Battle of Lundy Lane

On July 25th 1814, the Battle of Lundy's Lane, near Niagara Falls, took place. In the course of the battle, 2,000 men, commanded by General Gaines for the Americans and General Drummond for the British, exchange in intense fire. Eight hundred and fifty men on both sides are casualties.

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On July 25, 1814, one of the fiercest battles of the War of 1812 took place at Lundy’s Lane, just outside Niagara Falls. The American force, commanded by General Jacob Brown and later General Eleazar Ripley with support from General Edmund Gaines, clashed with British troops under Lieutenant General Gordon Drummond. Both armies numbered around 2,000 men, and the fight quickly escalated into a brutal contest for control of the high ground where the British had placed their artillery. The Americans launched repeated assaults to seize the British guns, at times capturing them only to be driven back by bayonet charges. The engagement lasted well into the night, an unusually long and exhausting struggle fought in the darkness and confusion of close combat.

The fighting was devastatingly costly. By the battle’s end, an estimated 850 men were killed, wounded, or missing on both sides, a staggering proportion given the relatively small numbers engaged. American General Brown was seriously wounded, while the British also suffered heavy officer casualties, including General Drummond himself, who was badly injured but remained on the field. Neither side could claim a decisive victory: the Americans eventually withdrew to their camp at Fort Erie, leaving the British in possession of the battlefield, but the British were too battered to pursue. Lundy’s Lane demonstrated the determination and resilience of both armies, and it effectively brought the Niagara campaign to a standstill. For contemporaries, the battle stood out not only for its bloodshed but also as evidence that American forces, once derided as untrained militia, could now fight the British regulars on equal terms in a sustained, hard-fought encounter.