depot at Schlosser, New York. He reacted by
sending General Scott’s brigade northward as
a feint against Fort George, to lure the British
back. Scott had proceeded only as far as a
road junction called Lundy’s Lane when he
encountered the forces of Riall, who had
been shadowing the Americans at a respect-
ful distance for several days. The aggressive
Scott thereupon deployed to attack and Riall
retreated, only to run headlong into Drum-
mond’s column, marching south to join him.
After a few frantic moments, Drummond
sorted out his men and reoccupied the
heights of Lundy’s Lane about six o’clock that
evening. A battle of tremendous proportions
then erupted. Scott battered his brigade
against the British line for nearly two hours,
suffering heavy casualties. By the time he
drew off it was nightfall, and Drummond was
convinced he had won the battle. What he did
not know—and could not see—was that the
balance of Brown’s army had arrived in the
darkness and was preparing to renew the
contest.
At length the brigade of Gen. Eleazar W.
Ripley deployed below Lundy’s Lane and ad-
vanced to storm a British battery posted on
the heights. Drummond, who had failed to
post any scouts to his front, received his first
indication of trouble when Col. James Miller
suddenly burst out of the darkness and cap-
tured the British cannons. Additional forces
under Col. George M. Brooke arrived to as-
sist, and all of the British lines recoiled down-
hill in confusion. A third militia brigade under
Gen. Peter B. Porter also arrived and de-
ployed across the heights. Drummond’s
predicament was truly lamentable; from a
perceived sense of victory he had suddenly
lost both his cannons—and then his entire po-
sition—to a seemingly more numerous enemy
(the actual numbers were 2,800 Americans
and 3,200 British). Nonetheless, he rallied his
shaken men and personally led them back up
the slope. Three times the British charged in
the dark, and three times they were blasted
back. Casualties were heavy on both sides,
with Brown, Scott, and Drummond all sus-
taining serious wounds. Drummond finally
called off the attack at midnight and prepared
to retreat. Unknown to him, Brown had also
ordered a withdrawal back to Chippawa, and
the captured cannons were abandoned. In the
early hours of July 26, British forces suddenly
reoccupied Lundy’s Lane and claimed a vic-
tory. This was confirmed later that afternoon
when American forces under Ripley marched
up to the field but failed to initiate combat.
Brown then took the battered remnants of his
army and fell back to Fort Erie.
Lundy’s Lane was the costliest and hardest-
fought battle of the War of 1812 in Canada,
with 858 American casualties to a British total
of 878 killed and wounded. Drummond’s stub-
born refusal to yield the field, even though he
was clearly defeated, paid immediate divi-
dends. At great cost he had blunted the most
serious American offensive of the war. The
battle also revealed serious shortcomings in
his generalship, but where brilliance failed,
perseverance triumphed.
The British army was incapable of resum-
ing operations for several weeks after Lundy’s
Lane, and not until August 2 could Drummond
advance upon Fort Erie. This formerly vulner-
able post had been transformed by the de-
fenders into an extremely formidable posi-
tion. Drummond, who lacked adequate
supplies and siege cannons, tried an end run
around the fort by throwing a handpicked
force of light infantry across the river in an at-
tempt to capture American supplies at Buf-
falo. This daring gambit was foiled at Con-
jocta Creek by the elite American Riflemen
under Maj. Ludowick Morgan on August 3,- This setback forced Drummond to un-
dertake a formal siege for which his troops
were ill-prepared. For several days his small
battery of light guns hammered away at the
American defenses, inflicting what he viewed
as serious damage. On the night of August 14,
1814, he directed a complicated three-
pronged attack against the defenders, but the
American commander, Gen. Edmund P.
Gaines, was alert for such a move and ready
to receive it. Throughout the early-morning
DRUMMOND, GORDON