence. Midnight came; but neither side could keep its hold on Battle Rise. By this time Drummond was wounded; and Riall was both wounded and a prisoner. Among the Americans Brown and Winfield Scott were also wounded, while their men were worn out after being under arms for nearly eighteen hours. A pause of sheer exhaustion followed. Then, slowly and sullenly, as if they knew the one more charge they could not make must carry home, the foiled Americans turned back and felt their way to Chippawa.