By putting the best face that your situation admits, the enemy may be induced to delay an attack until you will be able to meet him and carry the war into Canada. At all events, we must calculate on possessing Upper Canada before winter sets in.

— U.S. Maj.-Gen. Henry Dearborn to Maj.-Gen. Stephen Van Rensselaer, Sept. 26, 1812.

QUEENSTON HEIGHTS, ONT.—There is scarce need of a degree from the Royal Military College to grasp the significance of this soaring piece of hard limestone, more than 100 metres above the swirling eddies and whirlpools of the Niagara River.

On a clear day, the unaided eye can easily identify each major tower in Toronto’s faraway skyline.

Command these heights and you’re on your way to being lord of Niagara, a point that isn’t lost on any of the combatants 200 years ago.

For the Americans, victory here would help erase the bitter taste of two stunning and embarrassing defeats at Michilimackinac and Detroit — losses that had only embittered the great divide between pro-war Republicans and anti-war Federalists south of the border.

Another defeat along the Niagara River would embolden the separatist movements in anti-war New England, three of whose (Federalist) governors have openly defied U.S. President James Madison’s order to call up their militias.

For the sometimes fractious alliance with Canadians and Indians that British Gen. Isaac Brock has cobbled together, the loss of Niagara would be monumental, handing control of western Upper Canada to the Americans just a few months after war had been declared.

No matter how the inevitable contest ends, it’s bound to become a signal event in Canadian history, a kind of crucible. Memories of it will still be so vivid that they’ll become enshrined in Canada’s unofficial national anthem, “The Maple Leaf Forever,” penned more than five decades later:

At Queenston Heights and Lundy’s Lane,

Our brave fathers, side by side,

For freedom, homes and loved ones dear,

Firmly stood and nobly died.

A prominent politician, Van Rensselaer has been virtually pencilled in as the next Federalist candidate for New York governor. But he’s also a militia leader, albeit with no battlefield experience.

Which is precisely why the state’s incumbent Republican governor, Daniel Tompkins, offers the region’s top military post to his would-be gubernatorial rival. Van Rensselaer can scarcely refuse — he’d be pilloried as a coward — but by accepting he’s also absenting himself from the electoral fray.

Tompkins even raises the stakes by making potential victory seem easy: “I feel a confidence that we shall make ourselves masters of Canada by Militia alone.”

So Van Rensselaer duly finds himself by the river in Lewiston, N.Y., about halfway between Niagara Falls and Lake Ontario, commanding an American force that is short of just about every supply imaginable.

There is relatively little ammunition on hand, not enough uniforms or even shoes, too few bayonets and tents, insufficient cooking pots and hospital stores, and a lack of axes and shovels to build defensive earthworks.

The shortfalls inevitably take on a political hue, courtesy of Lt.-Col. Solomon Van Rensselaer, the general’s younger but more militarily experienced cousin, hired on as aide-de-camp.

Solomon is quick to blame the supply problems on New York quartermaster Peter Porter, a prominent Republican war hawk and, in Solomon’s considered opinion, “an abominable scoundrel.”

Solomon’s sneering condemnation is so public that Porter eventually challenges him to a duel, which is only averted when the senior Van Rensselaer intervenes.

If the general needs any more proof of the chasms within his ranks, Van Rensselaer certainly finds it beginning Aug. 23, 1812.

On the Canadian side, amid much red-coated pageantry, U.S. Gen. William Hull and roughly 500 American prisoners from the fall of Detroit are being marched along the river, en route to Quebec, the wounded in open carts.

This massed show of British power has precisely the effect Brock intends. Fear and doubt begin spreading in the U.S. militia, while the war hawks among them, especially the Republican officers, are panting for revenge.

“The public mind in this quarter is wrought up almost to a state of madness,” Porter writes to Tompkins.

“Jealously and mistrust begin to prevail toward the general officers, occasioned perhaps by the rash and imprudent expressions on politics of some of the persons attached to them, but principally to the surrender of Detroit, which among the common people is almost universally ascribed to treachery (by Hull).”

Ever the shrewd judge of character, Brock has once again managed to sew fear and division within enemy ranks, just as he had at Detroit.

Brock may be giving out final instructions to his officers at the likes of York (Toronto) and Kingston, but he’s also using his new-found celebrity to rally the Canadian militia.

Privately, the general has long harboured doubts about the loyalty and likely effectiveness of the militia, but he’s now publicly lauding them. In one deft exaggeration, he even says he might not have attempted his bold strike at Detroit without the militia by his side.

Brock doesn’t return to Fort George and nearby Niagara (present-day Niagara-by-the-Lake) until Sept. 6, and he’s more than a little alarmed at how the Americans have used a temporary armistice to bring in more troops and supplies.

There are, however, some developments to buoy his spirits.

He has shifted a few companies of his old regiment, the 49th Foot, to Fort George from Kingston. Several hundred Mohawk warriors have, as a result of Detroit, cast off their neutrality and are now headed to Niagara under John Norton, the Scot turned adopted Mohawk chief.

The number of American deserters is meanwhile growing, especially from the U.S. regular army. They arrive with tales of poor morale, bad food and disease.

And Brock, at any rate, has never had much respect for the “enraged democrats” of the U.S. militia, who “have neither subordination nor discipline. They die very fast.”

But the British regulars and Canadian militia along the Niagara River are still greatly outnumbered by the American troops opposite. Brock’s biggest concern is that one of his two flanks will be turned, that either Fort George at one end, or Fort Erie at the other, will fall, allowing the Americans to move inland and attack British positions from behind.

With that in mind, Brock puts most of his troops on the flanks, with the heights at Queenston only thinly defended, although there is a cannon battery about halfway up the steep slope on a little triangle of flat land — a redan in military parlance.

Defence, however, is not Brock’s natural instinct. He still thinks that, if he acts boldly enough, he could easily replicate his success at Detroit.

Which is precisely what his superior at Quebec, Sir George Prevost, doesn’t want.

Mired in their gargantuan struggle with Napoleon, the British merely want to defend Upper and Lower Canada and the Maritimes with as few resources as possible. Brock is to take no offensive action, a leash that clearly chafes.

As Brock writes to his brother, this is “a most awkward predicament,” since “I could at this moment sweep everything before me from Fort Niagara to Buffalo. . . ”

Instead, he feels left on the shelf while his peers stand with Wellington in the big show that will lead to Waterloo.

A temporary armistice along the Canada/U.S. border — proposed by Prevost and agreed to by Dearborn — would have tied Brock’s hands at any rate. But that truce finally expires Sept. 8, and the date offers a ready comparison with Europe and the reasons for British restraint in the Americas.

It’s only a day after Napoleon wins the Battle of Borodino en route to Moscow, a clash involving 250,000 combatants and combined casualties of more than 80,000 in a single day.

War in North America is microscopic by comparison, and the British are determined to keep it that way.

Along the Niagara, Brock has just 1,200 or so British regulars, 800 Canadian militia and perhaps 500 Indians at his disposal. On the opposite side of the river sits an American force of 4,000 militia and 2,300 regulars, the latter soon bolstered by the arrival, near Buffalo, of 2,000 more troops under U.S. Brig.-Gen. Alexander Smyth.

The British across the lake at Fort Erie are naturally alarmed, but what they don’t know is that Smyth — a bombastic, regular army general with near-complete disdain for mere militia — has no intention of co-operating with Van Rensselaer, technically his superior.

Van Rensselaer hoped to mount a two-pronged invasion, with his own force taking Queenston Heights while Smyth’s regulars lay siege to Fort George. But Smyth ignores every piece of communication Van Rensselaer sends him and refuses to travel to Lewiston for any meetings to plan the invasion of Canada.

Van Rensselaer will be on his own, and his hand is about to be forced.

One of them is Caledonia, which had earlier helped capture the U.S. fort at Michilimackinac; the other is a U.S. brig captured at Detroit, and renamed in honour of that victory. For the Americans, the sight is far too tempting.

Elliott is soon leading about 100 men in two longboats on a daring raid. It is past midnight, and they must row against strong currents, but by 3 a.m., Oct. 9, they’re pulling alongside the unsuspecting British ships.

The Caledonia is quickly overwhelmed and sailed to the American side, loaded with valuable furs and pork. A heated battle ensues for the Detroit, but Elliott can’t manoeuvre the now-anchorless ship, which drifts downstream and runs aground on Squaw Island.

Under heavy British fire, the Americans have no choice but to strip what they can and set the Detroit alight.

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After months of farcical setbacks, the U.S. finally has a victory and the buoyant mood all but forces Van Rensselaer to undertake what he once thought suicidal: a single attack on Queenston alone.

There are, after all, more than just strategic advantages to capturing the Canadian side of the Niagara. Compared with the tangled forest of the American shore, the western side of the river is a positive Arcadia.

The tidy villages of Queenston and Niagara (now Niagara-on-the-Lake) are surrounded by prosperous farms and orchards. If Van Rensselaer and his men must stay on through the winter, better there than on the U.S. side.

For nearly all of September, the Americans have had to endure not just supply problems, but near-constant rain and wind. Action, any action, would be better than suffering in situ.

Finally, on Oct. 10, Van Rensselaer issues a strict order for Smyth to start marching his men to Lewiston. Smyth complies. His men tear down their encampment and begin the long trek south amid a huge downpour.

But they’re only about halfway there when Van Rensselaer calls them off. The weather is too dreadful, and yet he has to do something soon.

He resolves to cross the river in the early hours of Oct. 13, without Smyth, the first mistake in what will become a litany of same.

But Van Rensselaer has only arranged for 13 bateaux, each one capable of holding just 25 or so men, despite the nearby presence of many more watercraft.

The Americans begin embarking in the wee hours, but no officer has been assigned the task of marshalling the many hundreds of troops waiting to climb aboard. The scene is chaos, yet the first wave manages to navigate Niagara’s tricky and sometimes contradictory currents to land at a narrow beach about 500 metres upstream from the main docking area in the village of Queenston.

The general’s cousin, Solomon, is ostensibly in charge of the invasion party, though he ends up in one of the last boats to cross.

At Queenston, British Capt. James Dennis has 420 men at his disposal — a mix of British regulars and the flanking (or elite) companies of the 5th Lincoln and 2nd York militias. They engage the invaders, but are forced to retreat around 5 a.m.

By then, British gunners at the redan have figured out where the Americans are embarking on the opposite bank and start pummeling the area with “spherical case” — a thin-cased iron sphere filled with gunpowder and musket balls, invented by Col. Henry Shrapnel and capable of sending a lethal hail into enemy ranks. The Americans retreat to the safety of a nearby ravine.

Brock himself is soon riding hard from Niagara to Queenston, and this raises the first of several questions about his conduct. If he still expects the main attack to come against Fort George, why would he personally investigate a seeming diversion at Queenston rather than delegate that task?

En route, Brock passes members of the 3rd York Militia who, having heard the din of musket and cannon, are similarly making their way to Queenston. If Brock ever does utter the words, “Push on brave York Volunteers,” it’s most likely at this point and not, as legend has it, while leading an uphill charge against the Americans.

The river itself now adds another wrinkle, for its currents have deposited a subsequent wave of American troops too far downstream, in the town of Queenston itself. They are easily overwhelmed in the ensuing carnage, but their arrival induces Dennis and/or Brock to make an incomprehensible mistake: The British forces atop Queenston Heights are ordered to descend to the village.

What’s so odd about this decision is that, circa 1812, every British officer has been schooled in Gen. James Wolfe’s conquest of Quebec in 1759, when his forces ascended a steep cliff to gain the Plains of Abraham — precisely the approach the Marquis de Montcalm never expected.

Now the Americans are handed a similar opportunity, and they manage to find a narrow fishermen’s trail up the cliffs. Once atop Queenston Heights, they easily overwhelm the British redan below them and rotate its cannon to fire on the village.

Realizing the error of abandoning the heights, Brock quickly rounds up the light company of the 49th Foot along with parts of the 5th Lincoln and 2nd York militia for an uphill attack on the Americans.

It’s about 7:30 a.m. when Brock makes another mistake. Rather than let a junior officer lead the charge, Brock races to the front himself, his sword drawn.

One musket ball grazes his left hand, but Brock forges on into the teeth of American fire until he’s finally hit in the chest. York’s George Jarvis, a 15-year-old who had joined the 49th just the previous month as a “gentleman volunteer,” runs up to the general: “Are you much hurt, Sir?”

Brock clutches his chest, makes no reply. It’s almost as if the lasting glory of a battlefield death is what he so deeply wanted.

Overall command of the British and Canadians has fallen to Maj.-Gen. Roger Sheaffe, and what had been an American victory in the morning is starting to dissolve. Gen. Van Rensselaer, who has stayed on the American side of the river, gets to see this up close when he goes down to the embarkation point.

Nearly all of the U.S. regulars have made the crossing, as well as several hundred members of the militia, but now the remaining militia — more than 3,000 men — are refusing to get into any of the available boats. Having sat around for hour after hour as battle raged across the river, they’ve had time to reconsider their position, serenaded by the blood-tingling war cries of Norton’s Indians.

None of Van Rensselaer’s orders or threats can get the militia to budge. They’re now invoking their constitutional right not to fight on foreign soil.

Momentum is shifting as Sheaffe starts assembling the biggest force he can muster. Troops are arriving from Fort George along with field artillery. By 1 p.m., Sheaffe has about 650 men, but unlike Brock, he’s not about to do anything as rash as the faint hope of an uphill charge.

Instead, he takes his men on a circuitous route inland, so that they can ascend to Queenston Heights far to the west of the Americans, who are mostly facing north toward the village of Queenston or to the south.

The American ranks, however, have been shrinking steadily all morning, and they have fewer than 500 on the heights. With further re-enforcements, Sheaffe now has more than 900 men with him by 3 p.m., and he orders the British lines forward.

Outnumbered on the heights, the Americans make plans to retreat back toward the river, and then downhill to the north. But it’s too late. The British regulars and militia advance quickly, sending forth a wall of musket fire. The flank companies and Norton’s warriors, at either side of the main British line, move even faster and are soon upon the Americans.

In the ensuing chaos, panicked Americans are hurling themselves off the cliff rather than die by Indian hands. Those do who manage to get down the hill are soon dismayed to find hundreds of their fellow soldiers cowering beneath the cliffs, where they’ve been for much of the battle, awaiting retreat in boats that never came.

All of Van Rensselaer’s poor planning and the supply problems have conspired to turn apparent victory into a crushing and humiliating defeat. Estimates of American losses range from just 160 total casualties to roughly 500 killed and drowned, but there’s little dispute about the number of American prisoners: 925, almost evenly split between regulars and militia.

The butcher’s tab is comparatively tiny for the British, Canadians and Indians: only 25 or so killed and just 85 wounded. The bulk of these are British regulars, but the tally includes two dead and 17 wounded from the York militia, and five dead among the Grand River warriors.

The loss of Brock, comes as devastating news to the Canadian colonists.

But apart from a meaningless naval victory in the Atlantic, the first year of warfare has been a seemingly incessant stream of American defeats.

As Capt. William Hamilton of the Provincial Light Dragoons will write in the wake of Queenston Heights: “So ends the Campaign of 1812, one of the most disastrous ones to the American arms and a most glorious one for the troops and inhabitants of Upper Canada.”

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