The Invasion of Canada (38 page)

In an instant the odds have changed. Until Wool’s surprise attack, the British were in charge of the battle. Dennis had taken one hundred and fifty prisoners; the gun in the redan was playing havoc with the enemy; Brock’s forces controlled the heights. Now Dennis is retreating through the village and Wool’s band is being reinforced by a steady stream of Americans.

Brock takes shelter at the far end of the town in the garden of the Hamilton house. It would be prudent, perhaps, to wait for the reinforcements, but Brock is not prudent, not used to waiting. As he conceives it, hesitation will lose him the battle: once the Americans consolidate their position in the village and on the heights they will be almost impossible to dislodge.

It is this that spurs him to renewed action – the conviction that he must counterattack while the enemy is still off balance, before more Americans can cross the river and scale the heights. For Brock believes that whoever controls the heights controls Upper Canada: they dominate the river, could turn it into an American waterway; they cover the road to Fort Erie; possession of the high ground and the village will slice the thin British forces in two, give the Americans warm winter quarters, allow them to build up their invading army for the spring campaign. If the heights are lost the province is lost.

He has managed to rally some two hundred men from the 49th and the militia. “Follow me, boys,” he cries, as he wheels his horse back toward the foot of the ridge. He reaches a stone wall, takes cover behind it, dismounts. “Take a breath, boys,” he says; “you will need it in a few moments.” They give him a cheer for that.

He has stripped the village of its defenders, including Captain Dennis, bleeding from several wounds but still on his feet. He sends some men under Captain John Williams in a flanking movement to attack Wool’s left. Then he vaults the stone fence and, leading Alfred
by the bridle, heads up the slope at a fast pace, intent on re-taking the gun in the redan.

His men, struggling to keep up, slide and stumble on a slippery footing of wet leaves. Above him, through the trees, Wool’s men can be seen reinforcing the gun emplacement. There is a confused skirmish; the battle seesaws; the Americans are driven almost to the lip of the precipice. Someone starts to wave a white handkerchief. Wool tears it away, orders a charge. The British are beaten back, and later some will remember Brock’s cry, “This is the first time I have ever seen the 49th turn their backs!”

The sun, emerging briefly from the clouds, glistens on the crimson maples, on the Persian carpet of yellow leaves, on the epaulettes of the tall general, sword in hand, rallying his men for a final charge. It makes a gallant spectacle: the Saviour of Upper Canada, brilliant in his scarlet coat, buttons gleaming, plumed hat marking him unmistakably as a leader, a gap opening up between him and his gasping followers.

Does he realize that he is a target? No doubt he does – he has already been shot in the hand – but that is a matter of indifference. Leaders in Brock’s army are supposed to lead. The spectacle of England’s greatest hero, Horatio Nelson, standing boldly on deck in full dress uniform, is still green in British memory. The parallels are worthy of notice. The two heroes share similar strengths and flaws: disdain for the enemy, courage, vanity, ambition, tactical brilliance, innovative minds, impetuosity. Both have the common touch, are loved by their men, whom they, in turn, admire, and are idealized by the citizens of the countries they are called upon to protect. And both, by their actions, are marked for spectacular death. They seem, indeed, to court it. Brock’s nemesis steps out from behind a clump of bushes and when the General is thirty paces from him draws a bead with his long border rifle and buries a bullet in his chest, the hole equidistant from the two rows of gilt buttons on the crimson tunic. George Jarvis, a fifteen-year-old gentleman volunteer in the 49th, rushes over. “Are you much hurt, sir?” he asks. There is no answer, for Brock is dead. A grisly spectacle follows as a cannonball slices another soldier in two and the severed corpse falls upon the stricken commander.

The gallant charge has been futile. Brock’s men retreat down the hill, carrying their general’s body, finding shelter at last under the stone wall of the Hamilton garden at the far end of the village. Here
they are joined by the two companies of York Volunteers, whom Brock passed on his gallop to Queenston. These men, arriving on the dead run, catch their breath as American cannon fire pours down upon them from the artillery post on the opposite heights. A cannon-ball slices off one man’s leg, skips on, cripples another in the calf. Then, led by young John Macdonell, the dead general’s aide, the augmented force makes one more attempt to recapture the heights.

Impulsively, Macdonell decides to follow Brock’s example. Possessed of a brilliant legal mind – he was prosecuting criminal cases at sixteen and has been acting attorney-general of the province for a year – he has little experience in soldiering. Quick of temper and a little arrogant, he reveres his dead commander and, in the words of his fellow aide Major Glegg, determines “to accompany him to the regions of eternal bliss.” Macdonell calls for a second frontal attack on the redan. Seventy volunteers follow him up the heights to join the remainder of the 49th under Captain John Williams taking cover in the woods. Together, Williams and Macdonell form up their men and prepare to attack.

“Charge them home and they cannot stand you!” cries Williams. The men of the 49th, shouting “Revenge the General!” (for he was
their
general), sweep forward. Wool, reinforced by several hundred more men, is waiting for them, his followers concealed behind logs and bushes.

As Macdonell on horseback waves his men on, his steed, struck by a musket ball, rears and wheels about. Another ball strikes Macdonell in the back, and he tumbles to the ground, fatally wounded. Williams, on the right flank, also falls, half scalped by a bullet. As Captain Cameron rushes forward to assist his fallen colonel, a ball strikes him in the elbow and he too drops. Macdonell, in terrible pain, crawls toward his closest friend, Lieutenant Archibald McLean of the York Volunteers, crying, “Help me!” McLean attempts to lead him away and is hit by a ball in the thigh. Dismayed by these losses, the men fall back, bringing their wounded with them. Dennis is bleeding from five wounds. Williams, horribly mangled, survives, but Macdonell is doomed.

Everything that Brock feared has happened. The Americans occupy both the village and the heights and are sending over reinforcements, now that they have unopposed possession of the river. The British have retreated again to the outskirts of the village. All of their big guns, except for one at Vrooman’s Point, have been silenced.
At ten o’clock on this dark October morning, Upper Canada lies in peril.

AT THIS POINT, all General Van Rensselaer’s forces should be across the river, but so many of his boats have been destroyed or abandoned that he is hard put to reinforce his bridgehead. He has no more than a thousand men on the Canadian side, and of these two hundred are useless. Stunned by their first experience of warfare, the militiamen cower beneath the bank; no power, it seems, no exhortation to glory or country, no threat of punishment can move them.

The General crosses at noon with his captain of engineers, whose job it is to help the troops on the heights. Unfortunately all the entrenching tools have been left at Lewiston; conditions are such that they will never arrive. The General sends the touchy Winfield Scott to the top of the ridge to take over from the wounded Wool, then prepares to return to the American shore. As he does so, a rabble of militiamen leaps into the boat with him.

During this lull, Winfield Scott works furiously with the engineers to prepare a defence of the high ground. The Americans know that British reinforcements are on their way from both Chippawa and Fort George; an American-born militiaman has deserted with that information. Scott would like to attack the Chippawa force, cutting it off from the main army, but has not enough men for the job; nor can he get more. His little force is diminishing. Whole squads of militia slink away into the woods or the brush above the bluffs. Scott posts his remaining men along the ridge with their backs to the village, his left flank resting on the edge of the bluff, his right in a copse of trees and bushes.

He realizes his danger. Ammunition is running out. He has managed to get a six-pound gun across the river in a larger boat, but there are only a few rounds available for it. In the distance he can see a long column of red-coated regulars marching up the road from Fort George under Brock’s successor, Major-General Roger Sheaffe.

Now Scott becomes aware of an odd spectacle. Dashing back and forth along the ragged line of the militia is a man in civilian clothes, waving a naked sword, swearing profusely, and exhorting the men to form and fight to the death. This is Brigadier-General William Wadsworth of the New York militia, who has the reputation of being
the most eloquently profane officer in the army. He has come across the river on his own, without orders, to try to instil some fighting spirit into his citizen soldiers.

Scott is nonplussed. Wadsworth outranks him, but he is not a regular. Scott cannot –
will
not – serve under him.

“General Wadsworth,” he says, “since you are in command I propose to confine my orders strictly to the regular troops here!”

To which the militia general replies, quite sensibly and amiably:

“That’s all damned nonsense, sir! You are a regular officer, you know professionally what should be done! Continue your command, sir, I am here simply for the honor of my country and that of the New York Militia!”

And off he rushes to raise some volunteers for the firing line.

Scott desperately needs to get the eighteen-pound cannon at the redan into action to protect his rear and cover the landing of the reinforcements that his general has promised him. But Brock has spiked it well: Scott’s men cannot drive or drill the ramrod out. The Lieutenant-Colonel scrambles down the hillside to help, but as he does so a terrifying sound pierces the air. It is the screaming war-whoop of the Mohawk Indians, led by John Norton and his Indian friend, the young chief John Brant. They come swooping out of the woods and hurtling across the fields, brandishing their tomahawks, driving in Scott’s pickets and forcing the trembling troops back. Only Scott’s own presence and voice prevent a general rout. The Indians retire into the woods at the first volley, then work their way around toward the American left. No American soldier has fallen during this brief attack, but the damage is done, for the cries of the Indians have carried across the river and sent a chill through the militiamen on the far side.

Almost at the same time, two British guns have opened up in the garden of the Hamilton house, effectively barring passage across the river. Scott knows that his chances of getting reinforcements before the final battle are slim. He can see the men he needs – hundreds of them, even thousands, lined up on the far bank like spectators at a prizefight. For all the good they can do him, they might as well be back at their farms, where at this moment most of them fervently wish they were.

General Van Rensselaer is helpless. He has promised reinforcements and ammunition to the defenders on the heights but can supply neither. He has sent to Brigadier-General Smyth asking for more
men, but Smyth again declines. And he cannot budge the troops at the embarkation point. They have been milling about for some hours in the drizzle, watching the boats return with terribly wounded men (and sometimes with deserters), watching other boats founder in the frothing stream, and now, with the screams of the Indians echoing down from the heights, they have no stomach for battle.

The General, riding a borrowed horse, with Major Lovett at his side, moves through the sulking soldiers, urging them to enter the boats. No one budges. One of their commanders, a Lieutenant-Colonel Bloom, returns from the heights wounded, mounts his horse and, still bleeding, exhorts, swears, prays. The troops refuse to advance. A local judge, Peck by name, appears from somewhere, a large cocked hat on his head, a long sword dangling from his broad belt, preaching and praying to no avail. The troops have broken ranks and assumed the role of witnesses to the coming batttle, and there is nothing, under the Constitution, that their officers can do.

Frustrated to fury and despair, Van Rensselaer starts to compose a note to General Wadsworth:

“I have passed through my camp; not a regiment, not a company is willing to join you. Save yourselves by a retreat if you can. Boats will be sent to receive you.”

The promise is hollow. The terrified boatmen refuse to recross the river.