For nearly three weeks the parties of Canadian workers worked continually upon the plan of De Salaberry, while Hampton was considering, preparing, reviewing his troops, and arranging for a communication with Wilkinson so soon as the latter should have passed Ogdensburg on his way down the St. Lawrence. On the 21st of October the advance down the Châteauguay commenced. The first move was a rapid march by General Izard with the light-equipped troops and a regiment of the line, who surprised a party of about ten[22] Indians sitting late in the afternoon at their evening meal at the junction of the Outarde and Châteauguay Rivers, and killed one of them. There Izard encamped and proceeded to establish a road of communication with Hampton. Word was soon brought to Major Henry, of the Beauharnois' Militia, commanding on the English River. Henry sent word to General De Watteville at La Fourche, and had Captains Levesque and Debartzch advance immediately with the flank companies of the 5th Battalion of embodied militia and about 200 men of the Beauharnois' division. This was the preliminary move towards the battle. They advanced about six miles that night up the Châteauguay from La Fourche, when they came to a wood which it would not have been prudent to enter in the dark. Next morning early they were joined by De Salaberry with his Voltigeurs and the light company of Captain Ferguson, an officer who took a front place in the affair. De Salaberry brought all these companies about a league up the bank to the place he had fortified, and there stopped. An American patrol party being observed in front, General De Watteville came over himself, visited the outposts, approved of them, and the work proceeded.[23] That evening the main body of the Americans encamped at Sear's, about twenty-five miles above the Châteauguay's mouth. The engineers had cut a road for the ten cannon, and with great labor and difficulty had dragged them thus far.[24] Within two days more Hampton's men had opened and completed a large and practicable road, which is still traceable, from his position at Four Corners twenty-four miles through the woods and morasses, and brought up his guns and stores to his new position, about seven miles from De Salaberry's. (About Dewittville?) [Illustration: SKETCH OF THE BATTLE OF CHATEAUGUAY--OCT 26, 1813]