The Story of Isaac Brock Part 11

FOOTNOTE:

[3] This gun is credited with having fired 160 shots during the engagement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF QUEENSTON HEIGHTS. From an old Print]

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE ATTACK ON THE REDAN.

Checking his reeking horse for a moment, Brock acknowledged with a smile the salute, saying to the men who had leaped to his side, "Take breath, my good fellows; you will need all you have, and more, in a few minutes," words which evoked much cheering. Then he breasted the rise at a canter, exposed to a galling enfilading fire of artillery, and running the gauntlet of the sniping of some invisible marksmen, reached the redan, half-way to the summit. Here he dismounted, threw his charger's reins to a gunner, and entered the enclosure.

From the loftier elevation of the Heights a still more striking scene confronted him. He saw, in the yellow light, battalion after battalion drawn up in rear of the Lewiston batteries, across the river, only two hundred yards wide at this point, awaiting embarkation. Other soldiers he saw crouching in the batteaux on the river, while an unknown number had already crossed and were in possession of Queenston landing. Round and grape shot from the American batteries were searching the banks and scourging the village, while sh.e.l.ls from mortars at short range came singing across the river. He saw a boat with fifteen American soldiers smashed in mid-stream by a six-pounder from Dennis's battery, and watched the mangled bodies drift into the gloom.

Having surveyed the position rapidly, ignorant of the concealed movements of the American troops, Brock at a first glance p.r.o.nounced the situation favorable.

The crest of the Heights was wooded densely. The leaves still clung to the trees in all the spangled glory of autumn, and the thickets afforded far too safe cover for the American sharpshooters. In answer to his inquiry, Williams, in charge of the light company of the 49th, told him that at least 350 United States regulars and 250 militia must already have been ferried over. In the chilling gray of dawn, four boats, filled with armed men, had been seen crossing the river, which here had a four-mile current. The head of a column had also been seen above the river bank at the Queenston landing. The soldiers from the three batteaux, previously landed below Hamilton's garden, had already been met by Dennis's men, who had killed several and captured others. Later, more boats had come ash.o.r.e, knocked out of commission by Vrooman's big gun and the six-pounders. Their crews had surrendered. Some of these Brock had met. Many more, however, had landed safely, hidden by the shadows, and were doubtless then awaiting a chance to emerge from ambush.

In answer to Brock's question as to whether there was a chance of the Height being scaled direct from the river, Williams repeated what he had already reported at the council meeting, that the scouts insisted that the Heights could not be climbed from the landing. The cliffs, over three hundred feet high, rose almost vertically from the water, and the denseness of the shrubs, tangle and overhanging trees, anch.o.r.ed in the clefts, rendered it impossible for any but exceptionally active and resolute men, and then only as a forlorn hope, to reach the summit.

Projecting ledges of rock also blocked the way. A large body of men had been seen before daybreak stealing across the foot-hills, but had evaded pursuit. He believed they had fled to the Black Swamp, four miles distant.

Seeing that Dennis needed every possible support at the landing, Brock ordered Williams and his men to proceed to his a.s.sistance, and on the latter's departure our hero and his aides were left alone with the eight gunners.

The rain was gradually ceasing. Shafts of light from an unseen sun tinged the edges of the smoke-coloured clouds with amber and rose. A few spent musket-b.a.l.l.s falling about the enclosure aroused Brock's suspicions. He was watching, from behind the earthen parapet, the flight of the sh.e.l.ls discharged by the eighteen-pounder, and, seeing that they burst too soon, turned to the gunner.

"Sergeant, you are misjudging your time and distance; we must not waste powder and shot. Your sh.e.l.ls are bursting too soon. Try a longer fuse."

The words were barely out of our hero's mouth when there was a rolling crash of musketry, accompanied by wild shouts, and a shower of bullets flew zipping over their heads. Shooting high is the invariable shortcoming of excited marksmen. A moment later the heads of a large force of American riflemen rose from the rocky ambuscade above and behind them. The next instant the enemy was in full charge, evidently bent on capturing both the General and the redan.

Brock saw that resistance would be madness. To save the gun and escape capture must be the "double event." Seizing a ramrod, he ordered an artilleryman to spike the gun, gave the command to retreat, telling the men to "duck their heads," fearing another discharge, and, leading his horse, followed by Macdonell and Glegg and the firing squad of eight artillerymen, rushed down the slope.

For a clearer understanding of the situation--a better conception even than our hero had when, to escape capture and save the lives of his men, he was compelled to abandon the redan--we must visit Van Rensselaer's camp at Lewiston.

CHAPTER XXVII.

VAN RENSSELAER'S CAMP.

After midnight, on the morning of the 11th, the American general, Van Rensselaer, believing, as he wrote, "that Brock, with all his disposable forces, had left for Detroit," launched from the Lewiston landing, under cover of the pitch darkness, thirteen boats capable of carrying 340 armed men.

To Lieutenant Sims, "the man of the greatest skill in the American service," was entrusted the command. Sims entered the leading boat, and vanished in the gloom. Whether he had taken all the oars with him, as reported, or whether the furious storm and the sight of the whirling black waters had frozen the hearts of the troops, must remain a mystery.

The other boats did not follow.

Meanwhile, 350 additional regulars and thirty boats had arrived from Four Mile Creek. Flying artillery came from Fort Niagara, with still more regulars, and part of Smythe's brigade from Buffalo. Troops, as Brock's spies had truly reported, now overflowed the United States army headquarters--three more complete regiments from New York and another from Fort Schlosser. Lewiston bristled with bayonets. The entire expeditionary force was in command of Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, a militiaman, between whom and the officers commanding the regular troops much jealousy and great friction existed. Both branches of the service were determined to monopolize whatever credit might ensue. A storm, more furious than ever, prevailed for twenty-eight hours. The men sulked in their tents.

On the night of the 12th, the storm having abated, though the sky was black as ink, added numbers having developed greater courage, Van Rensselaer resolved on another attempt. He secretly notified Brigade-Major Smythe, in command at Buffalo, that in accordance with the letter reproduced in a previous chapter, he would storm the Heights of Queenston that night. With experienced river men as pilots, with picked crews, and protected by the big guns at Fort Gray, 600 men, with two pieces of light artillery, in thirteen boats, in the grim darkness of the morning of the 13th--a sinister coincidence--drew up in silence on the wharf. They comprised the first detachment of 850 regulars and 300 militia, the advance attacking party--"the flower of Wadsworth's army"--embarked to "carry the Heights of Queenston and appal the minds of Canadians."

Let us trace the fulfilling of Van Rensselaer's boast.

The regulars crossed first, almost out of the line of fire of the British batteries, and under cover of six of the enemy's field-guns that completely commanded the Canadian sh.o.r.e. Some of the boats of this flotilla effected, as we know, a landing above the rock, still visible at the water's edge, under the suspension bridge. Here they disembarked their fighting men--the 13th regulars and some artillery--and, under Van Rensselaer, attempted to form. The empty boats recrossed the river to ferry over more soldiers.

A sentry of the 49th--our hero's regiment--overheard voices and tramping of feet. Scenting danger, he ran, without firing, to alarm the main guard.

In a few minutes Dennis advanced upon the landing place with forty-six men of his own company and a few militia, and discharged a murderous volley, leaving Colonel Van Rensselaer, with eight officers and forty-five men, killed or wounded. The enemy retreated to the water's edge for shelter, confused and s.h.i.+vering. The Lewiston batteries at once opened fire on the redan on Queenston Heights. The position of Dennis being thus revealed to Dearborn's gunners, they immediately turned their battery of six field-pieces upon his handful of men, and the position proving untenable, he withdrew to the shelter of the village, on the lip of the hill, still continuing to fire downwards on the invaders.

Vrooman's battery then opened fire, and Crowther brought his two "gra.s.shoppers"--small three-pounders--to sweep the road leading to the river.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

A FOREIGN FLAG FLIES ON THE REDAN.

It was the crackling of the grenadiers' muskets, the bellowing of Vrooman's big gun, the cannonade of the twenty-four-pounders of the Lewiston batteries, the roar of the eighteen-pounder in the British redan, and the streak of crimson light from the long line of beacons which rent the sky from Fort Erie to Pelham Heights, that had wakened the citizens of Niagara and aroused Brock from his brief repose.

Captain Wool, of the 13th U.S. regulars--Van Rensselaer being wounded in six places--hurried his men under the shelter of the overhanging rocks, keeping up an intermittent fire, and waited for reinforcements. For almost two hours this desultory firing continued. With the cessation of the storm and arrival of broad daylight, six more boats attempted to reach the Queenston landing. One boat was sunk by a discharge of grape from Dennis's howitzer; another, with Colonel Fenwick, of the U.S.

artillery, was swept below the landing to a cove where, in the attack by Cameron's volunteers that followed, Fenwick, terribly wounded, was, with most of his men, taken prisoner. Another boat drifted under Vrooman's, and was captured there, while others, more fortunate, landed two additional companies of the 13th, forty artillerymen and some militia.

The shouts of the fighters and screams of the wounded were heard by the hundreds of spectators who were parading the river bank at Lewiston, all ready to witness "the humiliation of Canada."

General Van Rensselaer had commanded that the "Heights had to be taken."

Wool, a gallant soldier, only twenty-three, suffering from a bullet that had pa.s.sed through both his thighs--no superior officer coming to his support--volunteered for the duty. He expressed his eagerness to make the attempt. Gansfort, a brother officer of Wool's, had been shown by a river guide a narrow, twisting trail, used at times by fishermen, leading to the summit. This he pointed out to Wool as a possible pathway to the Heights, where a force of determined men might gain the rear of the British position. Wool, at the same time, had also been informed that Williams, hitherto on the Heights, had been ordered to descend the hill to a.s.sist Dennis--which was Brock's first command on reaching the redan. Followed by Van Rensselaer's aide, who had orders "to shoot every man who faltered," Wool at once commenced the ascent, leaving one hundred of his men to protect the landing.

Picked artillerymen led the way. Concealed by rock and thicket, and un.o.bserved by the British--the trail being regarded as impa.s.sable--they reached the hill-top, only thirty yards in rear of the solitary gun in the redan. The noise of their movements was drowned by the crash of the batteries, which reduced Hamilton's stone house to ruins and drove Crowther and his small gun out of range. The sh.e.l.ls from the enemy's mortars rained upon the village, and his field-pieces subjected the gardens and orchards of Queenston to a searching inquisition.

On reaching the summit, Wool, when the last straggler had arrived, formed his men, without losing a minute, and emerging from ambush, fired a badly-aimed volley at the astonished Brock and his eight gunners, and with a wild shout rushed down upon the redan.

When the United States flag was raised over the gun, which Wool, to his deep chagrin, found spiked, the troops at Lewiston realized that the battery had been taken. Their courage returning, they rushed to the boats below, hoping to partic.i.p.ate in a victory which, while hitherto a question in their minds, now seemed beyond all doubt.