Quest Biographies Bundle — Books 31–35. Rosemary Sadlier
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He was subsequently pardoned, but never recovered from his disgrace.
The news that war had been declared had taken some time to spread. Communication moved slowly in those days over the vast distances it had to travel. Once the grim news reached them, many people living along the border moved farther into the interior. With the men gone, those women who decided to stay in their homes, Laura Ingersoll Secord among them, hid their valuables and made sure they had enough provisions to feed their families until the conflict was over. One American newspaper reported that in the towns of Newark and Queenston there were no inhabitants left, except for a few civilians and the soldiers.
Canadians rallied around the hero, Isaac Brock. Lieutenant John Norton, the half-Scottish, half-Cherokee adopted nephew of Chief Joseph Brant, and his Grand River Indians had previously been neutral, but now they threw their support behind the British.
Then came the news that Governor General Prevost had negotiated a one-month ceasefire with the Americans. Brock, who had hoped to keep the momentum going, was bitterly disappointed. He judged that, as soon as the ceasefire ended, the next attack by the American forces would come at the province’s most vulnerable point, along the Niagara River. Although the British troops would be outnumbered, Brock figured they would have the advantage because the Americans had first to get across the river with its treacherous cross-currents.
As Brock suspected they would, the Americans used the period of the ceasefire to rally thousands of troops, and now they were heading for the border at the Niagara River.
The British had built a redan — a V-shaped, two-sided military structure — halfway up the Heights above the village of Queenston to house an 18-pound cannon. The big gun was powerful enough to reach Lewiston, on the American side of the river.
In the early morning hours of October 13, while Isaac Brock was at his headquarters at Fort George in Niagara trying to get some much-needed sleep, the Americans crossed the river to attack Queenston. The sound of the big gun at Vrooman’s Point, one mile downriver from Queenston, sent Brock leaping from his bed. Had the assault begun?
He ran for his horse, Alfred, shouting orders that were to be relayed to his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonell, and to Major John B. Glegg: “I’m off to Queenston. Tell them to follow at all speed.”
Fifty of his own 49th Regiment, led by James Dennis, were firing down on the Americans trying to board boats at Lewiston and come across the river. Some American troops had already landed before they’d been spotted by the sentries at Queenston. Hit by gunshot from the Canadian side, a number of American soldiers toppled, dead, into the water. A couple of their boats were caught in the eddies, capsized, and were carried away by the strong current.
Things had not gone smoothly for the Americans. It was not mandatory that the New York State Militia fight outside the country, and many had refused to cross the river. Although they had been expecting at least thirty boats to ferry them across to Queenston, at the point where the river was at its narrowest, only twelve small boats had been made available.
But still the troops kept coming, while more waited on the shore for the boats to return for them to make the crossing. They landed at the Queenston wharf and hunkered under the steep bank at the edge of the river, led by twenty-eight-year-old Captain John Wool. Wool was filling in for his commander, Colonel Solomon van Rensselaer, who had been wounded on landing. One source says Van Rensselaer was wounded five times that day, but survived. The Americans managed to move up the bank, heading for Queenston Heights on the south side of the village.
Meanwhile, Brock raced along the road to Queenston, telling each of the militia units he’d earlier called up in order to patrol the river to follow him. He reined in his big grey horse at Brown’s Point just long enough to give the same command to the company of York militia that was guarding the cannon there. “Push on, York Volunteers!” was his rallying cry.
One of the men manning the 24-pound gun at Vrooman’s Point called out as Brock passed, “The Americans are crossing the river in force, sir.”
Brock believed Queenston Heights was the key to holding Upper Canada. If it fell, so too would the rest of the province.
When he reached Queenston, Brock ordered some of the men manning the battery on the Heights to come down to assist the troops in the village in a effort to stem the flow of American soldiers. When he rode up to the battery himself, intending to get a view of the situation down at the river, bullets rained down around him. To his horror he discovered that the Americans were already on the Heights, above the redan. Led by Captain Wool, they had found an old fisherman’s trail that the British had considered to be impassable.
Brock ordered the big gun at the redan spiked to render it useless to the enemy, and he and his men hurried back down to the village where he could rally his troops.
By 9:00 a.m. the British were ready to advance. Never one to send his men where he would not go himself, Brock led his own 49th Regiment and the Lincoln County Militia in a charge up the hill, keeping to the right of the battery, determined to recapture the cannon. He received a shot in his wrist early on the ascent, but ignored it and continued in the lead, brandishing his sword.
Suddenly, an American rifleman stepped out from behind a tree, took aim, and shot Brock in the chest. Major General Isaac Brock made an easy target — a tall British officer, wearing a cockaded hat and scarlet jacket with gold epaulettes. He died almost instantly.
With their commander down, Brock’s men began to fall back until his aide-de-camp, Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonell, urged them on. By this time, some of the York Militia who Brock had summoned from Brown’s Point had arrived, and along with the 49th Foot led by Captain John Williams made a second attack, charging up the hill, thirsty now to avenge their charismatic commander.
Tragically, Macdonell’s horse was shot out from under him, and the young officer was shot in the back as he fell. The British and Canadians retreated down the hill, bearing their dead and wounded. They carried Brock’s body to a stone house in Queenston, thought to be across from the Secords’ and took Macdonell to Durham’s farmhouse. He died the next day.
Portrait of Major General Sir Isaac Brock. Artist George Theodore Berthon.
It was only ten in the morning, but the Americans were convinced they’d won the battle. Up on the Heights, Captain Wool ordered his men to establish their position by building a fortification. Hundreds more American soldiers poured across the river, despite the heavy cannon fire from Vrooman’s Point.
The British and Canadian troops had withdrawn to Durham’s farm to await reinforcements from Fort George and from Chippawa, three miles above the falls. Brock had left word that Major General Roger Hale Sheaffe, the commander of Fort George, was to follow as soon as Brock had been able to determine where the enemy planned to make their full attack.
The counterattack began in the afternoon. Native warriors led by Lieutenant John Norton scaled the Heights from the southwest, taking the Americans — who were busy building their fortifications — by surprise.
Norton had been appointed chief by the Grand River Natives, and Isaac Brock had named him their commander. It had been Norton who cleverly devised the plan to ascend Queenston Heights at some distance along the road from Queenston, and to come at the Americans from behind. A brilliant tactician, he was respected by both Natives and whites for his superior education and his knowledge of the customs of both cultures.
Taunting the terrified Americans with their savage war whoops, the Natives skirmished with them, keeping them off-balance until the main force arrived under Major General Sheaffe.
Sheaffe, too, had planned a surprise attack. He’d reached Vrooman’s about 11:00 a.m., but from there had taken a roundabout route through St. Davids and the farmland behind Queenston. Along with the troops that had arrived from Chippawa, he came up onto the Heights two miles west of the Americans.
The British had a force of nine hundred men, and with the militia, a company of black soldiers — the “Coloured Corps”