Battle of Lundy's Lane

On 3 July 1814 an American army under Major General Jacob Brown launched an attack across the Niagara River near its source on Lake Erie. His force quickly captured the British position at Fort Erie and then advanced north. Two days later one of his two brigades of regular U.S. Infantry under Brigadier General Winfield Scott defeated a British force commanded by Major General Phineas Riall at the Battle of Chippawa.

A few days after the battle Brown outflanked the British defences along the Chippawa River and the British fell back to Fort George near the mouth of the Niagara on Lake Ontario. Brown lacked the necessary troops and heavy artillery to attack this position. At the time a British naval squadron controlled the lake. Commodore Isaac Chauncey, commander of the American ships based at Sackett's Harbor, New York, was waiting for new frigates and heavily armed brigs to be completed before he could challenge the British squadron. When these were finally ready to sail, the American squadron was further delayed in port when Chauncey fell ill. As a result, no reinforcements or heavy guns could be sent to Brown while the British were able to move several units across the lake from York to reinforce Fort George.[11]

For most of July, Brown's army occupied Queenston a few miles south of Fort George. In this forward position they were harassed by Canadian militia and First Nations. On 24 July Brown fell back to the Chippawa River intending to secure his supplies before advancing west to Burlington.[11] As soon as Brown retired, British light infantry and militia under Major General Riall advanced to Lundy's Lane 4 miles (6.4 km) north of the Chippawa to allow light troops to maintain contact with the American main force.[12]

Map of the Niagara Frontier in 1814. Following Lundy's Lane, American forces fell back to Fort Erie, losing the initiative on the Niagara Peninsula.

In the early hours of the morning of 26 July, Brown ordered Ripley to recover the abandoned British guns the next day. Reinforcing his exhausted men with detachments which had been left at Chippawa, Ripley moved out at daybreak with 1,200 soldiers but found that Drummond had reoccupied the battlefield with 2,200 men.[29] Ripley withdrew, unmolested. The American army fell back to Fort Erie, first deliberately destroying the old British fortifications along the Chippawa River and burning the bridges behind them. Because they were short of transport, they had to abandon or destroy much equipment and supplies to make room for the wounded on the available wagons. Drummond was later to claim from this that the Americans had retreated in disorder. After burying some of the British and Canadian dead on the battlefield and burning many American corpses in large funeral pyres, the British had themselves withdrawn to Queenston until Drummond received reinforcements.

In respect to the effect of the battle on the War, the British won a strategic victory, since the Americans on the Niagara had suffered so many casualties that they were now badly outnumbered, and were forced to retire to Fort Erie. Richard V. Barbuto says, "On 26 July, Brown's plan to advance on Burlington Heights was irretrievably shattered... Drummond had secured the forts at the northern end of the Niagara, and he had blunted an American advance. Although there was still a lot of fight in both forces, the balance of combat power on the Niagara Peninsula had swung from the invaders to the defenders".[30]

The British official casualty return had 84 killed, 559 wounded, 42 captured and 193 missing.[3] The Americans captured 19 British officers and 150 other ranks, giving a revised British casualty total of 84 killed, 559 wounded, 169 captured and 55 missing.[4]

The original American official casualty return, dated 30 July 1814, gave 171 dead, 572 wounded and 117 missing.[31] A slightly later version gave the same number of killed and wounded but only 110 missing.[5] Donald Graves says, "British records state that four officers and 75 Americans of other ranks captured at Lundy's Lane were imprisoned at Quebec in the autumn of 1814. The remainder of the missing were probably the wounded or dead left on the field after Ripley withdrew".[6] Three officers of the 22nd U.S. Regiment of Infantry; Lieutenants William Sturgis, John D. Kehr and Robert M. Davidson, who appear on the casualty list as "missing" and "supposed to be killed"[32] were later confirmed as having been killed on 25 July.[7] This gives a revised American loss of 174 killed, 572 wounded, 79 captured and 28 missing. Graves speculates that the discrepancies in the proportions of killed and wounded men between British and American casualties may be accounted for by the Americans not collating their casualty returns until five days after the battle, when some of those originally listed as missing were confirmed to have been killed, and some severely wounded men had died of their wounds.[33]

There had been much fighting at close quarters. Veteran British officers, who had fought against French armies in the Peninsular War, were horrified at the carnage they had witnessed at Lundy's Lane. Drummond reported, "Of so determined a Character were [the American] attacks directed against our guns that our Artillery Men were bayonetted by the enemy in the Act of loading, and the muzzles of the Enemy's Guns were advanced within a few Yards of ours". The battle confirmed that the American regular forces had evolved into a highly professional army. Scott is widely credited for this progress, having modelled and trained his troops using French Revolutionary Army drills and exercises, although not all the American units present at Lundy's Lane had benefitted from his personal training.[34]

Evidence compiled by Donald Graves, a Canadian historian employed at the Directorate of History, Department of National Defence Canada, argues that General Drummond failed to use skirmish pickets to protect his guns, which were consequently captured by the Americans. Drummond also showed little tactical finesse during his counter-attacks, not using his light infantry to their best advantage and mounting only straightforward frontal attacks. American historian John R. Elting suggests that if Drummond had instead concentrated on the vulnerable American left flank, he might have won a decisive victory.[29] (Drummond had much administrative experience, but had previously seen action only in the abortive Flanders Campaign in 1794 as a comparatively junior officer, and in the Egyptian campaign in 1801 as commander of a battalion.)

Lundy's Lane Historical Museum in Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, on Lundy's Lane near the battle site.

The site was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1937.[35][36]

The site of the battle is now a residential and commercial area of Niagara Falls, Ontario. Part of the battlefield site was preserved next to the Drummond Hill Cemetery on Lundy's Lane east of Drummond Road. Other memorials added to the site include:

• Soldier's Monument – created by the Canadian Parliament and unveiled by Lundy's Lane Historical Society in 1895
• Commemorative Wall – added 2004[37]
• Laura Secord Monument – Laura Secord is buried at the Drummond Hill Cemetery

• James Miller's response, "I'll try, Sir", to Brown's order to capture the British guns is now the motto of the 5th U.S. Infantry, into which the 21st were merged in 1815 when Congress reduced the United States Army to a smaller peacetime establishment.
• Ten active regular infantry battalions of the United States Army (1–2 Inf, 2-2 Inf, 1–3 Inf, 2–3 Inf, 4-3 Inf, 1–5 Inf, 2–5 Inf, 1–6 Inf, 2–6 Inf and 4–6 Inf) perpetuate the lineages of a number of American infantry units (the old 1st, 9th, 19th, 21st, 22nd, 23rd and 25th Infantry Regiments) that took part in the battle.
• Four Regiments of the British Army, The 1st (Royal Scots), 8th (Kings), 41st and the 89th Regiments of Foot were awarded the "Niagara" Battle Honour for their service during the battle of Lundy's Lane. Their respective modern successor units are: The Royal Regiment of Scotland, the Duke of Lancaster's Regiment, the Royal Welsh Regiment and the Royal Irish Regiment.
• As the result of a decision taken in 2012, four Ontario-based regiments of the Canadian Army perpetuate the history and heritage of the Battalion of Incorporated Militia and thus carry the NIAGARA battle honour earned by that battalion. These regiments are: The Lincoln and Welland Regiment, the Queen's York Rangers, the Brockville Rifles and the Princess of Wales' Own Regiment.[38]
• Seven other Canadian Army regiments carry the same Battle Honour in commemoration of other Canadian Fencible and Militia units that took part in the battle. They are: the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders, the North Shore (New Brunswick) Regiment, the 56th Field Artillery Regiment, RCA, the Essex and Kent Scottish Regiment, the Royal Canadian Regiment, the Royal Hamilton Light Infantry, and The Lorne Scots.
• In 1908, Canadian poet Duncan Campbell Scott wrote a poem, "The Battle of Lundy's Lane," which won a contest sponsored by the Toronto Globe. The poem was reprinted in his 1916 collection, Lundy's Lane and Other Poems.[39]
• Lundy's Lane is mentioned in the unofficial Canadian patriotic anthem, "The Maple Leaf Forever" :

At Queenston Heights and Lundy's Lane our brave fathers, side by side

for freedom, homes, and loved ones dear, firmly stood and nobly died.

And those dear rights which they maintained, we swear to yield them never.

Our watchword evermore shall be, the Maple Leaf forever!

• In Martin Scorsese's blockbuster film Gangs of New York, lead character William "Bill the Butcher" Cutting states that his late father was "[m]urdered by the British with all of his men on the twenty-fifth of July, anno domini, 1814", a presumed reference to the Battle of Lundy's Lane.[40]

• Barbuto, Richard V. (2000). Niagara 1814: America Invades Canada. Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas. ISBN 0-7006-1052-9.
• Belanger, Jeff (January 2009). Ghosts of War: Restless Spirits of Soldiers, Spies, and Saboteurs. The Rosen Publishing Group. ISBN 978-1-4358-5177-1.
• Borneman, Walter R. (2004). 1812: The War That Forged a Nation. New York: Harper Perennial. ISBN 978-0-06-053112-6.
• Cruikshank, Ernest A. (1971). The Documentary History of the Campaign upon the Niagara Frontier in the Year 1814 (Reprint ed.). by Arno Press. ISBN 0-405-02838-5.
• Elting, John R. (1995). Amateurs to Arms! A military history of the War of 1812. New York: Da Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80653-3.
• Graves, Donald E. (1993). The Battle of Lundy's Lane, On the Niagara in 1814. Baltimore, MD: The Nautical & Aviation Company of America, Inc. ISBN 1-877853-22-4.
• Graves, Donald E. (1997). Where Right and Glory Lead! The Battle of Lundy's Lane 1814. Toronto: Robin Brass Studio Inc. ISBN 1-896941-03-6.
• Heidler, David Stephen; Heidler, Jeanne T. (September 2004). Encyclopedia of the War of 1812. Naval Institute Press. ISBN 978-1-59114-362-8.
• Hitsman, J. Mackay; Graves, Donald E (1999). The Incredible War of 1812. Toronto: Robin Brass Studio. ISBN 1-896941-13-3.
• Quimby, Robert S. (1997). The U.S. Army in the War of 1812: An Operational and Command Study. East Lansing, MI: Michigan State University Press. ISBN 0-87013-441-8.
• Whitehorne, Joseph (1992). While Washington Burned: The Battle for Fort Erie, 1814. Baltimore, MD: The Nautical & Aviation Publishing Company of America. ISBN 1-877853-18-6.
• Wood, William (1968). Select British Documents of the Canadian War of 1812. Volume III, Part 1. New York: Greenwood Press.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Battle of Lundy's Lane.

• History of the Incorporated Militia Battalion of Upper Canada
• Images from the Historic Niagara Digital Collections at Niagara Falls Public Library
• Art works in the collection of the Niagara Falls Public Library
• Poems of the Battle of Lundy's Lane from the Niagara Falls Poetry Project
• PBS Documentary Includes a chapter on Lundy's Lane.
• An Account of the battle of Lundy's Lane, fought in 1814, between the British & American armies, from the best and most authentic sources. Drummondville: printed at the Office of the Welland Reporter, 1853. Accessed 18 July 2012, in PDF format.