Before the end of the year, General McClure, in command of the American troops on the Niagara frontier, evacuated Fort George, when he heard of the advance of the English forces under General Murray. McClure committed the cowardly outrage of destroying the town of Newark. All the houses except one were burned, and no pity was shown even to the weak and helpless women, all of whom were driven from their comfortable houses and forced to stand on the snow-clad earth, while they saw the flames ascend from their homes and household treasures. As an act of retribution the British troops destroyed all the posts and settlements from Fort Niagara to Buffalo. When the campaign of 1813 closed, Lake Erie was still in the possession of the Americans, but the Niagara district on both sides of the river had been freed from the American {331} forces, and not an inch of Canadian territory except Amherstburg was in possession of the enemy. In the following year the campaign commenced by the advance of a large force of American troops under General Wilkinson into Lower Canada, but they did not get beyond Lacolle Mill, not far from Isle aux Noix on the Richelieu, where they met with a most determined resistance from the little garrison under Colonel Handcock. Wilkinson retreated to Plattsburg, and did not again venture upon Canadian territory. Sir Gordon Drummond took Oswego, and succeeded in destroying a large amount of public property, including the barracks. The greatest success of the year was won in the Niagara country, where the English troops under Drummond and Riall had been concentrated with the view of opposing the advance of an American army into Upper Canada. The Americans occupied Fort Erie, and Riall sustained a repulse at Street's Creek--now known as Usher's--near Chippewa, although General Brown, who was in command of a much superior force, did not attempt to follow up his advantage, but allowed the English to retreat to Fort George. Then followed, on the 25th of July, the famous battle of Lundy's Lane, where the English regulars and Canadian militia, led by General Drummond, fought from six in the evening until midnight, a formidable force of American troops, commanded by General Brown and Brigadiers Ripley, Porter, and Scott--the latter the future hero of the Mexican war. The darkness through this hotly contested engagement was intense, and the English {332} more than once seemed on the point of yielding to sheer exhaustion as they contested every foot of ground against overpowering numbers of well handled troops. The undaunted courage and persistence of the British and Canadian soldiery won the battle, as the Americans retired from the field, though with a remarkable perversion of the facts this memorable event is even claimed by some American writers as a success on their side. This was the last great fight of the war, and will be always cited by Canadians as illustrating the mettle of their own militia in old times.