THE CAMPAIGN OF 1814.

In March, 1814, General Wilkinson again undertook the forlorn hope of capturing Canada, leading 5,000 men against 350 British, under Hancock, at Lacolle, on Lake Champlain.  After five hours of red-hot fighting, he was compelled to fall back on Plattsburg.  A month later Admiral Sir James Yeo and General Drummond, with 750 men, landed under the batteries at Oswego, and in the teeth of a sustained fire of cannon and musketry, “gathered in” that historic town and sixty prisoners.

To and fro, like a pendulum, swayed the scene of action—­to-day east, to-morrow west.  Colonel Campbell and 500 American soldiers, with nothing better to do, made a bonfire of Port Dover, the incident being officially described by the U.S.  War Department as “an error of judgment.”  Then General Brown, backed by an army of 6,000 U.S. veterans, swooped down like “a wolf on the fold” on Fort George, and annexed it and the garrison of 170 men.  The British general, Riall, still possessing the fighting mania, and some 1,800 men, locked horns with General Brown and 3,000 of his veterans, and the Battle of Chippewa added another victory to the American record.  The enemy then pillaged St. David’s, while Riall—­both sides having suffered heavily—­retreated to the head of Lundy’s Lane, a narrow roadway close to the Falls of Niagara, and stood at bay.

Three weeks elapsed, when General Drummond, realizing Riall’s danger, hastened from York to his assistance, reaching Lundy’s Lane with 800 men at the moment that General Brown, with his reinforced army of over 4,000 men, was within 600 yards of the British outposts.  A moment later the contest was on, the bloodiest and probably the most brilliant battle of the whole campaign.  It was a bitterly contested fight for seven hours—­a death struggle for the survival of the fittest.  During the first three hours the British force numbered only 1,640, until reinforced by 1,200 additional combatants.  All through the long hours of the black night the battle waged furiously.  Charge succeeded charge, followed by the screams of the mutilated and the dead silence of the stricken.  Over all boomed the muffled thunders of Niagara.  The big guns, almost mouth to mouth, roared crimson destruction.  Though bayonets were crossed, and the fighting was hand to hand and desperate, and sand and grass grew ghastly and slippery with the sheen of blood in the fitful moonlight, the British, notwithstanding the advantage in weight and numbers of the enemy, held their ground.  When day was breaking, and the American general found his casualties exceeded one thousand, he withdrew his shattered army of invaders to Fort Erie.  The British loss was 84 killed and 557 wounded.  Lundy’s Lane has been likened to the storming of St. Sebastian or the deathly duel at Quatre Bras.  Both invaders and defenders exhibited heroism—­worthy, in the case of the enemy, of a higher cause.  General Drummond was wounded, and a son of General Hull, of Detroit notoriety, was among the killed.