possible while the Americans were seemingly being successfully pinned down on the riverbank.
The same vantage in 2012. Including the relative movement of the American forces and various positions at the time of the battle.
Unfortunately, this was exactly what Wool had succeeded in doing. Gathering almost 200 men from the Sixth, Thirteenth, and Twenty-third Regiments, plus a gun crew from the New York Militia Artillery, Captain Wool’s force had scaled the heights and emerged on the higher ground just above and behind the redan battery. From there, the Americans swooped down on the unsuspecting artillerymen. After a short resistance that caused casualties on both sides, the surviving British gunners “spiked” their 18-pounder gun, rendering it inoperable, before scrambling down the slope toward the village below, along with their discomfited commander.
View from Queenston Heights, G. Heriot, artist, circa 1805. The view from the Portage Road, drawn just downhill from the redan battery. The government dock is visible at bottom right and the road through Queenston [Front Street] at left.
Library and Archives Canada, C-012772.
With the increasing light of day, the position for the British and Canadian defenders became serious. Behind them, the Americans controlled the heights; before them, increasing numbers of Americans were massing along the riverbank as more boats crossed from Lewiston; but most dangerously, the increasing visibility of the morning allowed the American gun batteries at Lewiston and Fort Gray to locate and target any points of resistance by the defenders. In short order, a number of the British guns, which had so devastated the American boats, were either disabled or forced to withdraw. In a similar fashion, the already depleted ranks of the infantry came under increased fire and seemed likely to break unless matters improved. Recognizing that a crisis had arisen, and determined to regain the dominant heights in order to create a stronghold for further resistance until reinforcements arrived, General Brock did not waste time issuing orders. Instead, he personally rode around the village, gathering together a composite force from his regular and militia detachments. With his force assembled, Brock led his troops into the open ground beyond the Secord farm at the base of the hillside. Advancing toward the American left flank, Brock’s force came under a brisk musket fire from the front line of American skirmishers covering the hillside and the captured gun position. After an intense firefight, the Americans were able to halt the British advance. Seeking to maintain the initiative, Brock dismounted from his horse, rallied his men, and moved out in front of his troops, perhaps forgetting that the primary responsibility of a senior commander is to remain in a position to direct a victory and not get involved in trying to create it. As a result, isolated in front of the line and wearing the highly distinctive uniform of a British senior officer, he suffered the consequences when an American soldier took aim and shot General Brock through the chest.
Stunned and outraged at the sight of their commander falling mortally wounded, Brock’s troops pressed forward, but made no headway against the secure positions of the Americans. Eventually, under a heavy fire, they collected the general’s body and withdrew down the slope. Shortly afterwards, the general’s aide, Lieutenant Colonel John Macdonell, attempted to revenge the death of his commander and succeed where his leader had failed, by organizing a second assault on the hill that took a more circuitous route in an attempt to flank the battery position. Initially, this assault succeeded in pressing the Americans back up the slope to the earthworks of the redan battery, causing the Americans inside to spike one of the guns that they had only just cleared. But just as his commander had suffered for his bravery, so too did Macdonell. He fell, shot through the belly. Within moments, the offensive collapsed and a counterattack by the Americans threw the weakened and disheartened British/Canadian troops back down the hill. Effective resistance to the invasion all but collapsed and individual units withdrew from the village as best they could, attempting to regroup downriver at Vrooman’s Point. On the other side of the village, the Americans began to solidify their position and establish a secure bridgehead for further troops to land. However, back on the American side of the river, less than a half-dozen boats remained to ferry the waiting regiments to the Canadian shore. Consequently, the reinforcement of the American beachhead had slowed to a crawl. Nevertheless, it appeared that despite all their earlier blunders, the Americans had carried the day and the battle was won. Finally, a victory could be reported to Washington.
Unable to acquire the actual ground, the 1850s committee looking to erect a monument to mark the point where General Brock actually fell were forced to locate it almost two blocks away. Therefore, they inscribed the location as being located “Near this spot.” Not, as popular history has it, halfway up the hill towards the redan battery, but down slope, nearer to the Secord family home and present-day museum.
As the morning progressed, additional detachments augmented Captain Wool’s command on the heights. He even gained some artillery support in the form of a 6-pounder cannon and ammunition limber. This piece had been laboriously dismantled, transported across the river, re-assembled, and then hauled up the escarpment by men from Captain James Gibson’s Light Artillery Company. As such, it was a welcome addition to the extended lines that the Americans sought to establish on top of the escarpment and astride the road leading from Queenston to Chippawa. However, Captain Wool had suffered a wound at the onset of the fighting and, due to blood loss, was forced to relinquish his command, which was taken up by Lieutenant Colonel Chrystie. Shortly thereafter, Brigadier General Wadsworth joined the force on the hilltop, becoming the senior officer. The general also brought news that there were still a significant number of militiamen that were refusing to cross the Niagara. As a result, Lieutenant Colonel Chrystie was ordered to cross back to the U.S. side of the river, locate Major General Stephen Van Rensselaer, and impress upon him the urgent necessity of getting these recalcitrant troops onto the battlefield.
Meanwhile, at the north end of the village, grievous as the death of Brock was to the morale of the surviving British and Canadian troops, it actually engendered a thirst for revenge on the part of the soldiers, not a desire to flee. In consequence, the remnants of the defenders remained at Vrooman’s Point awaiting orders. Shortly afterward, a band of nearly 200 Native warriors, led by their war chief John Norton (Teyoninhokovrawen), arrived at the battlefield, staying close to the heavy woods west of the village. Meeting with some of the retreating militia and hearing of Brock’s death, many of Norton’s warriors took this retreat as a signal for their own withdrawal and melted into the woods. Still determined to advance, Norton heartened his remaining band of about eighty warriors and led his men in a flanking movement to the right, eventually passing around the American perimeter and reaching the top of the escarpment. Moving across the Chippawa road toward the American left flank, Norton sent a messenger to the British garrison at Chippawa for assistance; he then dispersed his warriors under cover of the trees and began sniping at the Americans. Startled by the sudden war cries and firing from the woods on their flank and rear, Lieutenant Colonel Winfield Scott (Second U.S. Artillery), who had left his own assigned post on the American side of the river to join in on the attack, thought he was being attacked by forces coming from Chippawa. Without orders, he took it upon himself to take command of the troops at that end of the line and establish a line of defence facing south from behind a fence (that separated the open farm fields from the partially wooded military reservation lands that followed the line of the escarpment). Under continued fire, Scott ordered his composite force of infantrymen to make a bayonet charge to clear the enemy Native warriors from his flank. However, while the initial advance forced the Natives to
