soon forgotten when
the news came of the success of Colonel Harvey, afterwards a
lieutenant-governor of the maritime provinces, at Stoney Creek, quite
close to Burlington Bay. With an insignificant detachment from
Vincent's main body, Harvey succeeded in surprising at night a large
American force, commanded by Brigadiers Chandler and Winder, both of
whom, as well as one hundred officers and men, were taken prisoners.
This serious disaster and the approach of Admiral Yeo's fleet from the
eastward forced the invading army to retire to Fort George, where they
concentrated their strength, after abandoning Fort {326} Erie and other
posts on the frontier. It was during the campaign of this year that
Laura Secord, the courageous daughter of a sturdy loyalist stock which
has given the name of Ingersoll to a Canadian town, afforded a
memorable example of the devotion which animated Canadian women in
these years of trial. General Dearborn had ordered Colonel Boerstler
to surprise and attack the Canadian outposts at Twelve Mile Creek, now
St. Catharine's, and at De Ceu's farm, close to the present town of
Thorold. Lieutenant Fitzgibbon, with a picket of thirty men, was
stationed at De Ceu's. A Canadian militiaman, James Secord, who lived
at Queenston, heard of the proposed attack, but as he had been severely
wounded in the attack on Queenston Heights in the previous October, he
was unable to warn Fitzgibbon. His wife, a woman of nearly forty
years, volunteered for the hazardous duty, and started at dawn for a
journey of twenty miles, through dense woods, where the paths were few
and had to be avoided for fear of meeting American marauders or
suspicious Indians who might take her for a spy. It took her all day
to reach her destination, where she first disturbed an encampment of
Indians who received her with yells, which dismayed her for the moment.
However, she was taken to the commanding officer, who made his
arrangements immediately to surprise Boerstler, who soon made his
appearance with five hundred men at least. The Americans were forced
to surrender to what they believed was a vastly superior force, so
cleverly had Fitzgibbon succeeded in deceiving them. In fact, he had
only at first {327} thirty soldiers, and two hundred and forty Indians,
and when a captain and twenty troopers of the Chippewa cavalry came up
Boerstler was quite ready to surrender.

All the successes in the west, however, were now rendered worthless