He predicted that "with the militia and other troops there or on the march, they will be able, I presume, to cross over into Canada, carry all the works in Niagara, and proceed to the other posts in that province in triumph." The fair prospect soon clouded, however, and Dearborn, who was of a doubtful, easily discouraged temperament, partly due to age and infirmities, discovered that "a strange fatality seemed to have pervaded the whole arrangements." Yet this was when the movement of troops and supplies was far brisker and better organized than could have been expected and when the armed strength was thrice that of Brock, the British general, who was guarding forty miles of front along the Niagara River with less than two thousand men.

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.
An American regular brigade was on the march to Buffalo, but its commander, Brigadier General Alexander Smyth, was not subordinate to Van Rensselaer, and the two had quarreled.

Smyth paid no attention to a request for a council of war and went his own way.

On the night of the 10th of October Van Rensselaer attempted to cross the Niagara River, but there was some blunder about the boats and the disgruntled troops returned to camp.