The advanced British forces under de Salaberry were now, on October 25, the eve of battle, occupying the left, or north, bank of the Chateauguay, fifteen miles south of the Cascade Rapids of the St Lawrence, twenty-five miles south-west of Caughnawaga, and thirty-five miles south-west of Montreal.  Immediately in rear of these men under de Salaberry stood Macdonell’s command; while, in more distant support, nearer to Montreal, stood various posts under General de Watteville, with whom Prevost spent that night and most of the 26th, the day on which the battle was fought.

As Hampton came on with his cumbrous American thousands de Salaberry felt justifiable confidence in his own well-disciplined French-Canadian hundreds.  He and his brothers were officers in the Imperial Army.  His Voltigeurs were regulars.  The supporting Fencibles were also regulars, and of ten years’ standing.  Macdonell’s men were practically regulars.  The so-called ‘Select Militia’ present had been permanently embodied for eighteen months; and the only real militiamen on the scene of action, most of whom never came under fire at all, had already been twice embodied for service in the field.  The British total present was 1590, of whom less than a quarter were militiamen and Indians.  But the whole firing line comprised no more than 460, of whom only 66 were militiamen and only 22 were Indians.  The Indian total was about one-tenth of the whole.  The English-speaking total was about one-twentieth.  It is therefore perfectly right to say that the battle of Chateauguay was practically fought and won by French-Canadian regulars against American odds of four to one.

De Salaberry’s position was peculiar.  The head of his little column faced the head of Hampton’s big column on a narrow front, bounded on his own left by the river Chateauguay and on his own right by woods, into which Hampton was afraid to send his untrained men.  But, crossing a right-angled bend of the river, beyond de Salaberry’s left front, was a ford, while in rear of de Salaberry’s own column was another ford which Hampton thought he could easily take with fifteen hundred men under Purdy, as he had no idea of Macdonell’s march and no doubt of being able to crush de Salaberry’s other troops between his own five thousand attacking from the front and Purdy’s fifteen hundred attacking from the rear.  Purdy advanced overnight, crossed to the right bank of the Chateauguay, by the ford clear of de Salaberry’s front, and made towards the ford in de Salaberry’s rear.  But his men lost their way in the dark and found themselves, not in rear of, but opposite to, and on the left flank of, de Salaberry’s column in the morning.  They drove in two of de Salaberry’s companies, which were protecting his left flank on the right, or what was now Purdy’s, side of the river; but they were checked by a third, which Macdonell sent forward, across the rear ford, at the same time that he occupied this rear ford himself.  Purdy