Through some unaccountable delay, the main body, to which the two detachments sent off at midnight were designed as an advance guard, did not embark till twelve o'clock next day. But at length two thousand men under General Porter, were got on board, while General Tannehill's volunteers and M'Clure's regiment were drawn up on the shore ready to follow. As if on purpose to give his adversary time for ample preparation, thus imitating the fatal examples of Dearborn and Hull, Smythe kept his men paraded on the beach in full view of the Canada shore, till late in the afternoon. He then, instead of giving the anxiously expected order to advance, commanded the whole to debark. Indignation and rage at this vacillating, pusillanimous conduct seized the entire army, and curses and loud denunciations were heard on every side. General Porter boldly and openly accused his commander of cowardice. The latter, frightened at the storm he had raised, promised that another attempt should be made the next day. It was resolved to cross at a place five miles below the navy yard, and the following day, at four o'clock, nearly the entire army was embarked. General Porter with the American colors floating from the stern of his boat, was in advance, to show that he asked no man to go where he would not lead. But when all was ready, and at the moment when every one expected to hear the signal to move forward, an order was passed along the line directing the troops to be relanded, accompanied with the announcement that the invasion of Canada was for that season abandoned. A shout of wrath burst from the whole army. Many of the militia threw away their arms and started for their homes, while fierce threats against the General's life were publicly made by the remaining troops. He was branded as a coward, shot at in the streets, and without even the form of a trial, was driven in scorn and rage from the army, and chased and mobbed by an indignant people from the state he had dishonored. Before he retired, however, he made an absurd attempt to retrieve his honor by challenging General Porter to mortal combat. They met on Grand Island and exchanged shots without effect. The seconds having published the transaction in a Buffalo paper, "congratulated the public on the happy issue." In commenting on this, Ingersoll very pithily remarks, "The public would have preferred a battle in Canada."