The Second War with England Volume I Part 3

The surrender, at this time, of Fort Mackinaw, situated on the island of the same name in the straits between Lakes Huron and Michigan, was a severe blow to him, for it opened the flood-gates to all the Indians, Canadians and British in the north-west. This fort was the key to that section of the country, and the grand depot of the fur companies. By its position it s.h.i.+elded General Hull from all attack in that direction. Lieutenant Hanks commanded it, with a garrison of sixty men. As soon as the British commander of St. Joseph's, just above it, received news of the declaration of war, he took with him some two hundred Canadians and British, and four hundred Indians, and suddenly appearing before the fort demanded its surrender. This was the first intimation to Lieutenant Hanks of the commencement of hostilities. He capitulated without offering any resistance, and the Indians at once rallied around the British standard. Here was another blunder, a double one. In the first place, private enterprise had outstripped the action of Government. The British officer at St.

Joseph's, though more remote than Mackinaw, received the declaration of war _nine_ days before it reached the American commander at the latter place, or rather, Lieutenant Hanks did not receive it at all, either from the Government or General Hull. Colonel Roberts, of St.

Joseph's, with his band of Canadians and Indians, was kind enough to convey the information.

It is surprising that General Hull, after his experience, did not at once provide that a post so vital to him, should not become the victim of the same criminal negligence which had paralyzed his efforts.

_Fifteen days_ intervened between his receiving the notification of war, and the taking of Fort Mackinaw, and yet no messenger from him, the Governor of the Territory, and commander-in-chief of the forces in that section, reached the garrison. Were it not for the calamitous results which followed, the whole campaign might be called a "comedy of errors."

Three days previous, however, to the retreat of Hull from Canada, he committed another error which increased his embarra.s.sments. Proctor, who had arrived at Malden with reinforcements, threw a small detachment across the river to Brownstown, to intercept any provisions that might be advancing from Ohio to the army. Captain Brush, who was on the way with the mail, flour and cattle, was thus stopped at the River Raisin. To open the communication and bring up the provisions, Major Van Horne was dispatched with two hundred volunteers and militia. But the detachment, marching without sufficient caution, was led into ambush, and utterly defeated. Only about one-half returned to the army. Both Gen. Hull and Major Van Horne were to blame in this affair--the former for not sending a larger detachment, when he knew the enemy must be on the march, while at the same time he was ignorant of his force. This error is the more culpable, because he did not expect an immediate attack; for, after the detachment was despatched, he remained quietly in Canada, and then crossed at his leisure to Detroit. He therefore could, without danger, have spared a larger force, and should have done so, especially when the want of provisions was one of the evils he would be called upon to encounter. On the other hand, Major Van Horne should have heeded the information he received, that the enemy were in advance, in position, and not allowed his little army to rush into an ambuscade.

General Hull's position had now become sufficiently embarra.s.sing.

"The whole northern hive was in motion." Reinforcements were hastening to the support of Malden; his communications on the lake were cut off by British vessels, while the defeat of Van Horne announced that his communications by land were also closed. The latter he knew must be opened at all hazards, and Colonel Miller was dispatched on the route which Van Horne had taken with four hundred men to clear the road to the river Raisin. Leaving Detroit on the 8th of August, he next day in the afternoon, as he was approaching Brownstown, came upon the enemy covered with a breast work of logs and branches of trees, and protected on one side by the Detroit river, and on the other by swamps and thickets. The British and Canadians were commanded by Muir, and the Indians by Tec.u.mseh. Captain Snelling leading the advance guard approached to within half musket shot, before he discovered the enemy.

A fierce and deadly fire was suddenly opened on him, which he sustained without flinching, till Colonel Miller converting his order of march into order of battle, advanced to his support. Seeing, however, how destructive the fire of the enemy was, while the bullets of his own men buried themselves for the most part in the logs of the breastwork; perceiving, also, some symptoms of wavering, Miller determined to carry the works by the bayonet. The order to charge was received with loud cheers; and the next moment the troops poured fiercely over the breastwork, and routing the British and Canadians pressed swiftly on their retiring footsteps. Tec.u.mseh, however, maintained his post, and Van Horne, who commanded the right flank of the American line, supposing from his stubborn resistance that it would require more force than he possessed to dislodge him, sent to Colonel Miller for reinforcements. The latter immediately ordered a halt, and with a reluctant heart turned from the fugitives now almost within his grasp, and hastened to the relief of his subordinate. On arriving at the breastwork, he found the Indian chief in full flight.

He then started again in pursuit, but arrived in view of the enemy only to see him on the water floating away beyond his grasp.

He, however, had established the communication between the army and the river Raisin, and dispatched Captain Snelling to Detroit with the account of the victory, and a request for boats to remove the wounded, and bring provisions for the living, and reinforcements to supply the place of the dead and disabled. General Hull immediately sent Colonel McArthur with a hundred men and boats, but with provisions sufficient only for a single meal.[17]

[Footnote 17: Miller's testimony on the trial of Hull.]

Colonel Miller was some twenty miles from the supplies, but not deeming it prudent with the slender reinforcements he had received, and the still scantier provisions, to proceed, remained on the battle field, and sent another messenger declaring that the communication was open, and it required only a few more men and a supply of provisions, to keep it so. The next evening, the messenger returned, bringing instead of provisions a peremptory order to return to Detroit. It is doubtful whether Colonel Miller ought not to have advanced without waiting for further reinforcements, and formed a junction with Captain Brush, who had an abundance of provisions, and a detachment of a hundred and fifty men. But, after the communications were established, he did not probably see so much necessity for dispatch as for security. But General Hull seemed to be laboring under a species of insanity. After sending forth two detachments to open his communications, and finally succeeding, he deliberately closed them again, and shut from his army all those provisions, the want of which he a few days after gave as a reason for surrendering. The rapid concentration of the enemy's forces, in front of him, might have been given as a sufficient cause for suddenly calling in all his troops to defend Detroit, had he not two days after sent Colonel McArthur, accompanied by Ca.s.s, with a detachment of four hundred men, to obtain by a back, circuitous and almost wholly unknown route through the woods that which Colonel Miller had secured, and then been compelled to relinquish.

[Sidenote: Aug. 7.]

When General Hull recrossed the river to Detroit, he left some hundred and fifty, convalescents and all, "to hold possession of that part of Canada," which he had so gallantly won, "to defend the post to the last extremity against musketry, but if overpowered by artillery to retreat."[18] In the mean time, General Brock, the commander of the British forces, approached, and began to erect a battery opposite Detroit to protect his army, and cover it in crossing the river. Not a shot was fired to interrupt his proceedings, no attempt made to destroy his s.h.i.+pping which had arrived. Daliba offered "to clear the enemy from the opposite sh.o.r.es from the lower batteries," to which General Hull replied, "I will make an agreement with the enemy, that if they will not fire on me I will not fire on them." Major Jessup asked permission to cross the river and spike the guns, but this was considered a too desperate undertaking. In short, every project that was proposed was rejected, and the twenty-four pounders and the howitzers slept dumb on their carriages, in the midst of these hostile preparations of the enemy.

[Footnote 18: McAfee's History.]

At length, on the morning of the 15th, a messenger arrived from General Brock demanding an immediate surrender of the town and fort.

To this summons Hull replied in a decided and spirited manner; but this did not seem to daunt the British commander. He immediately opened his fire from a newly erected battery, which, after knocking down some chimneys, and disabling a few soldiers, finally ceased at ten o'clock in the evening. The next morning it re-commenced, and under cover of its harmless thunder the British, in broad daylight, commenced crossing a river more than three thousand feet wide. This presumptuous attempt succeeded without the loss of a man. The troops then formed in column twelve deep, and marching along the sh.o.r.e, soon emerged into view, about five hundred yards from the fort. The opposing forces were nearly equal, but the position of the Americans gave them vastly the advantage. The fort proper was of great strength, surrounded by a deep, wide ditch, and strongly palisaded with an exterior battery of two twenty-four pounders. It was occupied by four hundred men, while four hundred more lay behind a high picket fence, which flanked the approach to it. Three hundred more held the town.

Against this formidable array, General Brock, preceded by five light pieces of artillery, boldly advanced. He did not even have a vanguard, and rode alone in front of his column. To the most common observer, they were marching on certain and swift destruction. The militia who had never been under fire, were eager for the conflict, so confident were they of victory. On swept the apparently doomed column upon which every eye was sternly bent, while every heart beat with intense anxiety to hear the command to fire. In this moment of thrilling excitement, a white flag was lifted above the works, and an order came for all the troops to withdraw from the outer posts and stack their arms. Such a cry of indignation as followed, probably never before a.s.sailed the ears of a commander. Lieutenant Anderson in a paroxysm of rage, broke his sword over one of his guns and burst into tears. The shameful deed was done, and so anxious was General Hull that all should receive the benefit of this capitulation, that he included in it Colonels McArthur and Ca.s.s, and their detachment whom he had sent to the river Raisin, together with that entrusted with the supplies.

To enhance the regret and shame of this sudden surrender, it was soon discovered that McArthur and Ca.s.s, having heard the cannonading twenty-four hours before, had returned, and at the moment the white flag was raised were only a mile and a half from the fort, and advancing so as to take the enemy in rear. The result of a defence would have been the entire destruction of the British army. Ah! what a different scene was occurring on this same day, in another hemisphere.

On this very morning Napoleon crossed the Dnieper, on his way to Moscow, and Murat and Ney, at the head of eighteen thousand splendid cavalry, fell on the Russian rear guard, only six thousand strong. Yet this comparatively small band, composed like most of the troops under Hull, of new levies, never thought of surrendering. First in two squares, and then in one solid square they continued their retreat all day--sometimes broken, yet always re-forming and presenting the same fringe of glittering steel, and the same adamantine front. Forty times were the apparently resistless squadrons hurled upon them, yet they still maintained their firm formation, and at night effected a junction with the main army, though with the loss of more than one-sixth of their number. It was to be left to Scott and Brown and Miller and Jessup and Jackson, to show that Russian serfs were not braver troops than American freemen.

It sometimes happens that events widely different in their character, and presenting still wider contrast in the magnitude and grandeur of the circ.u.mstances that attend them, are in their remote results alike, both in character and in their effect on the destiny of the world.

Thus, six days after our declaration of war, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, on his march to Moscow. This first step on Russian territory was the signal for a long train of events to arise, which in the end should dash to earth the colossal power of Napoleon, while our movement was to break the spell which made Great Britain mistress of the seas; and two nations, one an unmixed despotism and the other a pure republic, from that moment began to a.s.sume a prominence they never before held, and from that time on, have been the only powers which have rapidly increased in resources and strength, till each threatens, in time, to swallow up its own hemisphere.

Much has been written of this campaign of Hull, and in the controversy, statistics differ as widely as opinions. He was tried by Court Martial, of which Martin Van Buren was Judge Advocate, acquitted of treason, but found guilty of cowardice and sentenced to be shot.

Being pardoned by the President, his life was saved, but he went forth a blighted and ruined man.

On many points there is room for a diversity of judgment, but one thing is certain, General Hull was unfit for the station to which he was a.s.signed. He had been a gallant subordinate officer in the revolution, but a man may be a good major, or even colonel, but a bad commander-in-chief. There are many officers who are fit only to act under orders, whom personal danger never agitates, but who are unnerved by responsibility. Let the latter rest on some other person and they will cheerfully encounter the peril. Hull may have been one of these, at least it seems more rational to attribute a portion of his conduct to some mental defect rather than to cowardice. It is hard to affix such a stain on a man who moved beside Was.h.i.+ngton in the perilous march on Trenton--stood firmly amid the hottest fire at Princeton--gallantly led his men to the charge at Bemis' Heights, and faced without flinching the fiery sleet that swept the column pressing up the rugged heights of Stony Point. Gray hairs do not make a coward of such a man, though they should render him imbecile.

It is not easy at this remote period to appreciate the difficulties of the position in which Hull eventually found himself. At first he refused to take command of the expedition, but being urged by the government, accepted, though with the express understanding that in case of hostilities, he was to be sustained both by a fleet on Lake Erie, and an army operating on the northern and western frontier of New York. He knew that the conquest of Canadian territory would be of slight importance, if the lake and river communication was controlled by the enemy, for they could pa.s.s their troops from one point to another with great rapidity, cut off his supplies and reinforcements, and hem him in till a force sufficient to overwhelm him was concentrated.

On arriving near Malden, he was astounded to hear that the enemy had received notice of the war before him, and hence had time to make more or less preparations. The second blow was the loss of hospital stores, intrenching tools, army baggage, private papers, &c. The third came in the fall of Mackinaw, thus removing the only barrier that kept back the northern hordes. He knew the enemy had possession of the water communication, and were therefore able to threaten his retreat.

Dearborn, who ought to have been pressing the British on the Niagara frontier, and thus attracted their forces from Malden, had entered into an armistice with the Governor of Canada, leaving the latter at full liberty to reinforce the troops opposed to Hull, a privilege of which he was not slow to avail himself. There was not a gleam of suns.h.i.+ne in the whole gloomy prospect that spread out before the American commander. His own army diminis.h.i.+ng, while that of his adversary was rapidly increasing--behind him a wilderness two hundred miles in extent, his situation was disheartening enough to make a strong man sad. The difficulties in which he found himself environed must always produce one of two effects on every man--either rouse him to tenfold diligence and effort and daring, or sink him in corresponding inactivity and despondency. There can be no middle state. That the latter was the effect produced on General Hull, there can be no doubt. He proved plainly that he was not one of those whom great emergencies develope into an extraordinary character worthy to command and worthy to be obeyed. The very first misfortune unmanned him, and from that hour to the sad close of the campaign, when he acted at all he did nothing but heap blunder on blunder. His mind having once got into a morbid state, his position and his prospects appeared to his diseased imagination ten times more desperate than they really were.

With the failure of General Dearborn to invade Canada from the New York frontier, and more especially with the lakes entirely under the control of the enemy, his campaign, according to all human calculations, must prove a failure. Detroit must fall, and Michigan be given up to the enemy. The only chance by which this catastrophe could have been prevented, was offered by General Brock when he crossed the river to storm Detroit. If Hull had possessed a spark of genius or military knowledge, he would have seen in this rash movement of his enemy, the avenue opened for his release, and the sure precursor of his fortunes. With that broad river cutting off its retreat, the British army would have been overthrown; provisions and arms obtained, and the enemy received a check which in all probability would have enabled Hull to sustain himself till reinforcements arrived. But he had made up his mind to surrender, and thus save Detroit from the cruelties of the savage, and the enemy could not commit a blunder of sufficient magnitude to arouse his hopes and spur him into resistance; and having scarcely heard the report of his guns from first to last, he veiled the banner of his country in the dust.

This explanation of his conduct would correspond more with his former life, than to admit the charge of either treason or cowardice, and be perfectly satisfactory, but for the _mode_ of his surrender. There is a mystery here, that neither General Hull nor his friends have ever cleared up. After having shown the imbecility of government, by which failure became inevitable, they stop as though their task was done.

But the criminality of government being conceded, and the fall of Detroit acknowledged to be an inevitable consequence, it does not follow that the surrender of the army was necessary. Why, after Colonel Miller opened the communications with supplies and reinforcements, did not General Hull retreat at once? The enemy would not have attempted a pursuit through that wilderness. With a rear guard left to man the works, he could have gained two days' march, while Detroit was able to make as good terms without him as with him.

He could have had no reason for staying, except the determination to hold his position and defend Detroit to the last. If he had not fully resolved to do so, the way of retreat was open, and he was bound to occupy it; if he _had_, why did he not keep to that determination? No new elements had entered into the struggle--no unforeseen events occurred to affect the conclusions he had adopted. The enemy was not in greater force than he imagined, but on the contrary, in less. He understood the strength of his own position; his troops were never in greater spirits; why then did he so suddenly and totally change his purpose? It is impossible to reconcile this grievous inconsistency in his conduct. Nor is this all that is dark and mysterious; supposing new conditions had occurred to alter his determination, and affect the relative position of the armies--an entirely new order of things had taken place, requiring another mode of procedure than the one adopted by himself and the army; why did he not call a council of war, and submit those new features to its consideration? When his troops wished to attack Malden, he considered the question so momentous as to require a council of his officers. When a simple repulse was the only misfortune that could happen, he regarded it his duty to take advice from his subordinates; but when it came to an absolute surrender of his whole army, no such obligation was felt. This man, who was so afraid to compromise his force, lest it should meet with a repulse, did not in the end hesitate to surrender it entire, and cover it with dishonor on his own responsibility. Military history rarely records such an event as this, and never unless either treason or cowardice was apparent as noonday. Not a faltering word--not a doubtful movement--not a sign of flinching, till the white flag was seen flaunting its cowardly folds before the banner of his country. No general has a right to a.s.sume such a responsibility, at least, until the question has been submitted to his officers. He may peril his troops in an unsuccessful attack, but never _dishonor_ them without consulting their wishes. The act was that of a timorous commander, or of a bold and unscrupulous man, like Gorgey. The rash and unmilitary advance of Brock, which notwithstanding its success, met the disapproval of his superior, seems wholly unaccountable, except some one, in the confidence of Hull, had whispered in his ears, that the latter intended no defence.

The _manner_ of surrender, conflicts with the explanation of the act itself, and involves the conduct of Hull in a mystery. To tell us he was neither a traitor nor a coward, and yet leave those violations of military rules and contradictions of character unexplained and unreconciled, is to leave the same painful doubt on the mind as though no defence had been attempted. A morbid state of mind equivalent to insanity, thus changing for a time the whole character of the man, is the only charitable construction.

The blame, however, was not distributed impartially. The Secretary of War should have been immediately removed from office, Dearborn withdrawn as commander-in-chief, and the whole administration thoroughly overhauled, and its policy changed. As it was, the swelling curses of the land smote the single head of General Hull. The news of his surrender fell on the country like a thunderbolt at noonday. The march of his army had been watched with intense interest, but with scarcely any misgivings. So large a force appearing with the declaration of war in their hands on the weak and unprepared posts of the north-western frontier was expected to sweep everything before it.

Its defeat was considered impossible, its entire, shameful surrender, therefore, could hardly be credited. The nation was stunned, but with surprise, not fear, at least that portion west of the Alleghanies.

Indignation and a spirit of fierce retaliation swelled every bosom.

But eastward, where party spirit and divided feelings and views, had rendered the war party cautious and timid, the effect was for a time paralyzing. If defeated at the outset, while England could bring into the field scarcely any but her colonial force, what would be our prospects of success when her veterans drilled in the wars of the continent should appear? The government, however, awoke to the vastness of the undertaking, but still remained ignorant of the means by which it was to be accomplished.

To save the north-western frontier, now laid open to the incursions of savages, Kentucky, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia, sent forth crowds of volunteers, eager to redeem the tarnished reputation of the country. Several members of Congress from Kentucky enlisted as private soldiers--the young and ardent Clay was seen at the musters, thrilling the young men who surrounded him, as though he wielded the fiery cross in his hands. Ten thousand men were raised in an incredible short s.p.a.ce of time, and placed under General Harrison, the hero of Tippecanoe. To these were added portions of the 17th and 19th regiments of regular infantry and two regiments from Kentucky and Ohio, for government was apparently determined to make up for the insufficient, n.i.g.g.ardly expenditures of the first campaign by its useless prodigality in preparing for the second.

Four thousand men raised by order of Gov. Shelby, of Kentucky, all mounted on horseback, were put under Major General Hopkins, of the militia, who, jointly with three regiments already sent to Vincennes by Harrison, were to defend the frontiers of Indiana and Illinois.

[Sidenote: Oct. 10.]

Reaching Fort Harrison, which Captain, afterwards General Taylor, with scarcely thirty efficient men, had gallantly defended against the attacks of four or five hundred Indians, this motley crowd of hors.e.m.e.n started on the 14th for the Indian villages which lay along the Illinois and Wabash rivers. But the long and tedious march and the uncomfortable bivouacs by night, obscured the visions of glory that had dazzled them, and the fourth day, the enthusiasm which from the first had been rapidly subsiding, reached zero, and open mutiny seized the entire body of the troops. A major rode up to General Hopkins and peremptorily ordered him to wheel about. The General refusing to obey, he was compelled next day to const.i.tute the rear guard of this splendid corps of cavalry, whose horses' tails were towards the enemy and their heads towards Fort Harrison.

[Sidenote: Sept. 12.]

In the mean time, Harrison, with about 2,500 men reached Fort Deposit, and relieved the garrison composed of seventy men who had gallantly withstood the attacks of hordes of Indians. Here he paused till the arrival of other troops, and occupied the time in sending out various detachments against the Indian villages, all of which were successful.

On the 18th, Harrison returned to Fort Wayne, where he met General Winchester, with reinforcements from Ohio and Kentucky, in all about two thousand men. Winchester ranked Harrison, and the latter finding himself superseded, was about to retire. The President, however, restored him to his original command, and he continued his march northward. [Sidenote: Sept.] In the latter part of this month he was at Fort Defiance. Leaving his troops there, he returned to the settlements to organize and hasten up the forces designed to const.i.tute the centre and right wing of his army. Abandoning his original plan of boldly marching on Detroit and recapturing it at once, he determined to advance in three different columns, by as many different routes, to the Miami Rapids, thence move suddenly to Brownstown, cross the river and seize Malden, which had so annoyed Hull. All along the highways and rude half-trodden paths, and skirting the banks of rivers that rolled through nothing but primeval forests from their sources to the lakes, squads of men, some mounted, some in uniform, but the most part in the rough frontiersman costume, were seen toiling northward, to avenge the disgrace of Hull. Their camp-fires lit up the wilderness by night, and their boisterous mirth filled it with echoes by day. A more motley band of soldiers were never seen swarming to battle.

CHAPTER IV.

Operations on the New York frontier -- Battle of Queenstown -- Death of Brock -- Scott a prisoner -- General Smythe's Proclamation and abortive attempts -- Cursed by the army -- Duel with General Porter -- Retires in disgrace -- Dearborn's movements and failures -- Review of the campaign on the New York frontier -- Character of the officers and soldiers.

While Harrison's forces were thus scattered amid the forests and settlements of Ohio and Indiana, the army along the Niagara frontier had begun to move. At this time every eye in the land was turned northward. That long chain of Mediterraneans, whose sh.o.r.es were fringed with hostile armies, from Sackett's Harbor to where they lost themselves in the forests of the north-west, became an object of the deepest interest. Every rumor that the wind bore across the wilderness, or that, following the chains of settlements along the rivers reached the haunts of civilization, was caught up with avidity.

The discomfiture of Hull had filled every heart with trembling solicitude for the fate of our other armies. Defeat in the west, and incomprehensible delays in the east, had changed the Canadas from a weak province, to be overrun by the first invader, into a Gibraltar against which the entire strength of the nation must be hurled.

I have stated before that Dearborn, commanding the forces on the Niagara and northern frontier, instead of making a diversion in favor of Hull, by crossing the Niagara and drawing attention to himself, had been coaxed into an armistice with Provost, the English Governor, in which Hull had been left out. This armistice was asked and granted, on the ground that dispatches had been received, announcing the revocation of the orders in council. One great cause of the war being thus removed, it was hoped that peace might be restored. The result was as we have seen; the British commander immediately dispatched Brock to Malden, to capture Hull, from which successful expedition he was able to return before the armistice was broken off. General Dearborn clung to this absurd armistice, as if it were the grandest stroke of diplomacy conceivable. He carried his attachment so far as to disobey the express command of his Government, to break it off.

[Sidenote: August 24.] At length, however, this nightmare ended, and preparations were made for a vigorous autumnal campaign.

The northern army, numbering between eight and ten thousand soldiers, was princ.i.p.ally concentrated at two points. One portion was encamped near Plattsburg and Greenbush, commanded by General Dearborn, in person, the other at Lewistown, was under the direction of General Stephen Van Rensalaer, of the New York militia, while 1,500 regulars, under General Smythe, lay at Buffalo, a few miles distant. There were a few troops stationed also at Ogdensburg, Sackett's Harbor, and Black Rock.

The discontent produced by Hull's surrender, and the loud complaints against the inaction of the northern army, together with the consciousness that something must be done to prevent the first year of war from closing in unmixed gloom, induced General Van Rensalaer to make a bold push into Canada, and by a sudden blow attempt to wrest Jamestown from the enemy, and there establish his winter quarters.

The cutting out of two English brigs[19] from under the guns of Fort Erie, by Lieutenant Elliot with some fifty volunteers, created an enthusiasm in the American camp of which General Van Rensalaer determined to avail himself.

[Footnote 19: One of those, the Caledonia, afterwards did good service as a part of the fleet of Perry on Lake Erie. The other having gone aground, was burnt, to prevent recapture.]

The command of the expedition was given to his cousin, Col. Solomon Van Rensalaer, a brave and chivalric officer, who on the 13th of October, at the head of three hundred militia, accompanied by Col.

Chrystie with three hundred regular troops, prepared to cross the river. It wanted still an hour to daylight when the two columns stood in battle array on the sh.o.r.e. Through carelessness, or inability to obtain them, there were not sufficient boats to take all over at once, and they were compelled to cross in detachments. The boat which carried Col. Chrystie being badly managed, was swept away by the current, and finally compelled to re-land on the American sh.o.r.e. This gallant officer was wounded while thus drifting in the stream, yet soon after he made another attempt to cross, and succeeding, led his troops n.o.bly until the close of the action.

Col. Van Rensalaer having effected a landing, formed on the sh.o.r.e and marched forward. The whole force at this time did not exceed one hundred men. These, however, were led up the bank where they halted to wait the junction of the other troops that kept arriving, a few boat loads at a time. But daylight now having dawned, the exposed position of this detachment rendered it a fair mark for the enemy, who immediately opened their fire upon it. In a few minutes every commissioned officer was either killed or wounded. Col. Van Rensalaer finding that the bank of the river afforded very little shelter, determined with the handful under him to storm the heights. But he had now received four wounds, and was compelled to surrender the command to Captains Ogilvie and Wool,[20] who gallantly moved forward, and carried the fort and heights. The enemy were driven into a strong stone house, from which they made two unsuccessful attempts to recover the ground they had lost. Brock, flushed with the easy victory he had gained over Hull, rallied them by his presence, and while attempting to lead on the grenadiers of the 49th, fell mortally wounded. This for a time gave the Americans undisturbed possession of the heights, and great efforts were made to bring over the other troops. General Van Rensalaer, after the fall of his cousin, crossed and took the command, but hastening back to urge on the embarkation of the militia, it devolved on General Wadsworth.