The Story of Isaac Brock Part 13

Glancing below, Brock, even at that instant, for a fleeting moment was conscious of the beauty of the country spread beneath him. Almost as far as eye could reach extended an immense, partly pastoral plain, studded with villages, groves, winding streams, cultivated farms, orchards, vineyards and meadows. In places a dense forest, decorated with autumn's mellow tints, and furrowed by the black gorge of the Niagara, stretched to the horizon. Across all, shadows of racing clouds gave emphasis to the brilliant flood of sunshine. No fairer scene ever greeted the eye of man. The entire landscape breathed peace. Above it, however, in detached ma.s.ses, hung lurid billows--the smoke of battle.... The serene vision faded, and in its place, in brutal contrast, came cruel, imperious bugle calls, the metallic rattle of fire-arms, the deep thunder of artillery, the curdling cry of wounded men.

Isaac's senses were insulted by the carnage of war.

He now noticed that the supports, led by his plucky aide at the foot of the hill, were flagging. He shouted back, "Push on, York Volunteers!"

Our hero's robust figure was a conspicuous object for the American riflemen. While telling his men to take advantage of every bit of shelter, he paid little attention to himself. His uniform, his position at the head of his men, his loud words of command, stamped him a man of mark, a soldier of distinction, a special target for Wool's sharpshooters.

So far he had escaped the hail of shot by a miracle. Picking his footsteps--it was treadmill work--he sprang forward, urging on his men by word and gesture.

A deflected bullet struck the wrist of his sword arm. The wound was slight. He again waved his sword, smiling his indifference and still speaking words of encouragement.

They were getting at close quarters now. The redan was less than fifty yards above.

He was calling to those nearest him to hold their fire a moment, to prepare to rush the enemy and use their bayonets, when, from a thorn thicket, an Ohio scout, Wilklow by name, one of Moseley's riflemen, stepped forward, and, singling out his victim, deliberately aimed at the General. Several of the 49th, noticing the man's movement, fired--but too late. The rifleman's bullet entered our hero's right breast, tore through his body on the left side, close to his heart, leaving a gaping wound.

[Ill.u.s.tration: BROCK'S COAT, WORN AT QUEENSTON HEIGHTS]

Brock sank slowly to the ground, quite sensible of his grievous fate. A grenadier, horribly mutilated, fell across him. To those who ran to aid our hero, anxious to know the nature of his injury, he murmured a few broken sentences and--turned to die.

He tried to frame messages to loved ones, and then, more audibly, as he gallantly strove to raise his head to give emphasis to his last faltering words--the same Isaac Brock, unmindful of self and still mindful of duty--he said, "My fall must not be noticed, nor impede my brave companions from advancing to victory."

And with a sigh--expired.

Thus died General Sir Isaac Brock, defender and saviour of Upper Canada.

Died the death he would have selected, the most splendid death of all--that of the hero in the hour of victory, fighting for King and country, for you and me, and with his face to the foe.

Our hero had pa.s.sed his _last_ milestone.

For a brief s.p.a.ce the body of Isaac Brock rested where it had fallen, about one hundred yards west of the road that leads through Queenston, and a little eastward of an aged thorn bush.

Above the dead soldier's head, clouds, sunshine and rustling foliage; beneath it, fallen forest leaves, moist and fragrant. About the motionless body swayed tussocks of tall gra.s.s and the trampled heads of wild-flowers. The shouts of the regulars, the clamor of the militia, the shrill war-cry of the Mohawks, and the organ notes of battle, were his requiem. Then the corpse was hurriedly borne by a few grief-stricken men of the 49th to a house in the village, occupied by Laura Secord--the future heroine of Lundy's Lane--where, concealed by blankets--owing to the presence of the enemy--it was allowed to remain for some hours, unvisited.

Later in the day Major Glegg, Brock's faithful aide--the brave Macdonell, in extreme agony, lay dying of his wounds--hastened to the spot, and finding the body of his lamented friend undisturbed, conveyed it to Niagara, "where it was bedewed by weeping friends whose hearts were agonized with bitterest sorrow."

[Ill.u.s.tration: BATTLE OF QUEENSTON. From an old Sketch]

SUPPLEMENT

AFTER BROCK'S DEATH.

The "Story of Isaac Brock" would be incomplete without an epitome of the events that terminated the Battle of Queenston Heights and resulted in an overwhelming victory for the British.

General Brock was killed in action at about half-past seven on the morning of October 13th, 1812. His body was removed from Government House, Niagara, to a cavalier bastion at Fort George, for final sepulture. This bastion was selected by Major Glegg, it being the one which Brock's own genius had lately suggested--the one from which the range of an observer's vision covered the princ.i.p.al points of approach--and had just been finished under his daily superintendence.

After he fell, the handful of men who were with him, overcome by his tragic end, overwhelmed by superior numbers and a hurricane of buckshot and bullets, wavered, and though Dennis attempted to rally them, fell back and retreated to the far end of Queenston village. Here, about two hours later, Colonel Macdonell, Brock's aide, collected and reformed the scattered units, and made another bold dash to rescale the heights and retake the redan. A detailed account of the incidents that followed in dramatic succession would fill a book.

With the cry of "Revenge the General!" from the men of the 49th, Macdonell, on Brock's charger, led the forlorn attack, supported by Dennis. At the same moment, Williams, with his detachment, emerged from the thicket, shouting to his men, "Feel firmly to the right, my lads; advance steadily, charge them home, and they cannot stand you." The two detachments then combined, and Macdonell ordering a general advance, they once more breasted the ascent.

The enemy, over four hundred strong, but without proper formation, fired an independent volley at the British as they approached to within thirty yards of the redoubt. This was responded to with vigour, and grenadiers and volunteers, in response to brave Macdonell's repeated calls, charged fiercely on Wool's men, now huddled in disorder around the eighteen-pounder. Some of them started to run towards the river bank.

One American officer, Ogilvie, of the 13th regulars, thinking the situation hopeless, raised his handkerchief on his sword-point in token of surrender. Wool, a soldier of different calibre, tore it down, and a company of United States infantry coming at that moment to his a.s.sistance, he rallied his men.

The momentary advantage gained by Macdonell's small band of heroes was lost, and in the exchange of shots that followed, Macdonell's horse--Brock's charger--was killed under him while he--his uniform torn with bullets--was thrown from the saddle as the animal plunged in its death struggle--receiving several ghastly bullet wounds, from which he died the following day, after enduring much agony. Williams, a moment later, fell desperately wounded; Dennis, suffering from a severe head wound, at first refused to quit the field, but Cameron having removed the sorely-stricken Macdonell, and Williams having recovered consciousness and escaped, the dispirited men fell back, retreated down the mountain at Parrott's Tavern, retiring upon Vrooman's battery. Here they awaited, unmolested, until two in the afternoon, the arrival of reinforcements from Fort George. The fight, though short, had been furious and deadly. Americans and British alike were glad to take breath.

Meanwhile, un.o.bserved, young Brant, with 120 Mohawk Indians, had scaled the mountain, east of St. David's, outflanking the Americans, and hemmed them in until Captains Derenzy, of the 41st, and Holcroft, of the Artillery, arrived with the car-brigade from Fort George and trained two field-guns and a howitzer upon the landing. Merritt, with a troop of mounted infantry, at the same time reached the village by the Queenston road. This movement, which was a ruse, deceived the enemy, who at once redisposed his troops in readiness for an attack from this new quarter.

The American commander was ignorant of the fact that General Sheaffe--with four companies of the 41st, 308 strong, the same number of militia, and a company of negro troops from Niagara, refugee slaves from the United States--was at that moment approaching his rear in the rear of the Indians. The British advanced in crescent-shaped formation, hidden by mountain and bush, and were shortly joined by a few more regulars and by two flank companies of the 2nd regiment of militia from Chippewa. Indeed, many persons of all ranks of life, even veterans exempt by age, seized their muskets and joined the column to repel the invaders, "unappalled" by Dearborn's threats of conquest or by the death of their "beloved hero, Isaac Brock." By this movement the British escaped the enfilading fire of the Lewiston batteries, the steep ascent of the heights in the teeth of the enemy's field-works, and compelled him to change front. The British of all ranks numbered less than one thousand.

[Ill.u.s.tration: PLAN OF BATTLE OF QUEENSTON]

The United States troops, which had been heavily reinforced, consisted at this time of about one thousand fighting men, on and about the mountain. This number was slowly supplemented by fresh arrivals from Lewiston, encouraged when they saw the American flag planted on the redan. The wounded were sent across the river. Nearly all of the new arrivals were regulars. Colonel Winfield Scott, of Mexican fame, a tried soldier, six feet four in his stockings, was now in command, supported by a second field-piece and many sharp-shooters. Van Rensselaer, narrowly escaping capture, had retreated by boat to Lewiston, ostensibly to bring over more troops. Finding the conditions unfavourable, he did not do so, but sent over General Wadsworth, as a vicarious sacrifice, to take command. The gun in the redan had been unspiked, and the summit strongly entrenched, but as Scott's men betrayed strange lukewarmness, orders were given "to shoot any man leaving his post."

Sheaffe's men having rested after their forced tramp, a few spherical case-shot by Holcroft drove out the American riflemen. His gunners had at last silenced the Lewiston batteries, and finding the river range, sunk almost every boat that attempted to cross. The Indians were now ordered to drive in the enemy's pickets slowly. Scouting the woods, they routed his outposts.

About four p.m. Captain Bullock, with two flank companies of militia and 150 men of the 41st, advanced, and after firing a volley in the face of a dense smoke, charged the enemy's right, which broke in great confusion. A general advance was ordered, and, with wild warwhoops by the Indians and white men, the heights were rushed, Wadsworth's veterans were stampeded, the redan retaken at the point of the bayonet, and Scott's command forced to the scarp of the cliff overhanging the river.

The American soldiers, to quote United States historians, now "fled like sheep," and scuttled off in all directions. Some raced headlong down the main road, seeking shelter under the muzzles of Holcroft's guns; some sought refuge in the houses; others raced to the landing only to find the boats no longer there. Not a few, hot pressed by Brant's avenging Mohawks, threw themselves over the precipice, preferring suicide to the redman's tomahawk. Others plunged into the Niagara, essaying to swim its irresistible eddies, only to be blown out of the green water by Holcroft's grapeshot or sucked down by the river's silent whirlpools.

One boat, with fifty struggling refugees, sank with its entire crew. Two others similarly laden were beached below the village, with only one dozen out of one hundred souls still living. The river presented a shocking scene. On the face of the water men, many maimed and wounded, fought and struggled for survival. This pitiful spectacle was actually taking place under the eyes of several thousands of American soldiers on the Lewiston bank, who, almost impossible to believe, and to their lasting disgrace, refused to join, or attempt even to succour, their comrades--deaf to all entreaty--allowing them to perish. Every room and shack at Queenston was an improvised hospital or morgue, filled with the mangled bodies of the quick and dead.

Cruikshank says 120 wounded United States officers and men were taken, of whom thirty died at hospital in Queenston and Niagara, while 140 more were ferried across to Lewiston. Lossing, the American historian, solemnly records the "fact" that "less than 600 American troops of all ranks ever landed at Queenston," and that "of these only 300 were overpowered"--some of the United States histories of the colonial wars need drastic revision--yet 958 American soldiers were taken prisoners by the British; "captured by a force," so officially wrote Colonel Van Rensselaer, after the battle, "amounting to only about _one-third_ of the united number of the American troops." Captain Gist, of the U.S.

army, placed their own killed at 400.