History of Detroit and Wayne County and early Michigan: A Chronological Cyclopedia of the Past and Present, Vol. I, Part 60

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Detroit, Pub. by S. Farmer & co., for Munsell & co., New York
Number of Pages: 1094

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and mangled, and left lying in the road. Sworn testimony in abundance, subsequently submitted to Congress by Judge Woodward, shows that after these events the dead bodies were literally devoured where they lay, by hogs and dogs.

In after years the citizens of Detroit did not fail to do honor to the heroes of Kentucky who were massacred at the Raisin. On June 22, 1818, a meeting was held at the council-house to take measures for collecting the remains of the Ameri- can officers and soldiers killed at the memorable battle of January 22, 1813. Governor Cass pre- sided. A committee was appointed to remove the remains from the river Raisin to Detroit, and on August 8, 1818, they were buried in the Protestant Burying Ground, with the honors of war. An oration appropriate to the occasion was delivered at the council-house by Samuel T. Davenport, and a large procession accompanied the honored relics to their new resting place.

In 1834 the box containing these remains (all of the skulls showing the mark of the tomakawk) was removed to the City Cemetery on Clinton Street; and from there again removed, in September, 1849, by Colonel E. Brooks, who carried them, with other bones collected in Monroe County, to Frankfort, Kentucky. He arrived there on September 30, and the venerated remains were deposited, with appro- priate ceremonies, in the State Cemetery of Ken- tucky.

After the massacre at the Raisin, the few who were judged able to march were taken to Malden and Detroit, but when any of them gave out they were tomahawked without mercy. Those who could scarcely walk on account of wounded and bleeding feet were compelled to dance on the frozen ground for the amusement of the savages.

On the arrival of the prisoners at Detroit, the inhabitants used great exertions to procure accom- modations for the wounded, and to ransom the prisoners from the Indians. Thirty-four or more were ransomed here, seven by Colonel Elliott of Malden, and one by Colonel Francis Baby. Day after day, for a month, the prisoners were brought in; and with the characteristic sympathy of their sex, the women left ordinary duties undone that they might watch at their doors to bargain for the ran- som and relief of the sick and wounded.

The unfortunate prisoners were literally hawked about the streets for sale, the price ranging from ten dollars to eighty dollars. The only question with the Indians seemed to be, whether they could get more goods for a live captive than for a fresh scalp. One account says, "They even dug up the dead bodies and tore off their scalps that they might cheat their employers by selling them at the same price as if taken from the newly dead." In their efforts to

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satisfy the savages and release the noble Kentucki- ans who had volunteered for the rescue of Detroit, many citizens absolutely impoverished themselves. Household valuables, clothing, shawls, and blankets from the beds, were given in exchange for the cap- tives.

General Cass, in an article contained in the North American Review for April, 1827, shows conclu- sively that the British Government did not ransom a single prisoner during the War of 1812, and that a positive official order was issued prohibiting Amer- ican citizens from so doing. He also shows that the order of General Proctor, to allow five dollars for prisoners brought in alive, was not issued until July 20, 1813, long after the time when it could have saved the life of a single person, and then only five dollars a prisoner was offered, when scores had been ransomed by the Americans for fifty dollars and upwards each.

The barbarities of the Indians were under the eye and by the consent of Proctor, whose name should be disassociated from the country he represented ; he was a creature without honor or humanity, his character and his acts were infamous. Following up the impulses of his nature, in order to retaliate for the implied condemnation of his course by the earnest efforts of the inhabitants to ransom cap- tives, he forbade any further ransoming, and imme- diately after the massacre, in the middle of a cold winter, ordered all the leading Americans, some thirty in number, to leave the Territory.

The following is a copy of one of the original notifications, preserved by the State Historical So- ciety :

DETROIT, Ist Feb., 1813.

GENTLEMEN,-

I am ordered by Colonel Proctor to say that he expects you will be prepared to leave the country on Friday next in company with a number of American citizens from this place.

Gentlemen, your most ob't servant, WILLIAM JONES. To Messrs. H. y. B. Brevoort and William Macomb.

These orders drew out a protest, which is given in full in Niles' Register, Volume V, page 185. It was dated February 1, 1813, and began as follows :

Whereas, it has been signified to us, the undersigned, citizens of the United States, resident at Detroit, in the Territory of Michi- gan, by Colonel Henry Proctor, the British Commanding officer, that it is his will and pleasure we should depart from and leave the said Territory, and he so orders and directs it; leaving behind at the same time, as we necessarily must do, our dearest relatives exposed to all the cruelties and evils incident to a state of war, and our property at the mercy of the marauding savages.

The protest then recites the terms of the surrender of 1812, claims that the order to leave is a gross violation of the conditions of surrender, and that it is the duty of the signers to resist the orders, and requests Judge Woodward to present the protest to

Proctor. It was signed by Lewis Bond, David Mc- Lean, William Wilson, John Dicks, Arch. Lyon, Israel Taylor, Anderson Martin, William M. Scott, David Henderson, William Russell, Joseph Spencer, James Patterson, George R. Chittenden, W. Robert- son, John Walker, Conrad Seek, E. Brush, Conrad Ten Eyck, Peter Desnoyers, Robert Smart, James Burnett, Richard H. Jones, William Brown, J. Mc- Donnell, John Congsett, Duncan Reid, A. Langan, George Battzes, and James Chittenden.

This protest produced no effect, and the citizens were compelled to leave. At this time, and from the day of the surrender to the day of re-occupation, thousands of Indians, men, women, and children, were collected in and about the town, and as many as twelve hundred rations daily were issued to them. The resources or the willingness of the British offi- cers finally became unequal to the task, and before the Americans, under General Harrison, had arrived, a mortality broke out among them that swept thou- sands to the grave.

The inhabitants meantime were plundered in every possible way. Upon one occasion an Indian entered Major Dequindre's store, and taking a roll of cloth started for the door. The major leaped over the counter, took the cloth away, and drove him and a comrade out of the store. They instantly raised the war-cry, and Dequindre, seeing there was trouble ahead, locked the door, and ran to the fort to seek protection for himself and his goods. He was coolly told that nothing could be done. He then sought the aid of Colonel McKee, the British Indian agent. Meantime, nearly one thousand Indians had gathered at his store, and broken in his doors and windows. Colonel McKee, who had great influence over the Indians, persuaded them to follow him to the common. He then obtained three barrels of whiskey from Judge McDonnell and Rob- ert Smart, and soon most of the savages were too drunk to fight successfully. The sober Indians were then stationed at the dwellings of citizens most likely to be attacked; and, wrapped in their blankets, lay on the doorsteps as a guard. During the war the Canadians resident at Detroit protected their cattle by designating them with a red mark, and their houses were preserved from pillage by a similar sign.

The following story of these times was related to Mrs. Ellet, author of the " Pioneer Women of the West," by General John E. Hunt of Toledo:

On a beautiful Sunday morning in Detroit, I heard the scalp- whoop of a war party coming up the river. When they came near, I discovered that they were carrying a woman's scalp upon a pole, and that they had with them, as prisoners, a family of nine children, from three years old up to two girls full grown. These little captives had nothing on their heads, and their clothes were torn into shreds by the brushwood and the bushes in the way by which they had come. I went to meet them, brought them into

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my house, gave them and their Indian captors a meal, with a few loaves of bread for further use, and told the children not to be frightened or uneasy, for that my brother would buy them from the Indians when he should return from Canada, whither he had gone to spend the Sabbath with his father-in-law. The next day the prisoners came again, accompanied by about five hundred Indians. My brother, H. J. Hunt, paid five hundred dollars for their ransom, and sent them home. * *

* A young girl who had been thus rescued and taken into a family, seeing a party of Indians pass by one day, uttered a piercing shriek, and fell sense- less to the floor. On recovering consciousness, she declared that she had seen her mother's scalp in possession of one of the savages, recognizing it by the long light braid of hair. Her story was confirmed by a person who had seen the mother and daughter brought with other prisoners from near Sandusky, Ohio. The mother being in feeble health, and unable to travel as fast as required, was tomahawked, her daughter being hurried on in ignorance of the cruel murder.

Early in February, 1813, Proctor commenced to plan for the invasion of the valley of the Maumee. To this end, in April, Tecumseh and fifteen hundred Indians had collected at Malden. They sailed, April 23, for Fort Meigs, and attacked that place on May I, but it resisted all their efforts, and on May 5 Proctor abandoned the attack, returned to Malden, and disbanded the Canadian militia.

The Americans were not inactive. Large bodies of militia were gathered in Ohio and Kentucky, and, under the leadership of General Harrison, were moving towards Detroit. Dr. Brunson, in his " Western Pioneer," gives the following account of soldier fare at the time the troops arrived at San- dusky Bay :

We drew our pork and flour, but we had no camp equipage, not having yet reached our regiment. We kindled fires of drift-wood, found on the beach, and took the flour, some on pieces of bark, and some in dirty pocket handkerchiefs. If we had cups, we ladled the water from the bay into the flour, and those who had no cups lifted the water with their two hands so arranged as to form · a cup. The flour thus wet, without salt, yeast, or shortening, was baked, some on pieces of bark before the fire, hoe-cake or johnny- cake fashion. Some removed the fire, and put the dough into the hot sand, wrapped in leaves or paper. Our pork we cooked in the blaze of the fire, on the points of sticks.

Other details are thus narrated :

The country was infested with Indians, accompanied by British regulars, and we expected an attack every night for ten days. General Harrison said that his spies reported five thousand regu- lars and six thousand Indians on the way for that purpose; and knowing that his army of twenty-five hundred men could not resist eleven thousand, he made a requisition on Governor Meigs, of Ohio, for four thousand militia, who were on the march to assist us. The spies reported that the enemy had left Fort Meigs, on the Maumee River, and were heading toward our camp. In view of the near approach of the enemy, the General thought it prudent to fall back toward Upper Sandusky, till he met Governor Meigs, with his reinforcement, and then return to the fight; but he could not retreat and leave Major Croghan at Fort Stephenson, with one hundred and forty-three men, where, with such a force against them, they must be cut off. The General therefore sent an express to the Major to burn his fort, and every thing in it that his men could not carry on their backs, and retreat on the east side of the river, so as to be at Seneca at reveille the next morning. But it so happened - fortunately, as it turned out - that the express

missed his way, got lost in the woods, and did not reach the Major till the next day at ten o'clock A. M .. In the meantime, everything was prepared by General Harrison's army at Seneca for a retreat at reveille that morning. * * * Morning came, and no troops from the little fort. It would not do to retreat and leave them. A council of war was called to decide what should be done. * * When General Cass was asked his opinion, he said, " General, you are in command; you must do as you think best." "But," said Harrison, " two heads are better than one, and I want your opin- ion." "Well, it is my opinion, then, that we would better not retreat till we see something to retreat from." This settled the question, and every man was set at work to strengthen our defences and prepare for the worst.

Major Croghan, knowing that the failure of the express to reach him in time to obey the order would thwart the General's designs, and that he must wait for further orders, and as his own spies had reported only hundreds, where the General's had reported thou- sands, believed that he could defend the little fort, if attacked, before another order could be received. As he had to wait for further orders, he sent the express back with this letter: " I have men enough, ammunition enough, and provisions enough, and d-n me if I quit the fort."

The express reached headquarters with this insolent letter about sundown. The General, of course, was nettled. The Major was a pet of his; had seen service with him through the war, from Tippecanoe to this time ; and to get such a letter from his pet was rather too much for his friendship to bear ; and, be- sides, subordination must be preserved or the army would be ruined.

The next morning Colonel Wells was ordered to the command of the little fort, and Colonel Ball, with his two hundred dra- goons, was ordered to escort him down to it, and bring up Major Croghan under arrest. About noon, the order was executed, and the little Major, only nineteen years of age, was brought into camp a prisoner. * * * When the Major appeared before him he sprang to his feet, and with vehemence said, " Major Croghan, how came you to send me that insolent letter ? " " Why, General, did n't the express explain it?" "Explain it ! What explanation can be given to such a letter as that ? " "Why, General, didn't he tell you that he didn't get there till yesterday morning at ten o'clock ?" "Yes, he told me that. But what has that to do with this letter ? " " Why, you know I could n't evacuate the fort, and get here by reveille of the morning previous." "Of course not." "Well, I knew that your plans must be thwarted by the circum- stance, and that I must wait for further orders ; and believing that I was completely invested by the enemy, and that the express and the letter would fall into his hands, I determined, if it did, to send him as bullying a one as possible. But I told the express, the d ---- d rascal, that if he got through with it to explain it to you. Didn't he do it, General ?" "No, he did n't." "Why, General, you know that I understand my business, and the duties of a subordinate too well to send you such a letter, under any other circumstances." "Why, certainly, I thought so ; and that was the mystery of the case. But how could I understand it without an explanation ? and with this I am satisfied." And before night the Major was restored to his command. * * * In two days after his return, he fought the memorable battle of Fort Stephenson, having but one hundred and forty-three men to repulse eleven hundred of the enemy.

General Proctor, who was thus defeated, had at first determined to attack Fort Meigs. He collected a large number of savages, and reached the fort on July 25, but after a two days' attack they retired, and proceeded to attack Fort Stephenson near San- dusky, where Croghan was in command. The result has been already stated : Proctor lost nearly as many men as the entire number of the garrison, and, on August 3, retreated.

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During these weeks the American fleet had been gathering at Erie, and on September 10 Oliver Hazard Perry won, at Put-in-Bay, a most complete and brilliant victory over the British fleet. "If a victory is to be gained, I will gain it," said Perry, as he sailed across the bay. Full well he proved his words, and " We have met the enemy and they are ours " was the laconic of his day.

On September 20 he transported Harrison's army from Port Clinton to Put-in-Bay Island ; on the 24th they proceeded to Middle Sister Island, and on the 27th arrived at Malden. The news of Perry's vic- tory, and the onward movement of Harrison's army, reached Proctor on September 26. He immediately commenced to send his heavy baggage and supplies up the river, and on September 28 the last of the British army left Detroit. Mr. Coffin, in his " War of 1812," says that Proctor "transported all the guns across the river to * * Windsor. His *

retreat * * * was deliberately organized and judiciously planned." He " sent off his heavy bag- gage, reserve supplies, women and children, in advance ; and on the 28th finally relinquished De- troit, and fell back upon British territory." In his retreat he pressed into his service all the horses which the inhabitants had not effectually concealed. One only -- and that a very indifferent one-was left, and this was appropriated by Governor Shelby. The American army proceeded from Malden to Sandwich, where they arrived on the 29th.

Meantime the inhabitants at Detroit were all in anxious expectation of the troops. A daughter of Judge May, afterwards Mrs. Colonel Edward Brooks, found the old flag, which had been secreted by the judge in his garret, and it was hoisted on the top of the old Mansion House. The same day, the 29th, the army arrived at Sandwich, and immedi- ately on their arrival, General McArthur came over and took possession of the town. When his troops landed there were about six hundred Indians back of the town jerking beef. They abandoned their occupation hurriedly as soon as he came, decamping in such haste that they left enough meat behind to supply the brigade for several days.

The Kentucky soldiers - with their blue hunt- ing-shirts, red belts, and blue pantaloons fringed with red -met with a hearty welcome; even be- fore they landed many were weeping tears of joy as they saw the old flag again waving over their homes.

The fort was newly christened Fort Shelby, in honor of the brave Governor of Kentucky, who, when sixty-three years of age, had marched at the head of his troops to the relief of Detroit. His State, during the War of 1812, up to October 12, 1813, had sent over 17,375 troops to the field, and

at one time, in October, 1813, had over 7,000 soldiers in the army.

On the evening of September 25, 1813, Colonel R. M. Johnson, then at Fort Meigs with a regiment of Kentucky cavalry, received orders from General Harrison to march immediately to the river Raisin, as it was probable that the army would land the next day on the Canada shore. Johnson's force pressed forward, stopping at Frenchtown long enough to bury the remains of the Kentuckians massacred the previous January, and late in the forenoon of September 30 the head of the column emerged from the woods of Springwells. The entire population of the town gathered along the river-road to greet the eleven hundred horsemen as they thundered by. Colonel Johnson and his army crossed over to Sandwich on October I, and on the 2d Harrison and Shelby, with thirty-five hundred troops, left Detroit in pursuit of Proctor,-Perry, with the Ariel and the Caledonia, going up the river. When fifteen miles up the Thames, Perry with his troops left the vessels and accompanied the army.

The battle of the Thames was fought on October 5. Proctor was defeated, and Tecumseh killed. Perry and Harrison returned to Detroit, October 7, the army under Governor Shelby arriving on the Ioth.

Several days were spent in taking care of the British prisoners, many of whom were sent to Chillicothe. Soon after October 16, General Har- rison started for Niagara, reaching Buffalo the 24th of October. General Cass was left in command at Detroit with the Seventeenth, Twenty-sixth, Twenty- seventh, and Twenty-eighth Regiments of United States Infantry, and Captain Sholes' company of artillery. A few days later a regiment of Pennsyl- vania militia came. General Cass, as brigadier- general of the United States army commanding the Western District of Upper Canada, exercised authority in both civil and military matters; and many commissions are in existence issued by him to sheriffs, auctioneers, and other officers in Canada.

Before winter set in General Cass, Colonel Paul of the Twenty-seventh Regiment, and many other officers left Detroit, and the command devolved upon Colonel Butler, with Colonel George Croghan as second in command. Concerning this period, one of the soldiers says, " To prepare for winter we had a heavy job before us. The British had burned the fort, leaving nothing but the heavy earthworks. They left nothing combustible, not a board or stick of timber, and we were compelled to go to the woods, from one to three miles distant, or to the islands, still further, to get logs and poles with which to build huts to winter in. Until these could

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be got ready, we occupied tents and vacant houses in the city."

Before they had got into their winter quarters the army was attacked by an enemy which decimated their ranks to an extent far greater than their losses by battle. A disease, similar in action to the cholera, carried them off by hundreds. Some of the citizens were also among the victims. Reliable accounts say that fully seven hundred soldiers died in a few weeks. "The surgeons treated their patients as for common bilious attacks, but they died as many as six or eight a day. The surgeons had been care- less, and more intent upon their own comfort than that of the sick, until they became alarmed for their reputation and office, when, by a post mortem examination, they discovered the nature of the dis- ease, and then put a stop to it." The entire army on the northern frontier was similarly affected. At Detroit so great was the demand for coffins that finally no one was able to procure them; and pits were dug near the fort, in which many soldiers were buried together as in one grave. Such was the excitement and the fear of infection that burial immediately followed death, and in at least one case a man was about being buried before death had taken place. He was rescued by Victor Morass. A general order required the dead to be buried at twelve, noon. A squad of men under arms, with muffled drums, were in attendance, and one salute was fired over the common grave.

In 1823 the plain where the soldiers were buried was used as the parade-ground, and was covered with the tents of the soldiers then in the garrison. (See Cemeteries.) By January 23, 1814, the epi- demic had passed away, and the troops were in fair health. Other events of this time are thus detailed by Dr. Brunson :

As the spring of 1814 opened, the British were gathering in force at the head of the Thames, threatening to descend upon Detroit. A flag-officer was sent to our headquarters on some business, real or pretended, and while there, a regiment of Penn- sylvania militia, whose term of six months service had expired, demanded their discharge. No arguments or patriotic persuasions could induce them to remain till another regiment that was to relieve them should arrive. Their time was out and they must go, and go they would, and go they did. Means were taken to have them leave the place by a back way, and not to pass by the window where the flag officer was quartered-being headquarters ; but no, they were free men now and they would go where they pleased, and the whole regiment went by, and in sight of the officer, in an unarmed and helter-skelter manner. This must be counteracted, or the officer might make such a report to his chief as would induce an immediate attack upon us.

To do this, the Seventeenth Regiment of Infantry, whose quar- ters were outside, and east of the fort, just about sundown shoul- dered their guns and knapsacks, and moved stealthily round back of the fort, and down towards Springwells, and then marched up the road by the headquarters, straggling along as if greatly fatigued from a long and hard march. It was beginning to be dark, so that they could not be seen distinctly from the window of the officer, to enable him to form an opinion of their number; but the line stretched along for half a mile or more. As the head

of the column came up by the gate, at headquarters, Colonel Croghan, by order of Colonel Butler, who was in command, went out to and conversed with the officer in command of the new- comers, to receive his report. After talking some time, while the column was straggling along by, the new officer leaned against the fence, as if greatly fatigued from the long march.

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History of Detroit and Wayne County and early Michigan: A Chronological Cyclopedia of the Past and Present, Vol. I, Part 60

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902 Publication date: 1890 Publisher: Detroit, Pub. by S. Farmer & co., for Munsell & co., New York Number of Pages: 1094

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1890
Publisher: Detroit, Pub. by S. Farmer & co., for Munsell & co., New York
Number of Pages: 1094