The Second War with England Volume I Part 7

The army of General Harrison, which in October was slowly pushing its way towards Malden to Detroit, soon became involved in difficulties that compelled him to abandon his original design of an autumnal campaign. The lakes being in possession of the enemy, provisions, ammunition and cannon had to be transported by land, through swamps and along forest paths which could be traced only by blazed trees, and traversed only when the ground was frozen. He therefore occupied his time in sending out detachments and hurrying up his forces, in order to be ready to advance when the frozen ground, and especially the ice along the margin of the lake would facilitate the transportation of his guns and munitions of war.

General Tupper made two attempts, first from Fort Defiance and afterwards from Fort McArthur, to dislodge the Indians at the Rapids, but failed in both. Another detachment under Col. Campbell left Franklintown in December, to attack the Indian villages on the Missisineway, which were reached on the 18th, and four out of five destroyed.

At length the column which formed the right of this army, nominally of ten thousand men, having arrived at Sandusky with the park of artillery, Gen. Harrison gave the order for the whole to move forward.

In three divisions, one from Sandusky, one from Fort McArthur, and the third under General Winchester, from Fort Defiance, were to advance to the Rapids of the Maumee, there take in their supply of ordnance and provisions, and proceed at once to invest Malden. Harrison, commanding the central division, started on the 31st of December. Gen.

Winchester, who had moved six miles from Fort Defiance, to Camp No. 3, did not commence his march till the 8th of January. It was a cold bitter day and the snow lay over two feet deep in the forest when that doomed column, one thousand strong, set out for the Rapids, twenty-seven miles distant. The troops, most of whom were Kentuckians, were brave and hardy, and cheerfully harnessing themselves to sledges dragged their baggage through the deep snow. Gen. Winchester was ordered to fortify himself at the Rapids and wait the arrival of the other troops. But three days after he reached the place, while constructing huts to receive the supplies on the way, and sleds for their transportation to Malden, he received an urgent request from the inhabitants of Frenchtown, a small settlement nearly forty miles distant, on the River Raisin, to come to their rescue. Feeling, however, the importance of fulfilling his orders, he gave the messengers no encouragement. But another express on the next day, and a third the day after, telling him that the whole settlement was threatened with ma.s.sacre by the Indians--that only a small force of the enemy held possession of the place, and by a prompt answer to their prayer the ruin of all would be prevented, he called a council of war. Col. Allen, and other gallant officers, pleaded the cause of the helpless settlers with all the eloquence of true sympathy. They declared that the chief object of the expedition was to protect the frontiers from the merciless Indians, and that brave men spurned danger when the prayers of women and children were sounding in their ears. [Sidenote: Jan. 20.] Such appeals prevailed over the cooler and safer arguments drawn from the necessity of not damaging the success of the whole campaign by perilling one of the wings of the advancing army, and a detachment of five hundred men, under Colonel Lewis was sent forward to Presque Isle, there to await the arrival of the main column. But this officer hearing at the latter place that an advance party of French and Indians were already in possession of Frenchtown, hurried forward, and the next day in the afternoon arrived on the banks of the stream opposite the village. The river being frozen, he immediately ordered the charge to be sounded. The column advanced steadily across on the ice, and entering the village under a heavy fire of the British, forced them from their position and soon drove them to the woods, when darkness closed the combat. Two days after, General Winchester arrived with a reinforcement of two hundred and fifty men. He had sent a dispatch to Gen. Harrison, then on the Lower Sandusky, announcing his departure from his orders, and asking for reinforcements. [Sidenote: Jan. 23.] The latter sent forward a detachment of three hundred, and followed himself the same day with a corps of three hundred and sixty men. The a.s.sistance, however, came too late, for on the day before they started, the fate of Gen.

Winchester's army was sealed. Gen. Proctor, at Malden, only eighteen miles distant, hearing of Col. Lewis' advance on Frenchtown, hurried down with about 1500 men and six pieces of artillery to attack him.

The latter had stationed the main force behind pickets, in the form of a half circle, but the two hundred and fifty men who had arrived with Gen. Winchester were, through some strange fatuity, placed outside, four hundred yards distant, and wholly uncovered. Just as the drums beat the morning reveille, Proctor advanced to the a.s.sault. The troops came on steadily till within range of the Kentucky rifles, when they were met by such a fierce and deadly fire that they wheeled and fled in confusion.

But, while the attack in front was thus repulsed, that on the unprotected left wing of two hundred and fifty men was, in a few minutes, completely successful. Such a preposterous position, as that to to which it was a.s.signed, no sane man could dream of holding.

Outflanked, and almost surrounded by yelling Indians, its danger was perceived when too late to remedy it. General Winchester and Colonel Lewis, however, each with a detachment of fifty men, rushed forward to the rescue, but they only swelled the disaster. Their followers were cut down and tomahawked, and they themselves captured, and taken to Proctor. The latter had paused after his attack on the pickets, for nearly one-fourth of the regular troops had fallen in that one a.s.sault, and he hesitated about exposing himself again to the deadly fire of Kentucky rifles. It is very doubtful whether he would have ventured on a second attack. He, however, represented to General Winchester, that he could easily set the town on fire, and reduce the garrison; but, in that case, he would not guarantee the lives of the soldiers, or the inhabitants from the barbarity of the Indians.

General Winchester fully believing that the five hundred men, who still gazed undauntedly on the foe, must be sacrificed, agreed to a capitulation; and an officer was sent with a flag to Major Madison, on whom the command had devolved, informing him of the unconditional surrender of all the troops by his superior officer. The brave major, who did not at all look upon himself and gallant band as vanquished men, indignantly refused to obey so unworthy a summons, even from his rightful commander, and coolly told the officer, "he should do no such thing; nay, would not surrender at all, unless the side arms of the officers would be restored to them at Amhertsburg, the wounded promptly and securely transported to that post, and a guard sufficient for their safety a.s.signed them."[35] If the British commander refused to grant these terms, he and his men would fight to the last, and, if necessary, die with their arms in their hands. This proposition, to which any officer fit to wear a sword would have cheerfully accepted, Proctor at first rejected, and yielded at last only because no other terms would be listened to. But no sooner did the garrison surrender, than in direct violation of the conditions, he gave unbridled license to the soldiers and Indians. The latter were allowed to scalp and mutilate the dead and wounded, whose bleeding corpses crimsoned the snow on every side. Proctor, fearing the approach of Harrison, made all haste to depart, and the next night reached Amhertsburg with the prisoners, who were there crowded into a "small and muddy wood yard, and exposed throughout the night to a cold and constant rain, without tents or blankets, and with only fire enough to keep them from freezing." He had brutally left the dead at French town unburied, and sixty of the wounded, who were too feeble to march, unprotected. By a great stretch of kindness, he allowed two American surgeons to remain and take care of them. He had promised to send sleds the next day, to convey them to Malden. These never arrived; but, instead, there came a party of his Indian allies, who tomahawked a portion of the wounded, and then set fire to the houses, consuming the dead and dying together, and responding to the shrieks of the suffering victims with yells and savage laughter. Captain Hart, a relative of Henry Clay, was among the number, as was also a member of Congress. Hart, and indeed a large majority of them, belonged to the most respectable families of Kentucky. One officer was scalped in presence of his friends, and with the blood streaming down his pallid features, rose on his knees, and silently and most piteously gazed on their faces. While in this position, an Indian boy was told by his father to tomahawk him. The unskilful stripling struck again and again, only producing faint groans from the sufferer, till at length the father, in showing how a blow should be planted, ended the tragedy. The secretary of General Winchester was shot while on horseback, and scalped, and his body stripped and cast into the road. The dead, to the number of two hundred, were left unburied; and, for a long time after, hogs and dogs were seen devouring the bodies, and running about crunching human skulls and arms in their teeth. Most of these facts were sworn to before a justice of the peace, and forwarded by Judge Woodward, of the supreme court of Michigan, to Colonel Proctor, with the remark, "The truth will undoubtedly eventually appear, and that unfortunate day must meet the steady and impartial eye of history." General Harrison was at the Rapids, hurrying on the reinforcements, when he heard of the catastrophe. A few days after, he dispatched Dr. M'Kechen with a flag of truce to the river Raisin, to pa.s.s thence, if possible, to Malden. Seized by the Indians and stript, he was at length taken to Captain Elliot, who kindly forwarded him to Colonel Proctor. The latter denied his mission, declaring he was a spy, and would not recognize him, in his official character, till the fifth of February.

Three weeks after, he was accused of carrying on a secret correspondence with the Americans, and without the form of a trial thrown into a filthy dungeon below the surface of the ground, where he lay for a whole month, and was finally liberated, only to carry the seeds of disease, implanted by this brutal treatment, to his grave.

[Footnote 35: Vide Armstrong's Notices of the War of 1812.]

When the news of this horrid ma.s.sacre reached Kentucky, the State was filled with mourning, for many of her n.o.blest sons had fallen victims to the savage. The Governor and his suite were in the theatre at the time the disastrous tidings arrived in Frankfort. The play was immediately stopped, the building deserted, and the next morning a funereal sadness rested on the town, and the voice of lamentation--like that which went up from Egypt when the first born of every house was slain--arose from almost every dwelling. But amid it all there was a smothered cry for vengeance, which never ceased ringing over the State, until it was hushed in the shout of victory that rose from the battle-field of the Thames.

Language has no epithets sufficiently opprobrious with which to stamp this atrocious deed of Colonel Proctor. It combines all the inhuman elements necessary to form a perfect monster--deceit, treachery, falsehood, murder, and that refinement of cruelty which looks with derision on slow torture, and the brutality which can insult the dead.

The very apologies which his countrymen made for him only blackened his character. It was said that the prisoners surrendered at discretion, and he never pledged his word for their protection--a falsehood as afterwards fully proved by the prisoners, and a statement, whether true or false, utterly useless, only to make the whole transaction complete and perfect in every part. No man who was sufficiently acquainted with honor to simulate it successfully, would have attempted to cover an act so d.a.m.ning with such an excuse. The annals of civilized warfare present no instance of the ma.s.sacre and torture of troops who have surrendered themselves prisoners of war on a fair battle-field. An act like this, committed by a British officer on the plains of Europe, sustained only by such an apology, would cost him his head. Absolute inability, on the part of a commander to protect his captives, is the only excuse a _man_ would ever offer.

This Proctor had not, for his allies were under his control and he knew it. At all events he never attempted to save the prisoners. No guard was left over the wounded, as he had stipulated to do--no sleighs were sent back the next morning to fetch them to Fort Malden, as promised--no effort whatever made in their behalf. He never designed to keep his promises or fulfil his engagements--he had abandoned the dead and wounded at Frenchtown to his savage allies, as their part of the reward. Our troops frequently employed Indian tribes, but no such atrocities were ever suffered to sully the American flag. The whole transaction, from first to last, is black as night. His deceit, treachery, cruelty to officers and men, neglect of the dead and abandonment of the wounded to worse than death--his after falsehood, meanness and cupidity are all natural and necessary parts to the formation of a thoroughly base and brutal man. He was a disgrace to his profession, a disgrace to the army and to the nation which rewarded him for this act with promotion. His memory shall be kept fresh while the western hemisphere endures, and the transaction hold a prominent place in the list of dark deeds that stand recorded against the English name. Just a month from this date three American seamen went down in the Peac.o.c.k, while n.o.bly struggling to save the prisoners. A few years before, some Turkish captives, in Egypt, being paroled by Napoleon, were afterwards retaken in a desperate battle and sentenced by a council of war to be shot. Although they had forfeited their lives by the laws of all civilized nations, in thus breaking their parole, and proved by their conduct that a second pardon would simply be sending them as a reinforcement to the enemy, and though Bonaparte only carried into execution the decision of a council of war, yet for this act of his, English historians to this day heap upon him the epithets of murderer and monster; while not the mere murder, which would have been comparative kindness, but the abandonment of American prisoners to slow torture by fire and the scalping knife, was rewarded with promotion in the army.

The difficulties which our volunteers and new levies unaccustomed to such hardships, had to contend with on the western frontier, may be gathered from the march of the three hundred men dispatched to the aid of Winchester, but who did not arrive till after the ma.s.sacre.

Starting with twenty pieces of artillery, in a heavy snow storm, they boldly pierced the wilderness, but made the first day only a short march. The next day, a courier arrived toiling through snow and mud, ordering the artillery to advance with all speed. But under the weight of the heavy guns, the wheels sunk to their axles with every slow revolution, and it was only by dint of great effort, they were got on at all. After a weary day's march, they encamped around a blazing fire, and were just making their scanty meal, when a messenger entered the camp, stating, that Harrison had retreated from the Rapids. A portion immediately resolved to push on to his help, and s.n.a.t.c.hing a few hours of repose, they, at two o'clock in the morning, tumbled up from their couch of snow, and falling into marching order, hurried forward through the gloom. To add to their discomfort and sufferings, a January rain-storm had set in, making the whole surface one yielding ma.s.s, into which they sunk sometimes to their waists.

Drenched to the skin with the pelting rain, stumbling and falling at almost every step in the dissolving snow, they kept on, and at length reached the black swamp, near Portage river. This was four miles across, and was covered with a broad sheet of water as far as the eye could reach. Out of the untroubled surface rose the trunks of sickly looking and decayed trees, presenting amid the black and driving rain, a spectacle sufficient to chill and benumb the most manly heart. Ice was beneath, but of its strength, or of the depth below, no one could tell. The soldiers, however, hurried forward into the water, and though the rotten, treacherous ice under their feet would often give way, letting them down, till their farther descent was arrested by their arms; they kept intrepidly on, till, at length, the last mile was won, and weary and staggering they emerged on the farther side.

Although on the whole route, there were but eight miles where they did not sink below the knee, and often to the middle, this gallant band accomplished thirty miles by night fall. Weary, dispirited and benumbed, they then encamped, and without an axe, cooking utensils, or a tent to cover them, sat down on logs, and having kindled a feeble fire made their meagre repast. They then placed two logs together to keep them from the melting snow, and lay in rows across them, exposed to the pitiless storm. Next morning, they continued their march, and effected a junction with the army.

To such hardships and exposures were the sons of gentlemen and farmers subjected, in those disheartening northern campaigns which ended only in failure.

While such scenes were transpiring in the north, there occurred one of those events which form the romance and poetry of the American wilderness. At this time, Michigan was an unbroken forest, with the exception of Detroit, and a few settlements along the line of the lakes, containing in all, but five or six thousand inhabitants. Ohio had but 300,000, while 2,000 Indians still held their lands within its limits. Thirteen thousand const.i.tuted the entire white population of Illinois. These states, which now number by millions, were then almost wholly unknown, except on the borders of the lakes and the Ohio river.

All through the interior, numerous tribes of Indians roamed undisturbed, and hung, in black and threatening war clouds, around the borders of civilization. The English had succeeded in exciting many of these to hostilities against the settlers. Their efforts were aided in a masterly manner by Tec.u.mseh, a Shawnee warrior, who had imbibed a bitter, undying hostility to the Americans. Brave, temperate, scorning a lie, and despising the spoils of war, he fought to restore his race to their ancient rights and power. Unable to cope with the Americans alone, he gladly availed himself of our declaration of war to form an alliance with the British. Lifted by native genius above the vices of savages, he also exhibited a greatness of intellect, and loftiness of character, which, in civilized life, would have led to the highest renown. Despising the petty rivalries of tribes and chiefs, he became absorbed in the grand idea of uniting all the Indian clans in one great and desperate struggle for mastery with the whites.

He had succeeded in carrying out his scheme, to a great extent, throughout the North and West. Of erect, athletic frame, n.o.ble, commanding appearance, with the air of a king, and the eloquence of a Demosthenes when rousing the Greeks to arms against Philip, he went from tribe to tribe electrifying them with his appeals, and rousing them to madness by his fiery denunciations against their oppressors.

His brother, the prophet, accompanied him,--a dark, subtle, cunning impostor, to whose tricks Tec.u.mseh submitted for awhile, because they foiled the hatred and deceit of rival chiefs. As he arose before his savage audiences, his imposing manner created a feeling of awe; but when he kindled with his great subject, he seemed like one inspired.

His eye flashed fire, his swarthy bosom heaved and swelled with imprisoned pa.s.sion, his whole form dilated with excitement, and his strong untutored soul poured itself forth in eloquence, wild, headlong, and resistless, as the mountain torrent. Thoughts, imagery leaped from his lips in such life and vividness that the stoicism of the Indian vanished before them, and his statue-like face gleamed with pa.s.sion. The people he always carried with him; but the chiefs, who feared his power over their followers, often thwarted his plans. When not addressing the clans, he was reserved, cold, and haughty. His withering sarcasm, when Proctor proposed to retreat from Malden; his reply to the interpreter, who offering him a chair in the presence of Harrison, said, "Your father wishes you to be seated;" "My father! the sun is my father, and the earth my mother," as he stretched himself proudly on the ground, reveal a nature conscious of its greatness, and scorning the distinctions which the white man arrogated to himself.

After pa.s.sing through the northern tribes, he took his brother, and went south to the Creeks, to complete the plan of a general alliance.

The journey of nearly a thousand miles through the wilderness, of these two brothers,--the discussion of their deep-laid scheme at night around their camp-fire,--the day-dreams of Tec.u.mseh, as gorgeous as ever flitted before the imagination of a Caesar,--the savage empire destined to rise under his hand, and the greatness he would restore to his despised race, would make a grand epic. Pathless mountains and gloomy swamps were traversed; deep rivers swam, and weariness and toil endured, not for spoils or revenge, but to carry out a great idea.

There is a rude, Tuscan grandeur about him, as he thus moves through the western wilderness impelled by a high purpose,--a barbaric splendor thrown about even the merciless measures he means to adopt, by the great moral scheme to which they are to be subject. His combinations exhibited the consummate general. While England occupied us along the sea-coast, he determined to sweep in one vast semi-circle from Michilimackinac to Florida upon the scattered settlements. Fires were to be kindled North and South, and West, to burn towards the centre, while civilized warfare should desolate the eastern slope of the Alleghanies. Tec.u.mseh had seen Hull surrender, and knew that the British had been victorious all along the frontier. His prospects were brightening, and with this glorious news to back his burning eloquence, he had no doubt of exciting the Southern tribes to war. The Chickasaws and Choctaws in Mississippi, numbered over thirty thousand; the Creeks twenty-five thousand, while south of them dwelt the large and warlike tribe of the Seminoles. His chief mission was to the Creeks, from whom, on his mother's side, he was descended. This powerful clan stretched from the southern borders of Tennessee nearly to Florida. The sun in his course looked on no fairer, richer land than the country they held. Some of them had learned the arts of civilization, and, hitherto, had evinced a friendly disposition towards the whites. But British influence working through the Spanish authorities in Florida, had already prepared them for Tec.u.mseh's visit. An alliance, offensive and defensive, had been formed between England and Spain; and the armies of the former were then in the Peninsula, endeavoring to wrest the throne from Bonaparte. The latter, therefore, was bound to a.s.sist her ally on this continent, and so lent her aid in exciting the Southern Indians to hostility.

The year before, General Wilkinson had been dispatched to take possession of a corner of Louisiana, still claimed by the Spanish. He advanced on Mobile, and seized without opposition the old fort of Conde, built in the time of Louis the XIV. He here found abundant evidence of the machinations of the Spanish and English. Runners had been sent to the Seminoles and Creeks offering arms and bribes, if they would attack the frontier settlements. But for this, Tec.u.mseh, with all his eloquence, might have failed. Co-operating with the British agents in Florida, as he had done with Brock and Proctor in Canada, he at length saw his cherished scheme about to be fulfilled.

The old and more peaceful,--those who had settled in well-built towns, with schools, and flocks, and farms about them,--opposed the war which would devastate their land, and drive them back to barbarism. But the eloquence of Tec.u.mseh, as he spoke of the multiplied wrongs of the Indians, and their humiliation, described the glories to be won, and painted in glowing colors the victories he had gained in the North, kindled into a blaze the warlike feelings of the young; and soon ominous tidings came from the bosom of the wilderness that stretched along the Coosa and Talapoosa rivers. Having kindled the flames, he again turned his footsteps northward.

Anxiety and alarm soon spread among the white settlers, and the scattered families sought shelter in the nearest forts. Twenty-four had thus congregated at Fort Mimms, a mere block-house, situated on the Alabama, near the junction of the Tombigbee. It was garrisoned by a hundred and forty men, commanded by Major Beasely, and, with proper care, could have resisted the attacks of the savages. But the rumors of a rising among the Indians were discredited. A negro who stated he had seen them in the vicinity, was chastised for spreading a false alarm. The night preceding the ma.s.sacre, the dogs growled and barked, showing that they scented Indians in the air. But all these warnings were unheeded, when suddenly, in broad midday, the savages, some seven hundred strong, made their appearance before the fort, and within thirty feet of it, before they were discovered. The gate was open, and with one terrific yell they dashed through into the outer enclosure, driving the panic-stricken soldiers into the houses within.

Mounting these they set them on fire, and shot down every soul that attempted to escape. Seeing, at once, their inevitable doom, the soldiers fought with the energy of despair. Rushing madly on their destroyers, they gave blow for blow, and laid sixty of them around the burning buildings before they were completely overpowered. At last, a yell of savage triumph rose over the crackling of flames, and cries and shrieks of terrified women and children. Then followed a scene which may not be described. The wholesale butchery,--the ghastly spectacle of nearly three hundred mutilated bodies, hewed and hacked into fragments, were nothing to the inhuman indignities perpetrated on the women. Children were ripped from the maternal womb, and swung as war-clubs against the heads of the mothers, and all those horrible excesses committed, which seem the offspring of demons.

When Tec.u.mseh reached again the British camp in Canada, he found the American army at fort Meigs. Harrison, after Winchester's defeat, instead of boldly pushing on in pursuit, had retreated. He was a brave general, but lacked the energy and promptness necessary to an efficient commander. Thus far these qualities seemed confined solely to the English officers, leaving to ours the single one of caution.

Fort Meigs was erected on the Maumee, just above where it debouches into Lake Erie. Here the army remained inactive, serving only as a barrier to the Indians, who otherwise would have fallen on the Ohio settlements, till the latter part of April. General Harrison employed the winter in getting reinforcements from Ohio and Kentucky, and did not reach the fort till the first of the month.

In the mean time, Proctor and Tec.u.mseh had organized a large force for its reduction. On the twenty-third, the sentinel on watch reported that the boats of the enemy, in great numbers, were entering the mouth of the river. The fort, at this time, contained about a thousand men, and was well supplied with every thing necessary for a long and stout defence, while twelve hundred Kentuckians, under General Clay, were marching to its relief.

Finding the fortifications too strong to be carried by a.s.sault, Proctor sat down before them in regular siege. The light troops and Indians were thrown across the river, and heavy batteries erected on the left bank. A well-directed cannonade from the fort so annoyed the besiegers, that they were compelled to perform most of their work by night. The garrison, at first, suffered very little, except from scarcity of water. The well in the fort having dried up, they were compelled to draw their supply from the river. But the men detailed for this purpose, were constantly picked off by skulking Indians, who becoming emboldened by success gradually drew closer around the besieged; and climbing into tall trees, and concealing themselves in the thick foliage, rained their b.a.l.l.s into the works. On the first of May, Proctor having completed his batteries, opened his fire. He sent, also, a summons to surrender, which was scornfully rejected by Harrison, who maintained a brisk cannonade for four days, when the welcome intelligence was received, that Clay with his twelve hundred Kentuckians was close at hand. Harrison determined, at once, to raise the siege, and dispatched a messenger to him, to land eight hundred men on the left bank of the river, and carry the batteries erected there by storm, and spike the guns; while the remaining four hundred should keep down the right bank towards the batteries, against which he would make a sortie from the fort. The eight hundred were placed under Colonel Dudley, who crossing the river in good order, advanced fiercely on the batteries and swept them. Flushed with the easy victory, and burning to revenge their comrades ma.s.sacred at river Raisin, the men refused to halt and spike the guns, but drove furiously on after the flying troops, or turned aside to fight the Indians, who clung to the forest. In the mean time, Proctor, aroused by this unexpected onset, hastened up from his camp a mile and a half below with reinforcements, and rallied the fugitives. At this critical moment, Tec.u.mseh also joined him, with a large body of Indians. These advancing against the disordered Kentuckians, drove them back on the river. The latter fought bravely, but discipline and numbers told too heavily against them, and but one hundred and fifty of these gallant, but imprudent men reached the farther bank in safety. Colonel Dudley while struggling n.o.bly to repair the error they had committed in refusing to obey his orders, fell mortally wounded. The small, but disciplined band of three hundred and fifty, led by Colonel Miller, of the nineteenth infantry, against the batteries on the right bank, carried them with the bayonet, and spiking the guns returned with forty-two prisoners.

The two succeeding days, the armies remained inactive. In the mean time, the Indians began to return home in large numbers; and Proctor deserted by his savage allies, resolved to abandon the siege.

Embarking his heavy ordnance and stores under a galling fire from the fort, he made a hasty and disorderly retreat down the river. The loss of the Americans during the siege, was two hundred and seventy men killed and wounded, exclusive of the destruction of a large portion of Clay's command. That of the British was much less, so that although the attack on the fort had failed, the Americans were by far the heaviest sufferers.

Harrison leaving the fort in command of Colonel Clay, repaired to Franklinton, the place appointed for the rendezvous of the regiments newly raised in Ohio and Kentucky. In the mean time, a deputation of all the friendly Indian tribes in Ohio waited on him, offering their services in the approaching conflict on the borders. They were accepted on the conditions, they should not ma.s.sacre their prisoners, or wage war against women and children.

After Harrison's departure, Proctor again appeared before Fort Meigs.

But finding it well garrisoned, he did not attempt another attack; but taking five hundred regulars and a horde of Indians, seven hundred in number, suddenly appeared before Fort Stephenson in Lower Sandusky.

[Sidenote: Aug. 1.] Major Croghan, a young man only twenty-one years of age, held the post, with but a hundred and sixty men. He had only one cannon, a six pounder, while the fortifications having been hastily constructed, were not strong enough to resist artillery.

Knowing this, and the smallness of Croghan's force, Harrison had previously ordered him to destroy the works, and retire on the approach of the enemy. But this was impossible, for Proctor took measures at once to cut off his retreat. When this was accomplished, he sent a flag demanding the immediate surrender of the place, saying, if the garrison resisted, they would be given up to ma.s.sacre. This mere stripling, not old enough to be frightened, like Hull and Wilkinson, coolly replied, that when he got possession of the fort, there would be none left to ma.s.sacre. River Raisin was fresh in his memory, and lay not far off; but neither the fear of Indian barbarities, nor the dark array, ten times his number, closing steadily upon him, could shake his gallant young heart. He was such stuff as heroes are made of.

This was on Sunday evening, and immediately after receiving the bold answer of Croghan, Proctor opened on the fort from his gun boats, and a howitzer on sh.o.r.e. The cannonading was kept up all night, lighting up the forest scenery with its fire, and knocking loudly on that feeble fort for admission. At day break, Croghan saw that the enemy had planted three sixes within two hundred and fifty yards of the fort. Against this battery, he could reply with only his single gun, whose lonely report seemed a burlesque on the whole affair. Finding that Proctor concentrated his fire against the north-western angle, he strengthened it with bags of flour and sand. The firing was kept up till late in the afternoon, when seeing that but little impression was made on the works, Proctor resolved to carry them by storm, and a column, five hundred strong, was sent against them. With undaunted heart, young Croghan saw it approach, while his little band, proud of their heroic leader, closed firmly around him, swearing to stand by him to the last. Some time previously, a ditch six feet deep and nine feet wide had been dug in front of the works, and the six pounder, loaded with slugs and grape, was now placed, so as to rake that part of it where it was conjectured the enemy would cross. Colonel Short commanded the storming column, which he led swiftly forward to the a.s.sault. As it came within range, a well directed volley of musketry staggered it for a moment, but Colonel Short rallying them, leaped first into the ditch, crying out, "Give the d--d Yankees no quarter."

In a moment, the ditch was red with scarlet uniforms. At that instant, the six pounder was fired. A wild shriek followed, and when the smoke cleared away, that section of the column which had entered the ditch lay stretched on the bottom, with their leader among them. The remainder started back aghast at such sudden and swift destruction, but being rallied they again advanced, only to be swept away. All efforts to rally them the third time, were fruitless; they fled first to the woods, and then to their boats, and next morning before daybreak disappeared altogether. This garrison of striplings had behaved n.o.bly, and notwithstanding the brutal order of the British commander to give no quarter, exhibited that humanity without which bravery is not a virtue. Moved with pity at the groans and prayers for help from those who lay wounded in the ditch, they, not daring to expose themselves outside in presence of the enemy, handed over the pickets during the night, jugs, and pails of water to allay the fever of thirst; and made a hole through which they pulled with kindly tenderness many of the wounded, and carried them to the surgeon. These men knew that, if the attack had proved successful, not one would have been left to tell how they fought, or how they fell, yet this consciousness did not deaden, for a moment, the emotions of pity. This generosity and kindness have always characterized the American soldier, from the commencement of our national existence. The merciless warfare inflicted by England through the savages during the revolution, could not make him forget his humanity; nor the haughty, insulting conduct of English officers in this second war, force him to throw aside his kind and generous feelings.

This attack closed, for the time, the efforts of Proctor to get possession of our forts, and he retired with his savage allies to Detroit. Our whole western frontier was now in a most deplorable condition. Instead of carrying the war into the enemy's country, we had been unable to protect our own borders. Notwithstanding the repulse at Fort Meigs, the savages still hung around our settlements, making frequent and successful dashes upon them; while the powerful tribe of the Osages lying west of the Mississippi, threatened to come into Tec.u.mseh's grand scheme, for the extermination of the whites.

Forts Madison and Mason were evacuated, leaving Fort Howard, only forty miles above St. Louis, our most northern post on the Mississippi.

CHAPTER VIII.

Chauncey ordered to Lake Erie to build a fleet -- A plan of the campaign -- Woolsey -- Attack on York -- Death of General Pike -- His character -- Capture of Fort George -- Gallantry of Scott -- Repulse of the British at Sackett's Harbor by General Brown -- Dearborn pursues Vincent -- Night attack on the American encampment -- Generals Winder and Chandler taken prisoners -- Retreat of the army -- Reinforced by General Lewis -- Dearborn at Fort George -- Defeat of Colonel Boestler at Beaver Dams -- Attack on Black Rock -- Dearborn withdrawn from the command of the northern army.

While Harrison was pushing forward his winter campaign, Dearborn remained quietly in winter quarters, but soon as he saw the river St.

Lawrence clear of ice, he prepared to renew his invasion of Canada.

Armstrong having resigned the post of minister to France, was appointed Secretary of War in place of Eustis. Being an officer of distinction, it was thought he would throw more energy into the war department, than his predecessor. His plan of the campaign was simple, and if prosecuted with energy, promised success. Dearborn was to concentrate his forces at the mouth of the Niagara river, and fall successively on Kingston, York, and Fort George, thus cutting off all communication between Montreal and Upper Canada. To carry this out successfully, naval superiority on the lake, for the safe transmission of troops and ordnance, was indispensable. From the commencement of the war, the only vessel of any pretension which the United States had on lake Ontario was the Oneida, of sixteen guns, commanded by Lieutenant, afterwards Commodore Woolsey. This gallant officer managed to preserve his ship, notwithstanding the great efforts of the enemy to get possession of it, beating off, in one instance, while lying in Sackett's Harbor, six British armed vessels.

At this time, a vast forest fringed the southern sh.o.r.e of Ontario.

With the exception of here and there a clearing, Sackett's Harbor containing some half a dozen miserable houses, and Oswego not much larger, were the only settlements on the American side, while strong forts and old towns lined the Canada sh.o.r.e. This large body of water, the control of which was of such vast consequence to the protection of New York state, could be reached from the Hudson, two hundred miles distant, only by highways nearly impa.s.sable, except in midsummer and winter. But, whatever difficulties might attend the attempt to build and man vessels of war on those remote waters, it was evident that until it was made, all movements against Canada must prove abortive.

Captain Isaac Chauncey was, therefore, ordered thither the summer previous, to take command, and build and equip vessels. [Sidenote: 1812.] He arrived in Sackett's Harbor in October, with forty carpenters, and a hundred officers and seamen. To control the lake in the mean time, he purchased and armed several American schooners. With these, he on the eighth of November set sail, and soon after chased the Royal George under the guns of the fort at Kingston, and there maintained a spirited contest for half an hour. After various skirmishes with the enemy, he at length returned to Sackett's Harbor, and spent the winter in building vessels. [Sidenote: Nov. 26.] In the mean time, the Madison, of twenty-four guns, had been completed and launched. Nine weeks before, her hull and spars were growing in the forest. By spring, when Dearborn was ready to commence operations, Chauncey had a snug little fleet under his command, composed of the Madison, Oneida, and eleven armed schooners.

It having been ascertained that three British vessels were getting ready for sea at York, it was resolved to destroy them. The original plan, therefore, of commencing the campaign by an attack on Kingston, was by the recommendation of Chauncey changed, and the former place designated as the first point of attack.

This fleet of thirteen sail could carry but 1700 men. With these Chauncey, at length, set sail, and on the twenty-fifth of April, anch.o.r.ed off York. Although it blew a gale from the eastward, the boats were hoisted out, and the landing of the troops under General Pike was commenced. The wind carried the boats west of the place designated, which was an open field, to a thickly wooded sh.o.r.e, filled with Indians and sharp shooters. Major Forsythe with a corps of rifles, in two batteaux, first approached the sh.o.r.e. a.s.sailed by a shower of b.a.l.l.s, he commanded the rowers to rest on their oars and return the fire. General Pike, who was standing on the deck of his vessel, no sooner saw this pause, than he exclaimed to his staff with an oath, "I can't stand here any longer; come, jump into the boat."

Ordering the infantry to follow at once, he leaped into a boat, and with his staff was quickly rowed into the hottest of the fire. Moving steadily forward amid the enemy's b.a.l.l.s, he landed a little distance from Forsythe. The advance boats containing the infantry reaching the sh.o.r.e at the same time, he put himself at the head of the first platoon he met, and ordered the whole to mount the bank and charge.

Breasting the volleys that met them, the Americans with loud cheers scaled the bank, and routed the enemy. At that moment, the sound of Forsythe's bugles was heard ringing through the forest. This completed the panic, and the frightened savages, with a loud yell, fled in all directions. The landing of the remaining troops, under cover of the well directed fire of Chauncey's vessels, was successfully made.

Captains Scott and Young led the van, and with the fifteenth regiment, under command of Major King, covered themselves with honor. The troops were then formed in sections, and pa.s.sing through the woods, advanced towards the fort. The bridges having been destroyed over the streams that intersected the road, only one field piece and a howitzer could be carried forward to protect the head of the column, which at length came under the fire of a battery of twenty-four pounders. Captain Walworth, of the sixteenth, was ordered to advance with trailed bayonets at the charge step, and storm this battery. Moving rapidly across the intervening s.p.a.ce, this gallant company approached to within a short distance of the guns, when at the word, "recover charge," the enemy deserted their pieces and fled. The column then continued to move on up a gentle ascent, and soon silenced the remaining battery, and took possession of the works. But just at this moment, when a flag of surrender was momentarily expected, a magazine containing five hundred barrels of powder, exploded with terrific violence. Huge stones, fragments of shivered timber, and blackened corpses were hurled heavenward together, and came back in a murderous shower on the victorious column. Forty of the enemy, and more than two hundred Americans were killed or wounded by the explosion. The army was stunned for a moment, but the band striking up Yankee Doodle, the rent column closed up with a shout, and in five minutes was ready to charge. General Pike at the time of the explosion was sitting on the stump of a tree, whither he had just removed a wounded British soldier. Crushed by the falling fragments, he together with a British sergeant, who had been taken prisoner, and Captain Nicholson, was mortally wounded. Turning to his aid, he exclaimed, "I am mortally wounded." As the surgeons and aid were bearing him from the field, he heard the loud huzzas of his troops. Turning to one of his sergeants, he with an anxious look mutely inquired what it meant. The officer replied, "_The British Union Jack is coming down and the stars are going up._" The dying hero heaved a sigh, and smiled even amid his agony. He was carried on board the commodore's ship, and the last act of his life was to make a sign, that the British flag which had been brought to him should be placed under his head.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Death of Pike.]

Thus fell one of the n.o.blest officers in the army. Kind, humane, the soul of honor and of bravery, he was made after the model of the knights of old. His father had fought in the war of the Revolution, and though too old to serve, was still an officer in the army. In a letter to his father, dated the day before the expedition, he, after stating its character, said: "Should I be the happy mortal destined to turn the scale of war--will you not rejoice, O, my father? May heaven be propitious, and smile on the cause of my country. But if we are destined to fall, may my fall be like Wolfe's--to sleep in the arms of victory." His prayer was answered, and the country mourned the loss of a gallant officer, a pure patriot, and a n.o.ble man.

Colonel Pearce, on whom the command devolved after the fall of Pike, took possession of the barracks and then advanced on the town. As he approached he was met by the officers of the Canadian militia, proposing a capitulation. This was done to produce a delay, so that the English commander, General Sheaffe, with the regulars could escape, and the vessels and military stores be destroyed. The plan was successful, the regular troops made good their retreat, one magazine of naval and military stores was burned, together with two of the vessels undergoing repairs. The third had sailed for Kingston a short time before the attack.

Owing to the explosion of the magazine the loss of the Americans was severe, amounting to three hundred killed and wounded. Notwithstanding the exasperation of the victors at the wanton, and as they supposed premeditated destruction of life, they treated the inhabitants with kindness and courtesy. Such had been the strict orders of their commander before his death. The only violence committed was the burning of the house of Parliament, and this was owing, doubtless, to the fact that a scalp was found suspended over the speaker's mace. The sight of an American scalp, hanging as a trophy in a public building, would naturally exasperate soldiers, whose friends and relatives had fallen beneath the knife of the savage.[36]