A column of troops from the United States Army marched from Fort George and attempted to surprise a British outpost at Beaver Dams, billeting themselves overnight in the village of Queenston, Ontario.

When the Americans resumed their march, they were ambushed by Kahnawake and other native warriors and eventually surrendered to a small British detachment led by Lieutenant James FitzGibbon.

The British fell back to a position at Burlington Heights near the western end of Lake Ontario, briefly abandoning the entire Niagara Peninsula to the invading force.

[7] The U.S. Army commander at Fort George, Brigadier General John Parker Boyd, decided to clear the threat posed by enemy raiders and to restore his men's morale by making a surprise attack on the outpost at DeCou's.

At dusk on 23 June, Boerstler's force moved in secret from Fort George to the village of Queenston, where they quartered themselves in the houses and other buildings.

The main contingent of natives were 300 Kahnawake, also referred to as Caughnawaga in contemporary accounts, Mohawk people who had earlier been converted to Christianity by Jesuit missionaries.

They were nominally commanded by Captain Dominique Ducharme of the Indian Department, with Lieutenants Isaac LeClair and J.B. de Lorimier.

Addressing Boerstler under a flag of truce, he claimed that the Americans were outnumbered and surrounded, and that if they did not surrender he would be unable to restrain the natives from slaughtering them.

To reinforce their fear of the Native people, there was another minor disaster on 8 July when a party from the 8th (King's) Regiment and Merritt's Troop of Provincial Dragoons, accompanied by Ottawas under Captain Matthew Elliott and other Indigenous warriors under Mohawk chief John Norton, went to retrieve a chest of medicines which had been hastily buried at Ball's Farm near Two Mile Creek when the British had evacuated Fort George in May.

A party from the 13th U.S. Infantry under Lieutenant Joseph Eldridge attempted to pursue the British detachment but was ambushed at the Battle of Ball's Farm, losing 28 men, several of whom were scalped despite the efforts of officers of the Indian Department to prevent it.

They beat the American detachment into a state of terror, and the only share I claim is taking advantage of a favorable moment to offer them protection from the tomahawk and scalping knife.

[13]Captain Ducharme claimed that he himself did not demand the U.S. surrender because as a French Canadian by birth who had spent most of his life among the Indians, he spoke no English.

[16]By this account, Laura Secord learned of the U.S. plans and made her exit from St. David's (near Queenston) on June 22, before the main body of U.S. troops had set out from Fort George.

In 1914, a convention of Ontario historical and patriotic groups resolved to ask the Department of the Interior "to develop a 40-acre site near Thorold as a national battlefield park commemorating the Battle of Beaver Dams.