CHAPTER XVI.

While the success of the British and American arms had been alternating (with eventual triumph to the latter) in the manner we have shown during the campaign of 1813, on the Western District of Upper Canada, some highly important operations had taken place in the army of the centre. Of these our space will admit but of a detail of one, and we thus travel out of the scene to which we have hitherto confined our labors, not only because it was the most dashing affair that occurred during the war, but because it offers a striking parallel to the enterprise and daring which destroyed the American power, at the outset of hostilities, and was productive of similar results.

Towards the close of May 1813, the Americans, after having hotly bombarded Fort George on the Niagara frontier, for two successive days, crossed the river and succeeded in establishing themselves in that post which was evacuated as untenable. The British loss on this occasion was considerable, and General Vincent, who commanded the army of the centre, retreated with much precipitation towards Burlington Heights, withdrawing at the same time the garrison from Fort Erie.

Emboldened by the absence of serious opposition, the American Generals (Winder and Chandler) pushed forward a force, exceeding three thousand men, as far as Stoney Creek, close to the position then occupied by the little British army, not more than one fifth of this number. Here they halted for the night, evidently to refresh their troops for the attack, which was meditated for the following morning.

The result of such attack, with so overwhelming a force, upon a small body of men dispirited, by recent discomfiture, and destitute of supplies or reserves, could scarcely have been doubtful. Fortunately however for the honor of the British arms, Colonel Harvey, to whose conduct on this occasion allusion has been incidentally made in an early chapter of the present volume, had recently joined the centre Division from Lower Canada, and to his quick and comprehensive mind it immediately suggested itself, that if the attack of the American army should be awaited, the result, under the circumstances already alluded to, and in the position occupied by the British force (literally a Cul-de-Sac) must inevitably be attended by their utter discomfiture, if not annihilation. On the contrary, he felt persuaded that, even with the small force at the disposal of the British General, there was every probability that a bold and well concerted night attack would have the effect of restoring to the assailants that confidence in themselves, which had been weakened by a series of reverses, while it must necessarily, and in the same proportion, carry dismay into the ranks of the hitherto victorious enemy.

It was, we believe—indeed we have reason to know—a favorite military maxim with Colonel Harvey, and invariably acted up to whenever opportunity was afforded for its application, that defensive warfare, when the invading foe is greatly superior in number, is best carried on by a succession of bold and active offensive operations. The result of this theory was, in the instance under question, an offer to General Vincent to head a night attack and penetrate into the very heart of the enemy's encampment, as an only means of extricating the army from its perilous position, and restoring (if successful) to the victors that moral confidence which was necessary to the honor of the army, and the preservation of the country. Fortunately, we repeat, for the glory of the British arms, Colonel Harvey's proposal was accepted, although not without much doubt and indecision on the subject, and during the night of the 5th June the small band of heroes, destined to achieve so glorious a result, were silently get under arms for the disproportionate encounter. At the head of seven hundred and twenty bayonets Colonel Harvey dashed in upon his slumbering and unsuspecting enemy, amounting to more than quadruple his own force, and well provided with field artillery. So bold and unexpected was the attack, that the enemy fled, with the utmost precipitation, to a position called the forty mile creek, a distance of ten miles, leaving their Generals and a vast number of prisoners and military stores in the hands of the victors. Here they fell in with a reinforcement under General Lewis. So opportune however had been the blow struck by Colonel Harvey, and such the panic created by it in the American ranks, that even with this additional force, they, on the sudden appearance of the British fleet, with a small body of troops on board, after sustaining a short cannonade, continued their retreat to Fort George, leaving their tents standing, nor halting until they had gained their place of destination.

Thus, by this judicious and by far the most brilliant achievement of the war, was the centre District freed from the triumphant presence of the enemy, as the western had been, in the preceding year, by the bold and well timed movement of General Brock upon Detroit, with an equally inferior force.

The history of the war furnishes no similar enterprizes. Both were the results of a bold conception, and prompt and successful execution. Of the two, perhaps Stoney Creek was the most dashing and decided, since there the adverse armies actually came into collision.

In October of the same year, [Footnote: The anachronism referred to in the Preface. The events here described, occurred in 1812, and not in 1813.] a numerous body of Americans, principally troops of the line, had been collected under the orders of General Van Ransaellar, and advantage was taken of a dark night in October to push them across the river, with a view to the occupation of the commanding heights above the village of Queenston. In this, favored by circumstances, the enemy were eminently successful.—

They carried the batteries, and at day break the heights were to be seen covered with their battalions, before whom were thrown out a considerable body of tirailleurs, or riflemen. At the first alarm, the little detachment stationed at Queenston, marched out to dislodge them; but such was the impatient gallantry of General Brock, who had succeeded to the command on this line of frontier, that without waiting for the main body from Fort George to come up, he threw himself at the head of the flank companies of the Forty-Ninth, and moving forward in double quick time, soon came within sight of the enemy.

Among the General's Aides-de-Camps, was Henry Grantham, who having succeeded in making his escape at the fatal defeat of the Moravian Village, with a few men of his company, had in the absence of his Regiment, (then prisoners of war) and from considerations of personal esteem, been attached as a supernumerary to his staff. With him at this moment was the light hearted De Courcy, and as the young men rode a little in rear of their Chief, they were so rapt in admiration of his fine form and noble daring, (as he still kept dashing onward, far in advance even of the handful of troops who followed eagerly and rapidly in his rear,) that they utterly forgot the danger to which he was exposed.

On arriving at the ascent, the General for a moment. reined in his charger, in order to give time to the rear to close in, then removing and waving his plumed hat,

"Hurrah, Forty-Ninth!" he exclaimed, in language suited to those he addressed. "Up these heights lies our road—on ourselves depends the victory. Not a shot till we gain the summit—then three cheers for old England—a volley—and the bayonet must do the rest!"

So saying, he resumed his hat, and wheeling his horse, once more led his gallant little band up the hill.

But it was not likely that the Americans would suffer the approach of so determined an enemy without attempting to check their progress in the most efficient manner. Distinguished from those around him by his commanding air, not less than by the military insignia that adorned him, the person of the General was at once recognized for one bearing high rank, and as such became an object of especial attention to the dispersed riflemen. Shot after shot flew past the undaunted officer, carrying death into the close ranks that followed noiselessly in his rear, yet without harming him. At length he was seen by his Aides-de-Camps, both of whom had kept their eyes upon him, to reel in his saddle. An instant brought the young men to his side, De Courcy on his right and Grantham on his left hand. They looked up into his face. It was suffused with the hues of death. A moment afterwards and he fell from his horse, with his head reclining upon the chest of Henry Grantham. There was a momentary halt in the advancing column; all were dismayed at the dreadful event.

De Courcy and Grantham, having abandoned their horses, now bore their beloved leader to the side of the road, in order to admit of the unimpeded progress of the men. Even in his last moments the General had no other thought but for the duty in which he was engaged.

"Bid them move on, De Courcy," he said in a faint voice, as he remarked the sudden check which had been given to the advance by his fall. Then, as if obedient to the command, they renewed the ascent, each man eyeing him as he past with a look in which deep sorrow and a desire to avenge his death were intimately blended. "Forty-Ninth, I have served with you from boyhood, and if ye would I die with honor this day—carry those heights."

There was a deep murmur through the ranks of both companies, that showed how each and all were affected by this appealing address of the dying officer. At that moment there arose a loud shout from the hill, as of triumph at the fall of him they mourned. They answered it with the fierce expression of men resolved to turn that shout of triumph into a cry of woe; and excited, maddened, infuriated, yet with a steadiness of movement that claimed the admiration even of their enemies, dashed, heedless of the galling fire of the riflemen, up the steep.

Left alone with the dying General, it became a first consideration with the young officers to convey him (provided he could bear removal) to some spot out of reach of the enemy's fire, where he might breathe his last moments in peace.

As Henry Grantham glanced his eye towards an old untenanted building, that lay some fifty yards off the road, and which he conceived fully adapted to the purpose, he saw the form of a rifleman partly exposed at a corner of the building, whose action at the moment was evidently that of one in the act of loading his piece. The idea that this skulking enemy might have been the same who had given the fatal death-wound to his beloved Chief, added to the conviction that he was preparing to put the coup de grace to his work, filled him with the deepest desire of vengeance. As the bodies of several men, picked off by the tirailleurs, lay along the road, (one at no great distance from the spot on which he stood,) he hastened to secure the nearest musket, which, as no shot had yet been fired by the English, he knew to be loaded.

Leaving De Courcy to support the head of the General, the young Aid-de-Camp moved with due caution towards the building; but ere he had gone ten paces, he beheld the object of his pursuit issue altogether from the cover of the building, and advance towards him with his rifle at the trail. More and more convinced that his design was to obtain a nearer approach, with a view to a more certain aim, he suddenly halted, and raised the musket to his shoulder. In vain was a shout to desist uttered by the advancing man—in vain was his rifle thrown aside as if in token of the absence of all hostile purpose. The excited Henry Grantham heeded not the words—saw not the action. He thought only of the danger of his General, and of his desire to avenge his fall. He fired—the rifleman staggered, and putting his hand to his breast—

"My brother! oh, my unhappy brother!" he exclaimed, and sank senseless to the earth.

Who shall tell the horror of the unfortunate young Aid-de- Camp, at recognizing in the supposed enemy his long mourned and much loved Gerald—motion, sense, life, seemed for the instant annihilated by the astounding consciousness of the fratricidal act: the musket fell from his hands, and he who had never known sorrow before, save through those most closely linked to his warm affections, was now overwhelmed, crushed by the mountain of despair that fell upon his heart. It was some moments before he could so far recover from the stupor into which that dear and well remembered voice had plunged him, as to perceive the possibility of the wound not being mortal. The thought acted like electricity upon each stupified sense, and palsied limb; and eager with the renewed hope, he bounded forward to the spot where lay the unfortunate Gerald, writhing in his agony. He had fallen on his face, but as Henry approached him, he raised himself with one hand, and with the other beckoned to his brother to draw near.

"Great God, what have I done!" exclaimed the unhappy Henry, throwing himself in a paroxysm of despair upon the body of his bleeding brother. "Gerald, my own beloved Gerald, is it thus we meet again. Oh! if you would not kill me, tell me that your wound is not mortal. Assure me that I am not a fratricide. Oh, Gerald, Gerald! my brother, tell me that you are not dying."

A faint smile passed over the pale haggard features of Gerald: he grasped the hand of his brother and pressed it fervently, saying—

"Henry, the hand of fate is visible in all this, therefore condemn not yourself for that which was inevitable. I knew of the attempt of the Americans to possess themselves of the heights, and I crossed over with them under favor of this disguise, determined to find death, combatting at the side of our gallant General. Detaching myself from the ranks, I but waited the advance of the British column to remove from my concealment—you know the rest. But oh, Henry! if you could divine what a relief it is to me to part with existence, you would not wish the act undone. This was all I asked: to see you once more—to embrace you—and to die. Life offered me no hope but this."

Gerald expressed himself with the effort of one laboring under strong bodily pain; and as he spoke he again sank exhausted upon the ground.

"This packet," he continued, taking one from the breast of the hunting frock he wore, and handing it to his brother, who, silent and full of agony, had again raised his head from the ground and supported it on his shoulder; "this packet, Henry, written at various times during the last fortnight, will explain all that has passed since we last parted, in the Miami. When I am no more, read it; and while you mourn over his dishonor, pity the weakness and the sufferings of the unhappy Gerald."

Henry was nearly frantic, the hot tears fell from his burning eyes upon the pale emaciated cheek of his brother—and he groaned in agony.

"Oh, God!" he exclaimed, "how shall I ever survive this blow—my brother! oh, my brother! tell me that you forgive me."

"Most willingly; yet what is there to be forgiven? You took me for an enemy and hence alone your error. It was fate, Henry. A dreadful doom has long been prophesied to the last of our race. We are the last—and this is the consummation. Let it console you however to think that, though your hand had not slain me another's would. In the ranks of the enemy I should have found—Henry, my kind, my affectionate brother—your hand—there—there— what dreadful faintness at my heart—Matilda, it is my turn now—Oh, God have mercy, oh—"

While this scene was passing by the road side between the unfortunate brothers, the main body of the British force had come up to the spot where the General still lay expiring in the arms of De Courcy, and surrounded by the principal of the medical staff. The majority of these were of the Regiment previously named—veterans who had known and loved their gallant leader during the whole course of his spotless career, and more than one rude hand might be seen dashing the tear that started involuntarily to the eye. As the colors of the Forty-Ninth passed before him, the General made an effort to address some language of encouragement to his old corps, but the words died away in indistinct murmurs, and waving his hand in the direction of the heights, he sank back exhausted with the effort, and resigned his gallant spirit for ever.

For some minutes after life had departed, Henry Grantham continued to hang over the body of his ill-fated brother, with an intenseness of absorption that rendered him heedless even of the rapid fire of musketry in the advance. The sound of De Courcy's voice was the first thing that seemed to call him to consciousness. De Courcy had heard the cry uttered by the latter, on receiving the fatal shot, and his imagination had too faithfully portrayed the painful scene that had ensued. A friend of both brothers, and particularly attached of late to the younger from the similar nature of their service, he was inexpressibly shocked, but still cherishing a hope that the wound might not be attended with loss of life, he expected to find his anticipations realized by some communication from his friend. Finding however that the one rose not, and remarking that the general demeanour of the other was that of profound despair, he began at length to draw the most unfavorable conclusion, and causing the body of his Commander to be borne under cover of the building, until proper means of transport could be found, he hastened to ascertain the full extent of the tragedy.

The horror and dismay depicted in his friend's countenance were speedily reflected on his own, when he saw that the unfortunate Gerald, whose blood had completely saturated the earth on which he lay, was indeed no more. Language at such a moment would not only have been superfluous, but an insult. De Courcy caught and pressed the hand of his friend in silence. The unfortunate young man pointed to the dead body of his brother, and burst into tears. While these were yet flowing in a fulness that promised to give relief to his oppressed heart, a loud shout from the British ranks arrested the attention of both. The sound seemed to have an electric effect on the actions of Henry Grantham. For the first time he appeared conscious there was such a thing as a battle being fought.

"De Courcy!" he said starting up, and with sudden animation, "why do we linger here—the dead," and he pointed first to the body of the General in the distance—and then to his brother "the wretched dead claim no service from us now."

"You are right, Henry, our interest in those beloved objects has caused us to be mindless of our duty to ourselves.—See, too, how the flankers have cleared the brow of the hill for the advance of the main body. Victory is our own—but alas! how dearly purchased!"

"How dearly purchased, indeed!" responded Henry, in a tone of such heart-rending agony as caused his friend to repent the allusion. "De Courcy keep this packet, and should I fall, let it be sent to my uncle, Colonel D'Egville."

De Courcy accepted the trust, and the young men mounted their horses, which a Canadian peasant had held for them in the mean time, and dashing up the ascent, soon found themselves where the action was hottest.

Burning with revenge, the flank companies had already succeeded, despite of a hot and incessant fire, in gaining the heights, and here for a considerable time they maintained the struggle unsupported against the whole force of the enemy. Already their bayonets had cleared for themselves a passage to the more even ground, and the Americans, dismayed at the intrepidity of this handful of assailants, were evidently beginning to waver in their ranks. A shout of victory, which was answered by the main body of the English troops, just then gaining the summit of the hill, completed their disorder. They stood the charge but for a moment, then broke and fled, pursued by their excited enemies in every direction. The chief object of the Americans was to gain the cover of a wood that lay at a short distance in their rear, but a body of militia with some Indians having been sent round to occupy it the moment the landing of the Americans was made known, they were driven back from this their last refuge upon the open ground, and with considerable loss.

Thus hemmed in on both sides—the rifles of the militia and Indians on one hand; the bayonets of the British force on the other—the Americans had no other alternative than throw down their arms or perish to the last. Many surrendered at discretion, and those who resisted were driven at the point of the bayonet, to the verge of the terrific precipices which descend abruptly from the Heights of Queenston. Here their confusion was at the highest—some threw down their arms and were saved, others precipitated themselves down the abyss, where their bodies were afterwards found, crushed and mangled in a manner to render them scarcely recognizable even as human beings.

It was at the moment when the Americans, driven back by the fire from the wood, were to be seen flying in despair towards the frowning precipices of Queenston, that De Courcy and Grantham, quitting their horses at the brow of the hill, threw themselves in front of the victorious and still leading flank companies. Carried away by the excitement of his feelings, Grantham was considerably in advance of his companion, and when the Americans, yielding to the panic which had seized them, flew wildly, madly, and almost unconscious of the danger, towards the precipice, he suddenly found himself on the very verge, and amid a group of irregulars, who arriving at the brink and seeing the hell that yawned beneath, had turned to seek a less terrific death at the hands of their pursuers. Despair, rage, agony, and even terror, were imprinted on the countenances of these, for they fought under an apparent consciousness of disadvantage, and utterly as men without hope.

"Forward! victory!" shouted Henry Grantham, and his sword was plunged deep into the side of his nearest enemy. The man fell, and writhing in the last agonies of death, rolled onward to the precipice, and disappeared for ever from the view.

The words—the action had excited the attention of a tall, muscular, ferocious looking rifleman, who, hotly pursued by a couple of Indians, was crossing the open ground at his full speed to gain the main body of his comrades. A ball struck him just as he had arrived within a few feet of the spot where Henry stood, yet still leaping onward, he made a desparate blow at the head of the officer with the butt end of his rifle. A quick movement disappointed the American of his aim, yet the blow fell so violently on the shoulder that the stock snapped suddenly asunder at the small of the butt. Stung with pain, Henry Grantham turned to behold his enemy. It was Desborough! The features of the settler expressed the most savage and vindictive passions, as with the barrel of the rifle upraised and clenched in both his iron hands, he was about to repeat his blow. Ere it could descend Grantham had rushed in upon him, and his sword still reeking with the blood it had so recently spilt, was driven to the very hilt in the body of the settler. The latter uttered a terrific scream in which all the most infernal of human passions were wildly blended, and casting aside his rifle, seized the young officer in his powerful gripe. Then ensued a contest the most strange and awful; the settler using every endeavour to gain the edge of the precipice, the other struggling, but in vain, to free himself from his hold. As if by tacit consent, both parties discontinued the struggle, and became mere spectators of the scene.

"Villain!" shouted De Courcy, who saw with dismay the terrible object of the settler, whose person he had recognized—"if you would have quarter, release your hold."

But Desborough, too much given to his revenge to heed the words of the Aid-de-Camp, continued silently, yet with advantage, to drag his victim nearer and nearer to the fatal precipice; and every man in the British ranks felt his blood to creep as they beheld the unhappy officer borne, notwithstanding a desperate resistance, at each moment nigher to the brink.

"For Heaven's sake, advance and seize him" exclaimed the terrified De Courcy, leaping forward to the rescue.

Acting on the hint, two or three of the most active of the light infantry rushed from the ranks in the direction taken by the officer.

Desborough saw the movement, and his exertions to defeat its object became, considering the loss of blood he had sustained from his wounds, almost Herculean. He now stood on the extreme verge of the precipice, where he paused for a moment as if utterly exhausted with his previous efforts. De Courcy was now within a few feet of his unhappy friend, who still struggled ineffectually to free himself, when the settler, suddenly collecting all his energy into a final and desparate effort, raised the unfortunate Grantham from the ground, and with a loud and exulting laugh, dashed his foot violently against the edge of the crag, and threw himself backward into the hideous abyss.

A cry of horror from the lips of De Courcy was answered by a savage shout of vengeance from the British ranks. On rushed the line with their glittering bayonets, and at a pace which scarcely left their enemies time to sue for, much less obtain quarter—shrieks and groans rent the atmosphere, and above the horrid din, might be heard the wild and greeting cry of the vulture and the buzzard, as the mangled bodies of the Americans rolled from rock to rock, crashing the autumnal leaves and dried underwood in their fall, some hanging suspended by their rent garments to the larger trees encountered in their course—yet by far the greater number falling into the bottom of a chasm into which the sunbeam had never yet penetrated. The picked and whitened bones may be seen, shining through the deep gloom that envelopes every part of the abyss, even to this day.

THE END.