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Updated: June 10, 2025
Notwithstanding all that he had endured, his loyalty remained unshaken, and when the War of 1812 broke out he responded to the call for volunteers by shouldering his musket and doing his devoirs like a man at the battle of Queenston Heights. Even this obtained for him neither complaisance nor immunity from abuse.
One of his plans for the spiritual welfare of his scattered flock, was the holding of a series of protracted meetings at the various settlements. One of these was held at the wooden school-house of the little hamlet of Queenston. An old pensioner of the Revolutionary War had gathered a few children together and taught them their catechism, and as much of "the Three R's" as he knew.
It was at the moment when the Americans, driven back by the fire from the wood, were to be seen flying in despair towards the frowning precipices of Queenston, that De Courcy and Grantham, quitting their horses at the brow of the hill, threw themselves in front of the victorious and still leading flank companies.
"My good Porter," he said, speaking calmly to his excited servant, who, himself awakened, came rushing to his master, "have Alfred saddled at once while I complete dressing, and inform Major Glegg and Colonel Macdonell that I am off up the river to Queenston." In another minute Isaac Brock was in the saddle.
The campaign ended with not a foot of Canadian soil in the invaders' hands, and with Michigan lost, but Brock, Canada's brilliant leader, had fallen at Queenston, and at sea the British had tasted unwonted defeat. In single actions one American frigate after another proved too much for its British opponent. It was a rude shock to the Mistress of the Seas.
In 1793 twenty-six vessels cleared from Kingston. Two years later a record trip was made by the sloop Sophia, which sailed from there to Queenston, well over two hundred miles, in eighteen hours. Two years later again a traveller counted sixty wagons carrying goods from Queenston, beyond the other end of Lake Ontario, to Chippawa, so as to get them past Niagara Falls.
It must not stay there.... Don't cheer now, men, but save your breath and follow me." There was a cheer, notwithstanding. While these fateful and stirring scenes were being enacted at Queenston, a despatch rider arrived from Evans of Fort George. Without waiting for further instructions, he had, after Brock's departure, with the first glimpse of daylight, cannonaded Fort Niagara.
War did not seem to the boy such a glorious thing as when he saw the gallant redcoats in the morning marching to the stirring strains of the "British Grenadiers." The boy seemed to have become a man in a few hours. While the events just described had been taking place, an important movement was made for the recovery of Queenston Heights.
At Queenston which was the objective of the first American attack there were no more than two companies of British regulars and a few militia, in all about three hundred troops. The rest of Brock's forces were at Chippawa and Fort Erie, where the heavy assaults were expected.
After he fell, the handful of men who were with him, overcome by his tragic end, overwhelmed by superior numbers and a hurricane of buckshot and bullets, wavered, and though Dennis attempted to rally them, fell back and retreated to the far end of Queenston village.
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