USA > Illinois > Cook County > Chicago > Discovery and conquests of the Northwest, with the history of Chicago, Vol. I > Part 32
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But even this gossamer fabric of formality vanished from the English mind five days after the American declaration of war, at which time (the 23d of June) the English did formally revoke the obnoxious orders, in consequence of which the Americans had drawn the sword. But the sword was drawn, and could not very well be sheathed till old scores were avenged. Several thousand American citizens, the victims of impressment, were unwillingly fighting the battles of the British, whose fathers and brothers at home called loudly for revenge; and many a pioneer had fallen a victim to the scalping. knife, which had been forged on British anvils.
The British fleet held full command of the lakes, and the various tribes of Indians adjacent had for years been subsidized by presents and honeyed words into. friendship for them.
It was, therefore, evident that along these waters the British were the strongest, and here the first blow was to be struck. Detroit was then the most important. post which the Americans held west. General Hull,
371
Gen. Hull at the Maumee Rapids.
an officer of the American revolution, was governor of the territory of Michigan, which had been organized in 1805, and now contained about 5,000 inhabitants, and to him was given the command of the troops destined for defensive and offensive operations on the upper lakes. A small garrison of United States troops was stationed at Michilimackinac, and one at Chicago, which were the extreme outposts of the Americans.
Two months previous to the declaration of war, the president had ordered Gov. Meigs, of Ohio, to raise 1,000 men for the western service.
This he promptly did, and adding 300 more to the number, handed them over to General Hull at Day- ton, with a patriotic speech, at the close of which the volunteers uncovered, and gave him six rousing cheers.
Agreeable to his orders, General Hull took up his march for Detroit at the head of his little army. The route over which he was to travel had already been made famous by the St. Clair and Wayne campaigns, the scene of whose battle fields he passed, and arrived at the rapids of the Maumee on the 30th of June, twelve days after the war had been declared, but of this he was ignorant.
Here he rested his men, near the ruins of the old fort: which the British had built eighteen years before, which had never served any purpose but to amuse the Indians and inflame the resentment of the Americans. The route thence to Detroit lay eighteen miles down the Maumee river, across the western extremity of Lake Erie, and up the Detroit river. Malden was then the most important post of the British on the upper lakes. Ever since they had evacuated the forts on the American side in 1796, it had been headquarters for the distribution of Indian presents, where the western tribes had assembled annually to receive their blankets, tobacco, knives, etc., and here the British had built a fleet of war vessels, which menaced the Americans on our entire lake frontier. It was situated on the Canadian side of the main channel of the Detroit river, and com- manded its most direct passage. As ill fortune would have it, while resting at the rapids on the Ist of July,
372
Gen. Hull Marches toward Detroit.
General Hull dispatched a schooner and a boat to Detroit in advance of his army, which was to reach the place by land. On board the schooner were a few invalids, the hospital stores, and a trunk, containing his official papers from Washington. During the suc- ceeding night the schooner passed the boat, leaving her behind, and kept on her course. The next day she entered the Detroit river, and coming in sight of the "Hunter," an English armed brig, she was obliged to surrender.
The boat fortunately reached her destination unob- served by the English, she having by chance taken the channel of the river west of Boisblanc island. The day after the schooner left the rapids a messenger came to the quarters of General Hull with a letter, of which he was the bearer, from the postmaster at Cleve- land. Its contents ran as follows: "Sir: War is declared against Great Britain. You will be on your guard. Proceed to your post (Detroit) with all possi- ble expedition. Make such arrangements for the de- fense of the country as in your judgment may be neces- sary, and wait for further orders."
This was from the war department at Washington, and bore date June 18th. Eight days previously he had received dispatches from the war department, through a different source, making no mention of the declaration of war, an oversight on the part of the secretary as inexcusable as it was mysterious.
General Hull now made haste to march for Detroit, and reached the place on the 7th. Here he remained till the 12th, when he crossed over to the Canada shore with his whole army, and issued a spirited proclamation to the French subjects of Great Britain, who lived in the country, many of whom gave in their allegiance to his standard. . " On to Malden!" was now the watch- word that prevailed in his army, but the extreme cau- tion of the commanding general forbade this, especially as his last instructions were to go to Detroit, and await orders. On the 15th, however, orders reached him from Washington to take the offensive. A reconnois- ance of 280 men, under command of Col. Cass, was
373
. Michilimackinac Taken by the British.
sent toward the place. Five miles from it they encoun- tered an outpost of the enemy guarding a bridge, cross- ing Duck creek, and here the war of 1812 began in a spirited skirmish, in which some accounts state that ten Britishers were killed-a doubtful assertion that a handful of picket men should have left that many dead on the ground before falling back from before a superior force.
General Isaac Brock was governor of Upper Canada at this time, whose dashing activity proved to be more than a match for General Hull's excessive caution.
As soon as war had been declared, he planned out his campaign, and Michilimackinac was the first place to be attacked. At the foot of the rapids of the St. Mary's, on the Canadian side, forty-five miles north of the place, was the British post of St. Joseph, garrisoned by two companies of Canadians and a few British regu- lars. Capt. Roberts, who held command of this post, was the one to whom the execution of the scheme had been confided. Besides his own entire command, he enlisted in his ranks all the loose material which the English Fur Company could bring to his service; and in order to insure success beyond a doubt, he accepted the service of 600 Indians from his immediate neighbor- hood. Everything being in readiness on the 16th of July, his forces embarked in their bateaux, crossed the strait, and reached the island of Michilimackinac before daybreak. The fort stood on a bluff rock, on the southeast shore, nearly 200 feet above the sparkling waters that chafed and foamed about its base. The original forest with which the island had been covered had been cut down for fuel, and in its place a thicket of second growth covered the ground. At 9 o'clock Lieut. P. Hanks, the commander of the fort, beheld with astonishment such formidable numbers of British taking position on a rocky height, within cannon shot of his fort, while the wooded grounds around were alive with Indians.
The guns of the fort were shotted, and everything made ready for a desperate defense by the command- ing officer, who all the while was at a loss to account
374
Affairs at Fort Dearborn.
for the hostile demonstrations; but at 11:30 o'clock the mystery was explained by a message under a flag of truce. "War had been declared," said the unexpected visitor, and the surrender of the fort and island was demanded. To defend it would have been a vain attempt, and the command was reluctantly complied with, and his entire force (fifty-seven men), including officers, became war prisoners. The village on the island numbered over 300, all but three or four of whom were Canadians or half breeds, who felt quite at home under a British flag, as well as the countless hordes of Indians, who gathered about the place every summer to sell their winter's catch of furs, enjoy the salubrious air, and eat the easily caught fish.
Michilimackinac was then regarded as the most im- portant post in the northwest, except Detroit. It had an annual export trade of furs, amounting to $240, 000, and the custom house duties on imports were about $50,000 per annum. This successful opening of the war, on the part of the British, fired the heart of the Indians, and made them flock to the standard of their British father.
Tecumseh was already in the field, elevated to the rank of a brigadier general, and while the master mind of General Brock, assisted by the masterly activity of Tecumseh, is circumventing the tactics of General Hull, let us turn our attention to Fort Dearborn, at Chicago, the outermost post of the Americans.
Its garrison had been increased by the insignificant reinforcement of twelve militia, which made in all sixty- six soldiers. The original officers in command had retired the year before, and in their place stood Captain Heald, who had the chief command, and under him was Lieut. Helm, the same who had recently married the step-daughter of John Kinzie, Ensign George Ronan and Dr. Van Voorhees, the surgeon. The armament of the fort consisted of three cannon, and small arms for the soldiers. The defenses were quite sufficient to hold the Indians at bay, whose mode of warfare was ill adapted to a siege, but in the general trepidation which prevailed among the weak garrison, it
375
Chicago in 1812.
was proposed to make the most of every available means in their power, in case of an attack, and to this end the agency house outside the palisade was to be manned with a few sharp-shooters, to minister to the defenses of the fort.
Mr. Kinzie, during his eight years' residence in the place, fortunately had won the confidence and esteem of the Indians by those rare gifts which transcend the angry passions of war, even in the savage breast. And to him all eyes turned for counsel when the war whoop rang through the wilderness, backed by the power of England. Of his children, the oldest was John H., then a lad of eight years, born in Canada, opposite Detroit, but a few months before his parents emigrated to Chicago in 1804.
He was the first prominent resident of Chicago from infancy. Just west of Mr. Kinzie's house was the humble habitation of Ouilmette, a French laborer in his employ, who, like many of his countrymen before him, had married an Indian lassie, and the union had been blessed with the usual number of children. About eighty rods to the west, on the same side of the river, was the residence of Mr. Burns, whose family consisted of a wife and children. Besides these were a few families of half breeds, "the location of whose resi- dences, or perhaps camps, is not known," says Mrs. John H. Kinzie, in Wabun. In the fort dwelt the families of Captain Heald, Lieut. Helm and Sergeant Holt, whose wives were destined to become heroines of history, and to their number may be added Mrs. Bisson, sister of Ouilmette's wife, and Mrs. Corbin, wife of a soldier.
Four miles from Fort Dearborn, up the south branch of the Chicago river, lived a Mr. White, as a tenant on a farm known by the name of Lee's place. In his em- ploy were three Frenchmen, whose business was to sow, plow and reap, depending on a Chicago market for a sale of their products. This place, then a lone- some habitation, remote from the incipient town, is now the center of the din of Chicago machinery for manufacturing the wooden luxuries of the age.
376
The Tragedy at Starved Rock.
At this time Illinois had been under the forms of a territorial government for three years-Ninian Edwards, governor, with Kaskaskia the capital. Camp Russell, the present seat of Edwardsville, in Madison county, was the northern limit of the settled portion of the ter- ritory, except Peoria, where a few French families lived, over whom he held no jurisdiction, and the fort at Chi- cago, which was under United States authority. Around the latter the Pottawattamies roamed, lords of the soil, according to Judge Caton's history of this tribe in a paper read before the Chicago Historical Society in 1870, and afterward published by Fergus in 1876, the data for which were received from one of their oldest ·chiefs. Their hunting grounds were limited on the south by Peoria lake, and on the west by Rock river. Since the days of the great Pontiac, their alliance with his tribe, the Ottawas, had been cemented into a chain of friendship strong and enduring; both had ever been active allies of the French since 1673, as appears from contemporary history, and both were unrelenting foes to the English during the long and bloody French and Indian war, and Pontiac's war which followed, a period extending from 1755 to 1764; and when their beloved chief Pontiac was basely murdered by an Illinois, both of these tribes took summary vengeance on the whole Illinois tribe, and at Starved Rock slaughtered the last remnant of them, except eleven warriors, who fled under cover of darkness to St. Louis. And this was the victory which gave the Pottawattamies so much ascendancy in northeastern Illinois. *
But since the period of French occupation, the for- tunes of the Indians had been changed. Their loving French brothers had been driven out of the country, and the British who drove them out were now their own allies, on whom they depended to beat back the ad- vancing hosts of Anglo-Americans who were rapidly encroaching on their hunting grounds.
The Pottawattamies had not yet felt the weight of their power, but the Shawanese had, and through the earnest solicitation of Tecumseh, who with far-seeing
* Caton's Address.
377
The Pottawattamies.
vision comprehended the situation, some of the Potta- wattamies had yielded to his seductive eloquence, joined his standard, and fought with the prophet the year before at the battle of Tippecanoe. Even then Tecum- seh had laid his plans to destroy Fort Dearborn, * but the defeat of his braves at that disastrous conflict arrested the execution of these plans until the war of 1812 had again revived them on a far grander scale.
In his erratic wanderings to gain allies for the pur- pose of driving the white settlers east of the Ohio river, he had visited the Winnebagoes of Rock river, as well as all the other tribes adjacent, and poured out his tales of grief to them against his white neighbors.
But while it is not to be presumed that he had won them all over to participate in his unrelenting hostility to the Americans, it is evident that some of the indis- crete and inflammable material among them had been brought to the surface, an instance of which was shown one day when some Indians of the Calumet had come to Fort Dearborn on business. Seeing Mrs. Heald and Mrs. Helm playing at a game, one of the swarthy vis- itors in an unguarded moment said to the interpreter, "The white chiefs' wives are amusing themselves very much; it will not be long before they are hoeing in our corn fields!" A few weeks later this proved to be more than an idle threat, when, owing to Tecumseh's in- fluence, or some other reason which never can be brought to light, the Winnebagoes made a raid on the settlers immediately adjacent to Fort Dearborn, which contemplated the killing of every one found outside of its palisades.
Their plan was to begin at the. outermost house and . kill all as they went along. This was Lee's place, and here the work began on the 7th of April. It was late in the afternoon when a party of ten or twelve Indians entered the house and seated themselves with the usual importunity of Indian manners.
Their appearance, however, aroused the suspicions of the inmates, and two of them, under pretense of feeding the cattle from some hay stacks across the
* Brown's History of Illinois. page 305.
378
Indian Raid on Lee's Place.
river, ferried over in a boat, but instead of coming back as they had promised, betook themselves to the skirt of timber which fringed the river, and made all speed toward the fort. Ere they had proceeded far, the report of two guns confirmed their suspicions against the strange party of Indians who had come so suddenly upon them, and they continued their flight in breathless haste, until the river opposite the house of Burns was reached. The alarm was given by calling loudly across to warn the inmates of danger, and the two fugitives continued their flight to the fort.
Consternation now filled the household of Burns. The mother lay on her couch, with her babe, less than a day old, and Mrs. John Kinzie sat by her side, attending to her wants with the tenderness that mothers can best feel on such occasions. But now the appall- ing news just received turned her thoughts away from Mrs. Burns and the little nursling beside her, to her own children at home, and she flew thither with the speed that terror lent to her limbs. Rushing in, she cried out, "The Indians! The Indians! Killing and scalping!" Mr. Kinzie dropped his violin, with which he was amusing the children, and the amateur quad- rille in which they were engaged changed into prepara- tions for flight; all rushed into two boats, which lay moored on the brink of the river, and in a few minutes were safely across, and inside the walls of Fort Dear- born.
Burns' family were not yet rescued, and who would undertake the mission, which the terrified messengers had made to appear so dangerous? Ensign Ronan was . the man, and leaping into the boat, with six soldiers equally brave, pulled up the river to Burns', and carried the mother, and her babe on her bed on board, and these, with the rest of the family, were soon safely landed inside the fort, showing by this daring act a heroism not surpassed by Lieut. Hobson in sinking the 'Merrimac."
The afternoon previous, a party of seven soldiers had : obtained leave to row up the south branch to its head waters. for the purpose of fishing. Night had now
379
A Scene of Murder.
come, but they had not yet returned. A gun was fired as a signal of danger, hearing which, the party quit their sport, and pulled silently down the river. Arriving at Lee's place, they landed to rescue the inmates. Ap- proaching the house by the light of a torch, a dead body was discovered, beside which lay a faithful dog. With increased haste they retreated, and now silently continued their way down the stream, and reached the fort at II o'clock at night. Early the next morning scouts were promptly sent to the scene. The dead body of the man, already discovered, proved to be one of the Frenchmen in the employ of Mr. White; his dog still lay by his side, in mournful silence; and but a few paces from it was discovered the dead body of Mr. White. Both the murdered men were taken to the fort, and buried just outside the palisade. Besides the families from outside the fort, now safely quartered within its protection, were some families of half-breeds, and a few discharged soldiers. These took refuge in the agency house. For extra protection they planked up the two verandas with which the building was fur- nished (more for comfort than elegance), and pierced the outer wall thus made with port holes.
Inside the fort was an ample store of provisions, among which such questionable luxuries as spirituous liquors had not been forgotten, and everything was in readiness for a siege. An order was issued to prevent any citizen or soldier from leaving without a guard, and a line of pickets was placed around the premises at night. In a few nights a small party of Indians were descried creeping stealthily through the pasture grounds adjoining the fort, like a group of thugs. They were immediately fired upon, not only by the patrolmen, but by the sentinel from the block house, and one of their number returned the fire by hurling back his hatchet at the patrolman's head. It missed it, however, and spent its force against a wheel of a wagon. The
next morning the leveled grass, stained with blood where his victim fell, proved the steady aim of the sentinel.
Soon afterward, another visitation was made of a similar character, probably for the purpose of stealing
380
Activity of the British.
horses from a stable outside the fort. But instead of finding horses, some sheep had taken refuge within its treacherous walls and became victims to the rage of the disappointed sneaks. The innocent animals were all stabbed as if they had been so many hyenas. Scouts were sent in pursuit of the miscreants who perpetrated the cruelty, but they could not be overtaken. In a few weeks the effect of these alarms passed away, and the social circle of Fort Dearborn resumed its composure. The Pottawattamies came and went, as ever, but under a masked disguise of a friendship ready to be thrown off at the most opportune occasion.
Let us now turn our attention again to Detroit, the central base of military movements on the upper lakes. Here we find General Hull encamped on British soil, across the river opposite Detroit, evidently under the painfully contending emotions of prudence and activity, with the former in the ascendant. But while this fatal paralysis had taken possession of him, the enemy were acting with a promptness seldom equaled in military annals, and, it may with truth be said, a haste which would have been fatal to them had not their antagonists (the Americans) been acting on the other extreme. In default of positive orders from the war department, to take the offensive, General Hull had at first hesitated to march against Malden; and when such orders came, so much time was consumed in preparation for the. enterprise, that General Proctor, by order of Sir George Prevost (the governor general of Canada), had rein- forced the place with an English regiment before Gen- eral Hull was ready to march against it.
This British reinforcement of Malden was effected on the 29th of July, and while it added to the perplexities of General Hull, he still looked for assistance from two different quarters which might extricate him from his perils, and place him in an invulnerable position. Gov. Meigs, of Ohio, had been ordered to send a supply of provisions to him under a military escort, commanded by Captain Brush, which was now on its way; but the most important assistance which he expected was looked for through an attack against the enemy in
381
Treacherous Peace Rumors.
another quarter, more vital to them, and which should divide their force and prevent the whole military weight of Canada from concentrating on Detroit. For this purpose, General Dearborn had been ordered to invade Canada from Niagara, but while on his way thither to take command of his army, already on the frontier, at Albany he was met by a flag of truce from the governor- general, borne by Colonel Bayes, from Montreal. This messenger was the official bearer of the news that the English had revoked their orders in council, which had for years been so obnoxious to American commerce, and which had been among the principal causes of the war. Under the influence of such a harbinger of peace, an armistice was proposed .* Unhappily for General Hull and the American cause, General Dearborn, instead of obeying his orders by invading Canada, signed the treacherous truce which relieved the English forces of Canada from any apprehensions of danger to their Niagara frontier while they were concentrating their force against Detroit.
While these contingencies were passing, so fortunately for the British, General Hull's indecision of purpose, which, it must be confessed, grew out of the web of difficulties which encompassed him, had forfeited all con- fidence in him from his army. On the 8th of August he called a council of war, in which it was decided to ad- vance against Malden, but news of the fatal armistice fol- lowed this decision, sent by a messenger from General Porter, who held command on the Niagara frontier, ac- companied with the unpropitious assurance that the pro- posed diversion of the English forces had resulted in a failure.
This dispiriting news prevented him from advancing against the objective point, and he retreated to Detroit. Two and a half miles from the present site of Monroe, Michigan, was a thriving French village, on the banks. of the river Raisin, thirty-six miles south of Detroit. The expected convoy of provisions had reached this
* It will not be forgotten that this revocation took place five days after the American declaration of war, as stated in the foregoing pages.
382
Battle at River Raisin.
place in safety, but between this point and Detroit Tecumseh interposed his army of braves, and the com- mander of the convoy, not deeming it prudent to ad- vance with such a numerous foe in his path, sent a messenger to General Hull for a force to open the way.
On the 4th of August, Major Van Horne, of Colonel Findley's regiment of Ohio volunteers, was sent on the mission with a command of 200 men. At Brownstown, nearly opposite Malden, he fell into an ambuscade and was driven back, with serious losses.
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