down the slope.

* * * * *

For a clearer understanding of the situation--a better conception even
than our hero had when, to escape capture and save the lives of his men,
he was compelled to abandon the redan--we must visit Van Rensselaer's
camp at Lewiston.

CHAPTER XXVII.

VAN RENSSELAER'S CAMP.

After midnight, on the morning of the 11th, the American general, Van
Rensselaer, believing, as he wrote, "that Brock, with all his disposable
forces, had left for Detroit," launched from the Lewiston landing, under
cover of the pitch darkness, thirteen boats capable of carrying 340
armed men.

To Lieutenant Sims, "the man of the greatest skill in the American
service," was entrusted the command. Sims entered the leading boat, and
vanished in the gloom. Whether he had taken all the oars with him, as
reported, or whether the furious storm and the sight of the whirling
black waters had frozen the hearts of the troops, must remain a mystery.
The other boats did not follow.

Meanwhile, 350 additional regulars and thirty boats had arrived from
Four Mile Creek. Flying artillery came from Fort Niagara, with still
more regulars, and part of Smythe's brigade from Buffalo. Troops, as
Brock's spies had truly reported, now overflowed the United States army
headquarters--three more complete regiments from New York and another
from Fort Schlosser. Lewiston bristled with bayonets. The entire
expeditionary force was in command of Colonel Solomon Van Rensselaer, a
militiaman, between whom and the officers commanding the regular troops
much jealousy and great friction existed. Both branches of the service
were determined to monopolize whatever credit might ensue. A storm,
more furious than ever, prevailed for twenty-eight hours. The men sulked
in their tents.

On the night of the 12th, the storm having abated, though the sky was
black as ink, added numbers having developed greater courage, Van
Rensselaer resolved on another attempt. He secretly notified
Brigade-Major Smythe, in command at Buffalo, that in accordance with the
letter reproduced in a previous chapter, he would storm the Heights of
Queenston that night. With experienced river men as pilots, with picked
crews, and protected by the big guns at Fort Gray, 600 men, with two
pieces of light artillery, in thirteen boats, in the grim darkness of
the morning of the 13th--a sinister coincidence--drew up in silence on
the wharf. They compr