Captain Wool had been reinforced and now had four hundred men under his command. One of these men stepped in front of the rest and shot down General Brock. The bullet struck him in the right breast near the heart. The wound was fatal, and the death of their commander, more perhaps than the continuous fire poured upon them from the heights, forced the British to retire. The underestimation of the enemy had indeed been costly. Some discrepancy exists as to what were Brock’s last words. According to Lieutenant Jarvis, who was immediately at his side when he fell, with the question: “Are you hurt, Sir?” Brock did not reply, but, pressing his hand to his chest, “slowly sank down.” This is the most probable version, as it is likely that he was wounded too severely to say anything at all. Others have it, however, that, just before he died Brock cried: “Push on, brave York Volunteers!” This story probably has its origin in the early shout to Captain Cameron, to bring up his men. Captain Glegg, who acquainted William Brock the next day with the news of the General’s death, said that, as he fell Brock whispered: “My fall must not be noticed or impede my brave companions from advancing to victory.” It is not likely, however, that a plain man like Brock would have struck an attitude so dramatic. The story of Lieutenant Jarvis seems most nearly to fit the case. Whatever he said or did not say, this man of action died as he had lived, bravely and as a man. Brock’s death filled his men with a just rage, and before night the cry, “Revenge the General!” was heard from one end of the forty mile line to the other. His spirit breathed “an inextinguishable flame,” and the soldiers at Fort George drove the Americans out with little trouble. At Fort Erie, the men behind the guns, saddened and awed by the death of their beloved leader, redoubled their efforts on the Americans at Black Rock. The force which Brock himself had been leading had to retreat, leaving behind the gun which had cost them their leader’s life. With them they bore his body to Queenston. When his men looked at his corpse they might say as Antony did of Caesar’s body, “Here is himself, marr’d,” and the sight of this “bleeding piece of earth” spurred them on in his name and for his sake. His men tried again, after his death, to take that fateful gun. Vrooman’s Point and Brown’s Point furnished their quotas of York Volunteers to reinforce the troops from Queenston, as Brock had commanded, and about ten o’clock, under Lieutenant-Colonel Macdonell, Brock’s aide-de camp, another attack was made on the Americans on Queenston Heights. This too was unsuccessful. Again the troops had to retreat, while their leader was mortally wounded. The Americans were sure that they had won a great victory. Messengers were despatched to Albany with the tidings of the death of Brock and Macdonell, and the city gave itself up to rejoicings. But the joy was premature.