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 passage 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 shore 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 passage 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.