Canada: the Empire of the North: Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to KingdomLaut, Agnes C.
History
Canada: the Empire of the North: Being the Romantic Story of the New Dominion's Growth from Colony to Kingdom
Laut, Agnes C.
Canada -- History
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.
[Illustration: BROCK MONUMENT, QUEENSTON HEIGHTS]
The invaders were resting on their arms, snatching 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 passage. 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
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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