Canada: the Empire of the North Part 26

The case is probably more an example of nervous hysterics than treason, though the other American officers broke their swords with rage and chagrin, declaring they had been sold for a price. It was but the first of the many times the lesson was taught in this war, that however well intentioned a volunteer's courage may be, it takes a seasoned man to make war. {340} Ten minutes later, a boy had climbed the flagstaff and hung out the English flag over Detroit. Of the captured American army Brock permitted the volunteer privates to go home on parole. The regulars, including Hull, were carried back prisoners on the boats to Niagara, to be forwarded to Montreal. At Montreal, Hull was given back to the Americans in exchange for thirty British prisoners. He was sentenced by court-martial to be shot for treason and cowardice, but the sentence was commuted.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE DETROIT RIVER]

At Niagara River, where the main troops of Ontario were centered, Brock's victory was greeted with simply a madness of joy. From the first it had been plain that the princ.i.p.al fighting in Ontario would take place at Niagara, and along the river Brock had concentrated some sixteen hundred volunteer troops, {341} raw farm hands most of them, with a goodly proportion of descendants from the United Empire Loyalists, who had furbished out their fathers' swords. But the army was in rags and tatters; many men had no shoes; before Brock captured the guns at Detroit there had not been muskets to go round the men, and there were not cannon enough to mount the batteries cast up along Niagara River facing the American defenses. As the boats came down Lake Erie and disembarked the American prisoners on August 24, at Fort Erie on the Canadian side, opposite Black Rock and Buffalo, wild yells of jubilation rent the air. By nightfall every camp on the Canadian side for the whole forty miles of Niagara River's course echoed to shout and counter shout, and a wild refrain which some poet of the haversack had composed on the spot:

We 'll subdue the mighty Democrats and pull their dwellings down, And have the States inhabited with subjects of the Crown.

Take a survey of the Niagara region. South is Lake Erie, north is Lake Ontario, between them Niagara River flowing almost straight north through a steep dark gorge hewn out of the solid rock by the living waters of all the Upper Lakes, crushed and cramped, carving a turbulent way through this narrow canyon. Midway in the river's course the blue waters begin to race. The race becomes a dizzy madness of blurred, whirling, raging waters. Then there is the leap, the plunge, the shattering anger of inland seas hurling their strength over the sheer precipice in resistless force. Then the foaming whirlpool below, and the shadowy gorge, and the undercurrent eddying away in the swift-flowing waters of the river coming out on Lake Ontario. On one side are the Canadian forts, on the other the American, slab-walled all of them, with scarcely a stone foundation except in bastions used as powder magazines. Fort Erie on the Canadian side faces Buffalo and Black Rock on the American side. Where the old French voyageurs used to portage past the Falls, about halfway on the Canadian side south of the precipice, is the village of Chippewa. Here Brock has stationed {342} a garrison with cannon. Then halfway between the Falls and Lake Ontario are high cliffs known as Queenston Heights, in plain view of the American town of Lewiston on the other side. Cannon line the river cliffs on both sides here. All about Lewiston the fields are literally white with the tents of General Van Rensselaer's army, now grown from twenty-five hundred to almost eight thousand. On the Canadian side cannon had been mounted on the cliffs known as Queenston Heights.

Possibly because the two hundred men would make poor showing in tents, Brock has his soldiers here take quarters in the farmhouses.

For the rest it is such a rural scene as one may witness any midsummer,--rolling yellow wheat fields surrounded by the zigzag rail fences, with square farmhouses of stone and the fields invariably backed by the uncleared bush land. Six miles farther down the river, where the waters join Lake Ontario, is the English post, Fort George, near the old capital, Newark, and just opposite the American fort of Niagara. With the exception of the Grand Island region on the river, it may be said that both armies are in full view of each other.

Sometimes, when to the tramp--tramp--tramp of the sentry's {343} tread a loud "All's well" echoes across the river from Lewiston to the Canadian side, some wag at Queenston will take up the cry through the dark and bawl back, "All's well here too"; and all night long the two sentries bawl back and forward to each other through the dark.

Sometimes, too, though strictest orders are issued against such ruffian warfare by both Van Rensselaer and Brock, the sentries chance shots at each other through the dark. Drums beat reveille at four in the morning, and the rub-a-dub-dub of Queenston Heights is echoed by rat-tat-too of Lewiston, though river mist hides the armies from each other in the morning. Iron baskets filled with oiled bark are used as telegraph signals, and one may guess how, when the light flared up of a night on the Canadian heights, scouts carried word to the officers on the American side. One may guess, too, the effect on Van Rensselaer's big untrained army, when, with the sun aglint on scarlet uniform, they saw their fellow-countrymen of Detroit marched prisoners between British lines along the heights of Queenston opposite Lewiston. Rage, depression, shame, knew no bounds; and the army was unable to vent anger in heroic attack, for England had repealed her embargo laws, and when Brock came back from Detroit he found that an armistice had been arranged, and both sides had been ordered to suspend hostilities till instructions came from the governments. The truce, it may be added, was only an excuse to enable both sides to complete preparations for the war. In a few weeks ball and bomb were again singing their shrill songs in mid-air.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP SHOWING THE LOCATION OF THE MILITARY OPERATIONS ON THE NIAGARA FRONTIER]

Brock's victory demoralized the rabble under the American Van Rensselaer. Desertions increased daily, and discipline was so notoriously bad Van Rensselaer and his staff dared not punish desertion for fear of the army--as one of them put it--"falling to pieces." Van Rensselaer saw that he must strike, and strike at once, and strike successfully, or he would not have any army left at all. Two thousand Pennsylvanians had joined him; and on October 9, at one in the morning, Lieutenant Elliott led one hundred men with m.u.f.fled paddles from the American side to two Canadian s.h.i.+ps lying anch.o.r.ed off Fort Erie. One was the {344} brig captured from Hull at Detroit, the other a sloop belonging to the Northwest Fur Company, loaded with peltries. Before the British were well awake, Elliott had boarded decks, captured the fur s.h.i.+p with forty prisoners, and was turning her guns on the other s.h.i.+p when Port Erie suddenly awakened with a belch of cannon shot. The Americans cut the cables and drifted on the captured s.h.i.+p downstream.

The fur s.h.i.+p was worked safely over to the American side, where it was welcomed with wild cheers. The brig was set on fire and abandoned.

Van Rensselaer decided to take advantage of the elated spirit among the troops and invade Canada at once.

Over on the Canadian side, Brock, at Fort George, wanted to offer an exchange of Detroit prisoners for the voyageurs on the captured fur s.h.i.+p, and Evans was ordered to paddle across to Lewiston with the offer, white handkerchief fluttering as a flag of truce. Evans could not mistake the signs as he landed on the American sh.o.r.e. Sentries dashed down to stop his advance at bayonet point. He was denied speech with Van Rensselaer and refused admittance to the American camp; and the reason was plain. A score of boats, capable of holding thirty men each, lay moored at the Lewiston sh.o.r.e. Along the rain-soaked road behind the sh.o.r.e floundered and marched troops, fresh troops joining Van Rensselaer's camp. It was dark before Evans returned to Queenston Heights and close on midnight when he reached Major General Brock at Fort George. Brock thought Evans over anxious, and both went to bed, or at least threw themselves down on a mattress to sleep. At two o'clock they were awakened by a sound which could not be mistaken,--the thunderous booming of a furious cannonade from Queenston Heights.

Brock realized that the two hundred Canadians on the cliff must be repelling an invasion, but he was suspicious that the attack from Lewiston was a feint to draw off attention from Fort Niagara opposite Fort George, and he did not at once order troops to the aid of Queenston Heights.

[Ill.u.s.tration: GENERAL BROCK]

Evans' predictions of invasion were only too true. After one attempt to cross the gorge, which was balked by storm, Van {345} Rensselaer finally got his troops down to the water's edge about midnight of October 12-13. The night was dark, moonless, rainy,--a wind which mingled with the roar of the river drowning all sound of marching troops. Three hundred men embarked on the first pa.s.sage of the boats across the swift river, the poor old pilot literally groaning aloud in terror. Three of the boats were carried beyond the landing on the Canadian side, and had to come back through the dark to get their bearings; but the rest, led by Van Rensselaer, had safely landed on the Canadian side, when the batteries of Queenston Heights flashed to life in sheets of fire, lighting up the dark tide of the river gorge and sinking half a dozen boat loads of men now coming on a second traverse.

Instantly Lewiston's cannon pealed furious answer to the Canadian fire, and in the sheet-lightning flame of the flaring batteries thousands could be seen on the American sh.o.r.e watching the conflict. As the Americans landed they hugged the rock cliff for shelter, but the mortality on the crossing boats was terrible; and each pa.s.sage carried back quota of wounded. Van Rensselaer was shot in the thigh almost as he landed, but still he held his men in hand. A second shot pierced the same side. A third struck his knee. Six wounds he received in as many seconds; and he was carried back in the boats to the Lewiston side. Then began a mad scramble through the darkness {346} up a fisherman's path steep as trail of mountain goat, sheer against the face of the cliff. When day dawned misty and gray over the black tide of the rolling river, the Canadian batterymen of Queenston Heights were astounded to see American sharp-shooters mustered on the cliff behind and above them. A quick rush, and the Canadian batterymen were driven from their ground, the Canadian cannon silenced, and while wild shoutings of triumph rose from the spectators at Lewiston, the American boats continued to pour soldiers across the river.

It was at this stage Brock came riding from Fort George so spattered with mud from head to heel he was not recognized by the soldiers. One glance was enough. The Canadians had lost the day. Sending messengers to bid General Sheaffe hurry the troops from Fort George, and other runners to bring up the troops from Chippewa behind the Americans on Queenston Heights, Brock charged up the hill amid shriek of bombs and clatter of sharpshooters. He had dismounted and was scrambling over a stone wall. "Follow me, boys!" he shouted to the British grenadiers; then at the foot of the hill, waving his sword: "Now take a breath; you will need it! Come on! come on!" and he led the rush of two hundred men in scarlet coats to dislodge the Americans. A shot pierced his wrist. "Push on, York volunteers," he shouted. His portly figure in scarlet uniform was easy mark for the sharpshooters hidden in the brush of Queenston Heights. One stepped deliberately out and took aim.

Though a dozen Canadian muskets flashed answer, Brock fell, shot through the breast, dying with the words on his lips, "My fall must not be noticed to stop the victory." Major Macdonnell led in the charge up the hill, but the next moment his horse plunged frantically, and he reeled from the saddle fatally wounded. For a second time the British were repulsed, and the Americans had won the Heights, if not the day.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BROCK MONUMENT, QUEENSTON HEIGHTS]

The invaders were resting on their arms, s.n.a.t.c.hing a breakfast of biscuit and cheese about midday, when General Sheaffe arrived from Fort George with troops breathless from running. A heart-shattering huzza from the village warned the Americans {347} that help had come, and they were to arms in a second; but Sheaffe had swept round the Heights, Indians on one side of the hill, soldiers on the other, and came on the surprised Americans as from the rear. There was a wild whoop, a dash up the hill, a pause to fire, when the air was splinted by nine hundred instantaneous shots. Then through the smoke the British rushed the Heights at bayonet point. For three hours the contest raged in full sight of Lewiston, a hand-to-hand butchery between Sheaffe's fresh fighters and the Americans, who had been on their feet since midnight.

Indian tomahawk played its part, but it is a question if the scalping knife did as deadly work as the grenadier's long bayonets. Cooped up between the enemy and the precipice, the American sharpshooters waited for the help that never came. In vain Van Rensselaer's officers prayed and swore and pleaded with the volunteer troops on the Lewiston side.

The men flatly refused to cross; for boat loads of mangled bodies were brought back at each pa.s.sage. Discipline fell to pieces. It was the old story of volunteers, brave enough at a spurt, going to pieces in panic under hard and continued strain. Driven from Queenston Heights, the invaders fought their way down the cliff path by inches to the water side, and there . . . there were no boats! Pulling off his white necktie, an officer held it up on the point of his sword as signal of surrender. It was one of the most {348} gallant fights on both sides in Canadian history, though officers over on the Lewiston sh.o.r.e were crying like boys at the sight of nine hundred Americans surrendering.

Truce was then arranged for the burial of the dead. The bodies of Brock and Macdonnell were laid on a gun wagon and conveyed between lines of sorrowing soldiers, with arms reversed, to the burial place outside Fort George. As the regimental music rang out the last march of the two dead officers, minute guns were fired in sympathy all along the American sh.o.r.e. "He would have done as much for us," said the American officers of the gallant Brock.

Van Rensselaer at once resigns. "Proclamation" Smyth, whose addresses resemble Fourth of July backwoods orations, succeeds as commander of the American army; but "Proclamation" Smyth makes such a mess of a raid on Fort Erie, retreating with a haste suggestive of Hull at Detroit, that he is mobbed when he returns to the United States sh.o.r.e. But what the United States lose by land, they retrieve by sea. England's best s.h.i.+ps are engaged in the great European war. From June to December, United States vessels sweep the sea; but this is more a story of the English navy than of Canada. The year of 1812 closes with the cruisers of Lake Ontario chasing each other through many a wild snowstorm.

As the year 1812 proved one of jubilant victory for Canada, so 1813 was to be one of black despair. With the exception of four brilliant victories wrested in the very teeth of defeat, the year pa.s.ses down to history as one of the darkest in the annals of the country. The population of the United States at this time was something over seven millions, and it was not to be thought for one moment that a nation of this strength would remain beaten off the field by the little province of Ontario (Upper Canada), whose population numbered barely ninety thousand. General Harrison hurries north from the Wabash with from six to eight thousand men to retrieve the defeat of Detroit. At Presqu'

Isle, on Lake Erie, hammer and mallet and {349} forging iron are heard all winter preparing the fleet for Commodore Perry that is to command Lake Erie and the Upper Lakes for the Americans. At Sackett's Harbor similar preparations are under way on a fleet for Chauncey to sweep the English from Lake Ontario; and all along both sides of the St.

Lawrence, as winter hedged the waters with ice, lurk scouts,--the Americans, for the most part, uniformed in blue, the Canadians in Lincoln green with gold braid,--watching chance for raid and counter raid during the winter nights. The story of these thrilling raids will probably pa.s.s into the shadowy realm of legend handed down from father to son, for few of them have been embodied in the official reports.

From being hard pressed on the defensive, Canada has suddenly sprung into the position of jubilant victor, and if Brock had lived, she would probably have followed up her victories by aggressive invasion of the enemy's territory; but all effort was literally paralyzed by the timidity and vacillation of the governor general, Sir George Prevost.

Prevost's one idea seems to have been that as soon as the obnoxious embargo laws were revoked by England, the war would stop. When the embargo was revoked and the armistice of midsummer simply terminated in a resumption of war, this idea seems to have been succeeded by the single aim to hold off conclusions with the United States till England could beat Napoleon and come to the rescue. All winter long scouts and bold spirits among the volunteers craved the chance to raid the anch.o.r.ed fleets of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie, but Prevost not only forbade the invasion of the enemy's territory, but before the year was out actually advocated the abandonment of Ontario. If his advice had been followed, it is no idle supposition to infer that the fate of Ontario would have been the same as the destiny of the Ohio and Michigan.

One night in February the sentry at the village of Brockville, named after the dead hero, was surprised by two hundred American raiders das.h.i.+ng up from the frozen river bed. Before bugles could sound to arms, jails had been opened, stores looted, houses {350} plundered, and the raiders were off and well away with fifty-two prisoners and a dozen sleigh loads of provisions. Gathering some five hundred men together from the Kingston region, M'Donnell and Jenkins of the Glengarrys prepared to be revenged. Cannon were hauled out on the river from the little village of Prescott to cross the ice to Ogdensburg. The river here is almost two miles wide, and as it was the 23d of February, the ice had become rotten from the sun glare of the coming spring. As the cannon were drawn to mid-river, though it was seven in the morning, the ice began to heave and crack with dire warning. To hesitate was death; to go back as dangerous as to go forward. With a whoop the men broke from quick march to a run, unsheathing musket and fixing bayonet blades as they dashed ahead to be met with a withering cross fire as they came within range of the American batteries. In places, the suck of the water told where the ice had given behind. Then bullets were peppering the river bed in a rain of fire, Jenkins and M'Donnell to the fore, waving their swords. Then bombs began to ricochet over the ice. If the range of the Ogdensburg cannon had been longer, the whole Canadian force might have been sunk in mid-river; but the men were already das.h.i.+ng up the American sh.o.r.e whooping like fiends incarnate. First a grapeshot caught Jenkins' left arm, and it hung in b.l.o.o.d.y splinters.

Then a second shot took off his right arm. Still he dashed forward, cheering his men, till he dropped in his tracks, faint from loss of blood. No answer came back to the summons to surrender, and, taking possession of an outer battery, the Canadians turned its cannon full on the village. Under cover of the battery fire, and their own cannon now in position, the whole force of Canadians immediately rushed the town at bayonet point. Now the bayonet in a solid phalanx of five hundred men is not a pleasant weapon to stand up against. As the drill sergeants order, you not only stick the bayonet _into_ your enemy, but you turn it round "to let the air in" so he will die; and before the furious onslaught of bayonets, the defenders of Ogdensburg broke, and fled for the woods. Within an hour the {351} Canadians had burnt the barracks, set fire to two schooners iced up, and come off with loot of a dozen cannon, stores of all sorts, and with prisoners to the number of seventy-four.

[Ill.u.s.tration: YORK (TORONTO) HARBOR]

The ice had left Lake Ontario early this year, and by mid-April Commander Chauncey slipped out of Sackett's Harbor with sixteen vessels, having on board seventeen hundred troops, besides the crews.

It will be remembered that the capital of Ontario had been moved from Niagara (Newark) to York (Toronto) on the north side of Lake Ontario, then a thriving village of one thousand souls on the inner sh.o.r.e of Humber Bay. On the sand reef known as the Island, in front of the harbor, had been constructed a battery with cannon. The main village lay east of the present city hall. Westward less than a mile was Government House, on the site of the present residence. Between Government House and the village was not a house of any sort, only a wood road flanking the lake, and badly cut up by ravines. Just west of Government House, and close to the water, was a blockhouse or tower used as powder magazine, mounted with cannon to command the landing from the lake. Some accounts speak of yet another little outer battery or earthwork farther {352} westward. North of the Government House road, or what is now King Street, were dense woods. General Sheaffe, who had succeeded Brock at Queenston Heights, chanced to be in Toronto in April with some six hundred men. Just where the snug quarters of the Toronto Hunt Club now stand you may look out through the green foliage of the woods fringing the high cliffs of Lake Ontario, and there lies before your view the pure sky-blue surface of an inland sea was.h.i.+ng in waves like a tide to the watery edge of the far sky line.

Early in the morning of April 27 a forest ranger, dressed in the customary Lincoln green, was patrolling the forested edge of Scarborough Heights above the lake. The trees had not yet leafed out, but were in that vernal state when the branches between earth and sky take on the appearance of an aerial network just budding to light and color; and in the ravines still lay patches of the winter snow. The morning was hazy, warm, odoriferous of coming summer, with not a breath of wind stirring the water. As the sun came up over the lake long lines of fire shot through the water haze. Suddenly the scout paused on his parade. Something was advancing sh.o.r.eward through the mist, advancing in a circling line like the ranks of wild birds flying north, with a lap--lap--lap of water drip and a rap--rap--rap of rowlocks from a mult.i.tude of sweeps. The next instant the forest rang to a musket shot, for the scout had discovered Commodore Chauncey's fleet of sixteen vessels being towed forward by rowers through a dead calm. The musket shot was heard by another scout nearer the fort. The signal was repeated by another shot, and another for the whole twelve miles, till General Sheaffe, sitting smoking a cigar in Government House, sprang to his feet and rushed out, followed by his officers, to scan the harbor of Humber Bay from the tops of the fort bastions. Sure enough! there was the fleet, led by Chauncey's frigate with twenty-four cannon poking from its sides, a string of rowboats in tow behind to land the army, coming straight across the harbor over water calm as silk. It has been told how the fleet made the mistake of pa.s.sing beyond the landing, but the chances are the mistake was intentional {353} for the purpose of avoiding the cannon of the fort bastions. At all events the report may be believed that the most of Toronto people forgot to go back to breakfast that morning. A moment later officers were on top of the bastion towers, directing battery-men to take range for their cannon.

A battalion variously given as from fifty to one hundred, along with some Indians, was at once dispatched westward to ambush the Americans landing. Another division was posted at the battery beyond Government House. Sheaffe saw plainly from the number of men on deck that he was outnumbered four to one, and the flag on the commodore's boat probably told him that General Dearborn, the commander in chief, was himself on board to direct the land forces. Sheaffe has been bitterly blamed for two things,--for not invading Niagara after the victory on Queenston Heights, and for his conduct at Toronto. He now withdrew the main forces to a ravine east of the fort, plainly preparatory for retreat.

Not thus would Brock have acted.

Meanwhile time has worn on to nine o'clock. The American s.h.i.+ps have anch.o.r.ed. The Canadian cannon are sending the bombs skipping across the water. The rowboats are transferring the army from the schooners, and the ambushed sharpshooters are picking the bluecoats off as they step from s.h.i.+ps to boats.

"By the powers!" yells Forsyth, an American officer, "I can't stand seeing this any longer. Come on, boys! jump into our boats!" and he bids the bugles blow till the echoes are dancing over Humber waters.

Dearborn and Chauncey stay on board. Pike leads the landing, and Chauncey's cannon set such grape and canister flying through the woods as clear out those ambushed shooters, the Indians flying like scared partridges, and the advance is made along Government House road at quick march. Just west of the Government House battery the marchers halt to send forward demand for surrender. Firing on both sides ceases. The smoke clears from the churned-up waters of the bay, and Commander Pike has seated himself on an old cannon, when, before answer can come back to the demand, a frightful accident occurs that upsets all plans. Waiting for the signal {354} to begin firing again, a batteryman in the near bastion was holding the lighted fuse in his right hand, ready for the cannon, when something distracted his attention, and he wheeled with the lighted match behind him. It touched a box of explosives. If any proof were needed that the tragedy was _not_ designed, it is to be found in the fact that English officers were still on the roof of the blockhouse, and the apartment below crowded with Canadians. A roar shook the earth. A cloud of black flame shot into mid-air, and the next minute the ground for half a mile about was strewn with the remains, mangled to a pulp, of more than three hundred men, ninety of whom were Canadians, two hundred and sixty Americans, including Brigadier Pike fatally wounded by a rock striking his head. In the horror of the next few moments, defense was forgotten. Wheelbarrows, trucks, gun wagons, were hurried forward to carry wounded and dead to the hospital. Leaving his officers to arrange the terms of surrender, at 2 P.M. Sheaffe retreated at quick march for Kingston, pausing only to set fire to a half-built s.h.i.+p and some naval stores. Lying on a stretcher on Chauncey's s.h.i.+p, Pike is roused from unconsciousness by loud huzzas.

"What is it?" he asks.

"They are running up the stars and stripes, sir."

A smile pa.s.sed over Pike's face. When the surgeon looked again, the commander was dead. For twenty-four hours the haggle went on as to terms of capitulation. Within that time, two or three things occurred to inflame the invading troops. They learned that Sheaffe had slipped away; as the American general's report put it, "They got the sh.e.l.l, but the kernel of the nut got away." They learned that stores had been destroyed after the surrender had been granted. Without more restraint, and in defiance of orders, the American troops gave themselves up to plunder all that night. In their rummaging through the Parliament buildings they found hanging above the Speaker's chair what Canadian records declare was a _wig_, what American reports say was a _human scalp_ sent in by some ranger from the west. From what I have read in the private papers of fur traders {355} in that period regarding international scalping, I am inclined to think that wig may have been an American scalp. Certainly, the fur traders of Michilimackinac wrapped no excuses round their savagery when the canoes all over the coasts of Lake Superior, in lieu of flags, had American scalps flaunting from their prows. At all events, word went out that an American scalp had been found above the Speaker's chair. It was night. The troops were drunk with success and perhaps with the plunder of the wine shops. All that night and all the next day and night the skies were alight with the flames of Toronto's public buildings on fire. Also, the army chest with ten thousand dollars in gold, which Sheaffe had forgotten, was dug up on pain of the whole town being fired unless the money were delivered. Private houses were untouched.

Looted provisions which the fleet cannot carry away, Chauncey orders distributed among the poor. Then, leaving some four hundred prisoners on parole not to serve again during the war, Chauncey sails away for Niagara.

It is a month later. Down at Fort George on the Canadian side General Vincent knows well what has happened at Toronto and is on the lookout for the enemy's fleet. On the American side of the Niagara River, from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie, are seven thousand troops eager to wipe out the stain of last year's defeat. On the Canadian side, from Fort George to Chippewa and Erie, are twenty-three hundred men, mostly volunteers from surrounding farms, and powder is scarce and provisions are scarce, for Chauncey's fleet has cut off help from St. Lawrence and Kingston way. All the last two weeks of May, heavy hot fog lay on the lake and on the river between the hostile lines, but there was no mistaking what Chauncey's fleet was about. Red-hot shot showers on Fort George in a perfect rain. Standing on the other side of the river are thousands of spectators, among them one grand old swashbuckler fellow in a c.o.c.ked hat, whose fighting days are past, taking snuff after the fas.h.i.+on of a former generation and wearing an air of grand patronage to the American troops because _he_ has seen service in Europe.

{356} "No, sir," says the grand old fighting c.o.c.k pompously to his auditors, "can't be done! Have seen it tried on the Continent, and you can't do it! Lay a wager you can't do it! Can't possibly set fire to a fort by red-hot shot!"

Then at night time, when the lurid glare of flame lights up the foggy darkness, the old gentleman is put to his trumps. "See!" they say; "Fort George _is_ on fire"; and over at Fort George the bucket brigade works hard as the cannoneers. But the fog is too good a chance to be missed by Chauncey; rowing out with m.u.f.fled oars all the nights of May 24 and 25, he has his men sounding . . . sounding . . . sounding in silence the channel, right within pistol shot of Fort George. The night of the 26th troops and marines are bidden breakfast at two in the morning, and be ready for action with a single blanket and rations for one day. That is all they are told. They embark at four. The waters are dead calm, the morning of the 27th gray as wool with fog. Sweeps out Chauncey's fleet, circles up to Fort George with one hundred scows in tow, carrying fifty soldiers each. Vincent takes his courage in his teeth and gathers his one thousand men inside the walls. Then the cannon of the frigates split fog and air and earth, and, under cover of the fire, the scows gain the land by 9 A.M. First, Vincent's sharpshooters sally from the fort and fire; then they fire from the walls; then they overturn guns, retreat from the walls, throw what powder they cannot carry into the water, and retreat, fighting, behind stone walls and ditches. The contest of one thousand against six thousand is hopeless. Vincent sends coureurs riding like the wind to Chippewa and Queenston and Erie, ordering the Canadians to retire to the Back Country. By four o'clock in the afternoon Americans are in possession of the Canadian side from Fort George to Erie. Vincent retreats at quick march along the lake sh.o.r.e towards what is now Hamilton. June 1 General Dearborn sends his officers, Chandler and Winder, in hot pursuit with thirty-five hundred men.

Vincent's soldiers have less than ninety rounds of powder to a man. He has only one thousand men, for the garrisons of {357} Chippewa and Queenston Heights and Erie have fallen back in a circle to the region of St. David's. June 5, Vincent's Canadians are in camp at Burlington Bay. Only seven miles away, at Stony Creek, lies the American army, out sentries posted at a church, artillery on a height commanding a field, officers and men asleep in the long gra.s.s. Humanly speaking, nothing could prevent a decisive battle the next day. The two American officers, Chandler and Winder, sit late into the night, candles alight over camp stools, mapping out what they think should be the campaign.

It is a hot night,--muggy, with June showers lighted up by an occasional flash of sheet lightning. Then all candles out, and pitch darkness, and silence as of a desert! The American army is asleep,--in the dead sleep of men exhausted from long, hard, swift marching. The artillerymen on the hillocks, the sentries, the outposts at the church,--they, too, are sound asleep!

[Ill.u.s.tration: FITZGIBBONS]

But the Canadians, too, know that, humanly speaking, nothing can prevent a decisive battle on the morrow. The stories run--I do not vouch for their truth, though facts seem to point to some such explanation--that Harvey, a Canadian officer, had come back to the American army that night disguised as a Quaker peddling potatoes, and noted the unguarded condition of the exhausted troops; also that Fitzgibbons, the famous scout, came through the American lines dressed as a rustic selling b.u.t.ter. Whether these stories are true or not, or whether, indeed, the Canadians knew anything about the American camp, they plucked resolution from desperation. If they waited for the morrow's battle, they would be beaten. Harvey proposed to Vincent that seven {358} hundred picked men go back through the dark and raid the American camp. Vincent left the entire matter to Harvey. Setting out at 11.30 along what is now Main Street, Hamilton, the Canadians marched in perfect silence. Harvey had given orders that not a shot should be fired, not a word spoken, the bayonet alone to be used. By two in the morning of June 6 the marchers came to the church where the sentries were posted. Two were stabbed to death before they awakened. The third was compelled to give the pa.s.sword, then bayoneted in turn. The Canadian raiders might have come to the very midst of the American army if it had not been for the jubilant hilarity of some young officers, who, capturing a cannon, uttered a wild huzza. On the instant, bugles sounded alarm; drums beat a crazy tattoo, and every man leaped from his place in the gra.s.s, hand on pistol. The next second the blackness of the night was ablaze with musketry; the soldiers were firing blindly; officers were shouting orders that n.o.body heard; troops were das.h.i.+ng here, there, everywhere, lost in the darkness, the heavy artillery horses breaking tether ropes and stampeding over the field. Major Plenderleath with a company of young Canadians suddenly found himself in the midst of the American camp. One of the young raiders stabbed seven Americans to death; a brother bayoneted four, and before daylight betrayed the smallness of their forces the raiders came safely off with three guns and one hundred prisoners, including the two American officers, Winder and Chandler. The loss to the British was one hundred and fifteen killed and wounded; but there would be no battle the next day. The battle of Stony Creek sent the Americans retreating back down the lake front to Fort George, harried by the English fleet under Sir James Yeo from Kingston. A hundred episodes might be related of the Stony Creek raid. For years it was to be the theme of camp-fire yarns.

For instance, in the flare of musketry fire a Canadian found himself gazing straight along the blade of an American's bayonet. "Sir, the pa.s.sword," demanded the American sentry. Luckily the scout, instead of wearing an English red coat, had on a blue jacket resembling {359} that of the American marines, and he instantly took his cue. "Rascal," he thundered back, "what do you mean, off your line? Go back to your post!" The sentry's bayonet dropped; there was momentary darkness, and the Canadian literally bolted. Then ludicrous ill luck befell all the generals. Vincent had accompanied the raiders on horseback. When the bugles sounded "retire," he gave his horse the bit, and in the pitch darkness the brute carried him pellmell along the wrong road, over fences and hayfields, some fifteen miles into the Back Country. Next day, when Vincent was missing, under flag of truce messengers went to the retreating American army to find if he were among the dead. At four in the afternoon his horse came limping into the Canadian camp.

Chandler, the American officer, on awakening had sprung on horseback and spurred over the field shouting commands. In the darkness his horse fell and threw him. When Chandler came to himself he was prisoner among the Canadians. Winder's ill luck was equally bad. By the flare of the firing he saw what he thought was a group of artillerymen deserting a gun. Das.h.i.+ng up, he laid about him with his pistol, shouting, "Come on! come on!" Another flare of fire, and he found himself surrounded by a circle of Canadian bayonets. "Drop your pistol, sir, or you are a dead man," ordered a young Canadian, and Winder surrendered.

It will be recalled that the garrisons of Queenston below the Falls, and Chippewa above, and Erie at the head of the river, had retreated from the invading Americans to the Back Country now traversed by Welland Ca.n.a.l. From different posts beyond what was known as the Black Swamp, these bands of the dispersed Canadian army swooped down on the American outposts, harrying the whole American line from Lake Ontario to Lake Erie. Of all the raiders none was more daring than Lieutenant Fitzgibbons, posted beyond the Beaver Dams, at a stone house near De Ceu's Falls. s.p.a.ce forbids more than one episode of his raids. Once, while riding along Lundy's Lane alone, he was recognized by the wife of a Canadian captain, who dashed from {360} the cottage, warning him to retreat, as a hundred and fifty Americans had just pa.s.sed that way.

Standing in front of the roadside inn was the cavalry horse of an American. Fitzgibbons could n't resist the temptation for a bout with the foe, and dismounting, was entering the door when a soldier in blue dashed at him with leveled musket. Naturally not keen to create alarm, Fitzgibbons knocked the weapon from the man's hand, and without a sound had thrown him on the ground, when another American rifleman dashed from behind. Strong as a lion, Fitzgibbons threw the first man violently against the second, and was holding both at bay beneath his leveled rifle when one of the downed men s.n.a.t.c.hed the Irishman's sword from the scabbard. He was in the very act of thrusting the sword point into Fitzgibbons, when the innkeeper's wife, with a dexterous kick, sent the weapon whirling out of his hand. Fitzgibbons disarmed the men, tied them, threw them across his horse, and himself mounting, galloped to the woods with a laugh, though one hundred and fifty Americans were within a quarter of a mile.

The American commanders at Niagara determined to clean out this nest of raiders from the Back Country, and Lieutenant Boerstler was ordered to march from Fort George with some six hundred men. Leaving Fort George secretly at night, Boerstler came to Queenston at eleven on the night of June 23. Here all Canadian soldiers free on parole were seized, to prevent word of the attack reaching the Back Country. The troops were not even permitted to light camp fire or candles. The great secrecy of the American marchers at once roused suspicion among the Canadians between Queenston and the village of St. David's that the expedition was directed against Fitzgibbons' scouts. At his home, between Queenston and St. David's, dwelt a United Empire Loyalist, James Secord, recovering from dangerous wounds received in the battle of Queenston Heights. He was too weak himself to go by night and forewarn Fitzgibbons, but his wife, Laura Ingersoll, a woman of some thirty years, was also of the old United Empire Loyalist stock. She immediately set out alone for the Back Country to warn Fitzgibbons.

{361} Many and contradictory stories are told of her march. Whether she tramped two nights and two days, or only one night and one day, whether her march led her twenty or only twelve miles, matters little.