In the American camp opposite Queenston all was bustle on the 10th of October; and at three the next morning the whole army was again astir, waiting till the vanguard had seized the landing on the British side.  But a wrong leader had been chosen; mistakes were plentiful; and confusion followed.  Nearly all the oars had been put into the first boat, which, having overshot the mark, was made fast on the British side; whereupon its commander disappeared.  The troops on the American shore shivered in the drenching autumn rain till after daylight.  Then they went back to their sodden camp, wet, angry, and disgusted.

While the rain came down in torrents the principal officers were busy revising their plans.  Smyth was evidently not to be depended on; but it was thought that, with all the advantages of the initiative, the four thousand other Americans could overpower the one thousand British and secure a permanent hold on the Queenston Heights just above the village.  These heights ran back from the Niagara river along Lake Ontario for sixty miles west, curving north-eastwards round Burlington Bay to Dundas Street, which was the one regular land line of communication running west from York.  Therefore, if the Americans could hold both the Niagara and the Heights, they would cut Upper Canada in two.  This was, of course, quite evident to both sides.  The only doubtful questions were, How should the first American attack be made and how should it be met?

The American general, Stephen Van Rensselaer, was a civilian who had been placed at the head of the New York State militia by Governor Tompkins, both to emphasize the fact that expert regulars were only wanted as subordinates and to win a cunning move in the game of party politics.  Van Rensselaer was not only one of the greatest of the old ‘patroons’ who formed the landed aristocracy of Dutch New York, but he was also a Federalist.  Tompkins, who was a Democrat, therefore hoped to gain his party ends whatever the result might be.  Victory would mean that Van Rensselaer had been compelled to advance the cause of a war to which he objected; while defeat would discredit both him and his party, besides providing Tompkins with the excuse that it would all have happened very differently if a Democrat had been in charge.

Van Rensselaer, a man of sense and honour, took the expert advice of his cousin, Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, who was a regular and the chief of the staff.  It was Solomon Van Rensselaer who had made both plans, the one of the 8th, for attacking Fort George and the Heights together, and the one of the 10th, for feinting against Fort George while attacking the Heights.  Brock was puzzled about what was going to happen next.  He knew that the enemy were four to one and that they could certainly attack both places if Smyth would co-operate.  He also knew that they had boats and men ready to circle round Fort George from the American ‘Four Mile Creek’ on the lake shore behind Fort Niagara.  Moreover, he was naturally inclined to think that when the boats prepared for the 11th were left opposite Queenston all day long, and all the next day too, they were probably intended to distract his attention from Fort George, where he had fixed his own headquarters.