At the commencement of the war of 1811, young Kearny, then about eighteen, was a student at Princeton College. Contrary, it is said, to the advice of his friends, he obtained a commission from Mr. Madison, and reported for duty as a lieutenant in the 13th regiment of infantry, in which he was attached to the company of which the present very distinguished General John E. Wool was the captain. With two companies of his regiment he was present at the gallant affair of Queenstown, and with Colonel, since Gen. Scott, was surrendered a prisoner of war. This was on the 13th of October, 1812. In this affair the companies of the thirteenth had been long opposed to the greatly celebrated and highly disciplined forty-ninth British infantry, a regiment which had stood the ordeal of the Peninsula War, and had won laurels from the best troops of France. The forty-ninth had occupied, with heavy reinforcements of Canadian militia, a battery on a commanding position. The cannonade and musketry from this point was so severe that every commissioned officer was in the first assault either killed or wounded, and Col. Van Rensselaer who commanded, was carried from the field unable to stand. Before he left, however, he ordered every man who could move to storm the battery. Three more gallant officers than those who carried his order into execution probably never lived. They were Captain Wool, Lieutenant Kearny, and 2nd Lieutenant T. B. Randolph, late of the Virginia regiment. By orders of Capt. Wool the two companies of the 13th, which originally had numbered but one hundred, all told, were extended and ordered to close upon the guns. This perilous manœuvre was executed with brilliant success, the enemy were driven precipitately from his guns, which were the first trophies to the United States of the war with Great Britain. This field was young Kearny’s first arms, and was a brilliant promise of what was to be his future career. The battle was important to the United States, though, as is well known, Col. Scott and his gallant command of regulars were forced to surrender. To the English it was most disastrous, Major Gen. Sir Isaac Brock, the captor of Detroit, a man thought worthy to compete with Wellington for the command of the British army in Spain, having been picked off by an American marksman. Throughout this trying engagement young Kearny sustained himself with the firmness which he maintained through life. When driven to the hill selected by the present Col. Totten as the strongest point, his perseverance was as distinguished as his impetuosity had been during the charge.