The Story of Isaac Brock: Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812Nursey, Walter R.
History
The Story of Isaac Brock: Hero, Defender and Saviour of Upper Canada, 1812
Nursey, Walter R.
Brock, Isaac, Sir, 1769-1812; Canada -- History -- 1763-1867; United States -- History -- War of 1812
The total British force engaged was 1,000. Of these 800 were regulars
and militia, and 200 Indians. Killed, 14, including one major-general
and one aide. Wounded and missing, 96. Total American loss, 1,425. Total
British loss, 110. _The next day the British General, Sheaffe, Isaac
Brock's successor, signed another armistice. The second armistice within
a period of nine weeks!_
Such is the story of the Battle of Queenston Heights.
SUBSEQUENT EVENTS OF THE CAMPAIGN OF 1812.
After Van Rensselaer resigned his command in favour of Brigadier-General
Smyth, the effect of the British victory upon the United States troops
at Lewiston was beyond belief. While the British soldiers were, with
characteristic indifference, hard at work at Fort George cutting wood
and threshing straw, the American soldiers across the river, according
to their own historians, were deserting by the hundreds. Of General
Tannehill's brigade of 1,414 of all ranks, 1,147 deserted within a few
days. Twenty of these were officers.
Had the British been allowed to profit by this demoralization of the
enemy and followed up their brilliant successes, they could, as Brock
predicted, have swept the frontier from Chippewa to Sackett's Harbour,
and probably prevented a continuance of the two years' war. The
Sheaffe-Prevost inexcusable thirty days' truce was the very respite the
enemy had prayed for. More men and more munitions were hurriedly
despatched to all the United States frontier forts, and renewed courage
imparted to some of the commanders and their hesitating brigades. The
first to waken up after the expiration of this, to the Americans,
merciful truce, was General Dearborn, who, with 2,000 men, attacked
Odelltown, only to be driven back to Lake Champlain by de Salaberry.
This reverse was followed in the last days of November by an attack by
General Smyth, with 400 of his 4,300 men, upon a four-gun battery,
defended by sixty-five men, above Garden Island, on the Niagara River.
Elated with his success, he took for his rallying cry, "The cannon lost
at Detroit--or death!" and again crossed the river with thirty-two boats
and 900 men, and descended upon Fort Erie. Meanwhile, Colonel Bisshopp
had retaken the fort, with its American captors, and with a handful of
regulars and militia awaited "annihilation." As Smyth's flotilla
advanced, Bisshopp poured in a hot fire, sinking two boats. This
reception did not accord with Smyth's views of the ethics of war, and
forgetting all about the "lost guns," and disliking, upon reflection,
the idea of "death," he at once turned tail. At Buffalo he was publicly
pelted by the populace, and for his cowardice was dismissed the service
by the United States Senate without the formality of a trial.
Dearborn--strange to say--having for the time lost his taste for
fighting, went into winter quarters, and Canada, in universal mourning
for Brock, but still confident and undaunted, rested on her arms. The
year 1812 closed without further incident.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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