r," reported the enemy,
"that our artillery men were bayoneted in the act of loading and the
muzzles of the enemy's guns were advanced within a few yards of ours."
Back and forth flowed the tide of battle in bloody waves, until
midnight. Then sullenly and in good order the Americans retired three
miles to camp at Chippawa. Next day the enemy resumed the position and
held it unattacked.

It is fair to call Lundy's Lane a drawn battle. The casualties were
something more than eight hundred for each side, and the troops engaged
were about twenty-five hundred Americans and a like number of British.
Both the shattered columns soon retired behind strong defenses. General
Drummond led the British troops into camp at Niagara Falls, and General
Ripley, in temporary command of the American brigades, Scott and Brown
having been wounded, occupied the unfinished works of Fort Erie, on the
Canadian side, just where the waters of Lake Erie enter the Niagara
River.

The British determined to bombard these walls and intrenchments with
heavy guns and then carry them by infantry assault. But this plan failed
disastrously. On the 15th of August the British charged in three columns
the bastions and batteries only to be savagely repulsed at every point
with a loss of nine hundred men killed, wounded, or prisoners, while the
defenders had only eighty-five casualties. Then Drummond settled down to
besiege the place and succeeded in making it so uncomfortable that Jacob
Brown, now recovered from his wound, organized a sortie in force which
was made on the 17th of September. In the action which followed, the
British batteries were overwhelmed and the American militia displayed
magnificent steadiness and valor. Jacob Brown proudly informed the
Governor of New York that "the militia of New York have redeemed their
character--they behaved gallantly. Of those called out by the last
requisition, fifteen hundred have crossed the state border to our
support. This reinforcement has been of immense importance to us; it
doubled our effective strength, and their good conduct cannot but have
the happiest effect upon our nation."

This bold stroke ended the Niagara campaign. The British fell back, and
the American army was in no condition for pursuit. In ten weeks Jacob
Brown had fought four engagements without defeat and, barring the battle
of New Orleans, his brief campaign was the one operation of the land war
upon which Americans could look back with a