The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I, Part 53

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co
Number of Pages: 1096

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SIR, --

I have enclosed a letter for the perusal of the Assembly, from Colonel Clark at the Illinois. This letter, among other things, informs me of an expedition which he has planned and deter- mined to execute, in order to recover Fort St. Vincent, which had been formerly taken from the British troops, and garrison by those under the Colonel's command. This enterprise has suc- ceeded to our utmost wishes, for the garrison, commanded by Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant-Governor of Detroit, and consisting of British Regulars and a number of Volunteers, were made pris- oners of war. Colonel Clark has sent the Governor, with sev- eral officers and privates, under a proper guard, who have by this time arrived at New London in the county of Bedford.

Proper measures will be adopted by the Executive for their confinement and security. Unfortunately, the letters from Colonel

1 The fort Clark speaks of was Fort Lernoult, which was begun in the fall of 1778.

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Clark, containing, no doubt, particular accounts of this affair, was in the possession of an express who was murdered by a party of Indians on his way through Kentucky to this place. The letters, as I am informed, were destroyed. As the facts which I have mentioned are sufficiently authenticated, I thought it material that they should be communicated to the Assembly.

Soon afterwards letters were received from Col- onel Clark, and the State papers of Virginia contain this record :

IN COUNCIL, JUNE 18, 1779.

The Board proceeded to the consideration of the letters of Colonel Clark, and other papers relating to Henry Hamilton, Esq., who has acted some years past as Lieutenant-Governor of the settlement at and about Detroit, and commandant of the British garrison there, under Sir Guy Carlton as Governor in Chief, Philip Dejean, Justice of the Peace for Detroit, and William La Mothe, Captain of Volunteers, prisoners of war, taken in the county of Illinois. They find that Governor Hamilton has executed the task of inciting the Indians to perpetrate their accus- tomed cruelties on the citizens of the United States, without dis- tinction of sex, age, or condition, with an eagerness and avidity which evince that the general nature of his charge harmonized with his particular disposition. They should have been satisfied, from the other testimony adduced, that these enormities were committed by savages acting under his commission; but the num- ber of proclamations, which, at different times, were left in houses, the inhabitants of which were killed or carried away by the Indians, one of which proclamations is in possession of the board, under the hand and seal of Governor Hamilton, puts this fact beyond a doubt. At the time of his captivity, it appears, he had sent considerable bodies of Indians against the frontier settle- ments of these states, and had actually appointed a great council of Indians to meet him at Tennessee, to concert the operations of this present campaign. * * *

It appears that Governor Hamilton gave standing rewards for scalps, but offered none for prisoners, which induced the Indians, after making their captives carry their baggage into the neighbor- hood of the fort, there to put them to death and carry in their scalps to the Governor, who welcomed their return and success by a discharge of cannon.

That when a prisoner, brought alive, and destined to death by the Indians, the fire already kindled, and himself bound to the stake, was dextrously withdrawn, and secreted from them by the humanity of a fellow-prisoner, a large reward was offered for the discovery of the victim, which having tempted a servant to betray his concealment, the present prisoner Dejean, being sent with a party of soldiers, surrounded the house, took and threw into jail the unhappy victim and his deliverer, where the former soon ex- pired under the perpetual assurance of Dejean that he was again to be restored into the hands of the savages, and the latter, when en- larged, was bitterly reprimanded by Governor Hamilton. * * *

It appears that the prisoner La Mothe was a captain of the vol- unteer scalping parties of Indians and whites who went, from time to time, under general orders to spare neither men, women, nor children. * *

Called on by that justice we owe to those who are fighting the battles of our country, to deal out at length miseries to their enemies, measure for measure, and to distress the feelings of man- kind by exhibiting to them spectacles of severe retaliation, where we had long and vainly endeavored to introduce an emulation in kindness ; happily the possession, by the fortunes of war, of some of those very individuals, who, having distinguished themselves personally in this line of cruel conduct, are fit subjects to begin on with the work of retaliation, this board has resolved that the Governor, the said Henry Hamilton, Philip Dejean, and William La Mothe, prisoners of war, be put into irons, confined in the dungeon of the public jail, debarred the use of pen, ink and paper, and excluded all converse except with their keeper. And the Governor orders accordingly. Arch. Blair, C. C.

The putting of these officers in irons gave rise to a voluminous correspondence. Some one of the officers at Detroit wrote to Governor Jefferson of Virginia, protesting against the imprisonment of Governor Hamilton ; and his reply, given in the Calendar of Virginia State Papers, with some partly illegible words supplied in brackets, is as follows :

WILLIAMSBURGH, July 22, 1779.

SIR,-

Your letter on the subject of Lieutenant-Governor Hamilton's confinement came safely to hand.

I shall with great cheerfulness explain to you the reason on which the advice of Council was founded, since, after the satisfac- tion of doing what is right, the greatest is that of having what we do approved by those whose opinions deserve esteem.

We think ourselves justified in Governor Hamilton's strict con- finement on the general principle of national retaliation. To state to you the particular facts of British cruelty to American prisoners would be to give a melancholy history from the capture of Colonel Ethan Allen at the beginning of the war to the pres- ent day : a history of which I will avoid, as equally disagreeable to you and to me. I with pleasure do you the justice to say that I believe those facts to be very much unknown to you, as Canada has been the only scene of your service in America, and in that quarter we have reason to believe that Sir Guy Carlton and the other officers commanding there have treated our prisoners [since the instance of Colonel Allen] with considerable lenity. [As to] what has been done in England, and what in New York and Philadelphia, you are probably uninformed, as it would hardly be made the subject of epistolary correspondence.

I will only observe to you, sir, that the confinement and treat- ment of your [prisoners] officers, soldiers, and seamen, have been so vigorous and cruel as that a very great proportion of the whole of those captured in the course of this war and carried to Phila- delphia while in possession of the British army, and to New York, have perished miserably from that cause only, and that this fact is as well established with us as any historical fact which has happened in the course of the war.

A gentleman of this Commonwealth in public office, and of known and established character, who was taken on sea, carried to New York and exchanged, has given us lately particular informa- tion of the treatment of our prisoners there. * *

When, therefore, we are desired to advert to the possible conse- quences of treating prisoners with rigour, I need only ask, When did these rigours begin ? Not with us, assuredly. I think you, sir, who have had as good opportunities as any British officer of learning in what manner we treat those whom the fortune of war has put into our hands, can clear us from the charge of rigours, as far as your knowledge or information has extended. I can assert that Governor Hamilton's is the first instance which has occurred in my own country, and if there has been another in any of the United States, it is unknown to me. These instances must have been extremely rare, if they have ever existed at all, as they could not have been altogether unheard of by me. When a uni- form exercise of kindness to prisoners on our part has been returned by as uniform severity on the part of our enemies, you must excuse me for saying it is high time, by other lessons, to teach respect to the dictates of humanity ; in such a case retalia- tion becomes an act of benevolence.

But suppose, sir, we were willing still longer to decline the drudgery of general retaliation ; yet Governor Hamilton's conduct has been such as to call for exemplary punishment on him person- ally. In saying this I have not so much in view his particular cruelties to our citizens prisoners with him (which, though they have been great, were of necessity confined to a small scale), as the general nature of the service he undertook at Detroit, and the extensive exercise of cruelties which that involved. Those who act together in war are answerable to each other. No distinction can be made between the principal and ally by those against

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whom the war is waged. He who employs another to do a deed makes the deed his own. If he calls in the hand of the assassin or murderer, himself becomes the assassin or murderer. The known rule of warfare with the Indian savages is an indiscrimi- nate butchery of men, women and children. These savages, under this well-known character, are employed by the British nation as allies in the war against the Americans. Governor Hamilton undertakes to be the conductor of the war. In the exe- cution of that undertaking he associates small parties of whites under his immediate command with large parties of the Savages, and sends them to act, sometimes jointly, sometimes separately, not against our forts or armies in the field, but the farming settle- ments on our frontiers. Governor Hamilton, then, is himself the butcher of men, women and children. I will not say to what length the fair rules of war would extend the right of punishment against him, but I am sure that confinement, under its strictest circumstances, as a retaliation for Indian devastation and mas- sacre must be deemed Lenity. I apprehend you had not suffi- ciently adverted to the expression in the advice to the council, when you supposed the proclamation there alluded to to be the one addressed to the inhabitants of the Illinois. *

* * [The] Proclamation then alluded to contained nothing more than an invitation to our officers and soldiers to join the British arms against those whom he pleased to call Rebels and Traitors. In order to introduce these among our people they were put into the hands of the Indians, and in every house where they murdered or carried away the family they left one of these proclamations. Some of them were found sticking in the breasts of persons mur- dered, one under the hand and seal of Governor Hamilton. * * *

But if you will be so good as to recur to the address of the Illinois, which you refer to, you will find that tho' it does not, in express terms, threaten vengeance, blood, and massacre, yet it proves that the Governor had made for us the most ample pro- vision of all these calamities.

He then gives in detail the horrid Catalogue of savage nations, extending from south to north, whom he had leagued with himself to wage combined war on our frontiers ; and it is well known that that war would of course be made up of blood, and general massacre of men, women, and children. Other papers of Governor Hamilton's have come to our hands, containing instructions to officers going out with scalping parties of Indians and whites, and proving that that kind of war was waged under his express orders. Further proof in abundance might be added, but I suppose the fact too notorious to need them.

Your letter seems to admit an inference that, whatever may have been the general conduct of our enemies towards their pris- oners, or whatever the personal conduct of Governor Hamilton, yet, as a prisoner by capitulation, you consider him as privileged from strict confinement. I do not pretend to an intimate knowl- edge of this subject. My idea is that the term " prisoner of war" is a generic one, the specification of which is first, prisoners at discretion ; and second, prisoners in convention or capitulation. Thus in the debate in the House of Commons of the 27th of November last on the address, the minister, speaking of General Burgoyne (and in his presence), says he is a "prisoner," and General Burgoyne calls himself a "prisoner under the terms of the convention of Saratoga," intimating that, tho' a prisoner, he was a prisoner of particular species, entitled to certain terms. The treatment of the first class ought to be such as is approved by the usage of polished nations: gentle and humane, unless a contrary conduct in an enemy or individual render a strict treat- ment necessary. The prisoners of the second class have nothing to exempt them from a like treatment with those of the first, except so far as they shall have been able to make better terms by articles of capitulation. * *

* However, we may waive rea- soning on this head, because no article in the Capitulation of Governor Hamilton is violated by his confinement.

Perhaps, not having seen the Capitulation, you were led to think it were a thing of course that, being able to obtain terms of surrender, they would first provide for their own treatment. I enclose you a copy of the Capitulation, by which you will see

that the second Article declares them prisoners of war, and nothing is said as to the treatment they were to be entitled to. When Governor Hamilton signs indeed, he adds a flourish, con- taining the motives inducing him to capitulate, one of which was confidence in a generous enemy. He should have reflected that generosity on a large scale would take sides against him. How- ever, these were only his private motives, and did not enter into the contract with Colonel Clark. Being prisoners of war, then, with only such privileges as their Capitulation has provided, and that having provided nothing on the subject of their treatment, they are liable to be treated as other prisoners. We have not extended our orders, as we might justifiably have done, to the whole of this Corps. Governor Hamilton and Captain La Mothe alone, as leading offenders, are in confinement. The other officers and men are treated as if they had been taken in justifiable war: the offi- cers being at large on their parole, and the men also having their liberty to a certain extent. Dejean was not included in the Cap- itulation, being taken eight days after, on the Wabache, one hundred and fifty miles from St. Vincennes.

I hope, Sir, that being made more fully acquainted with the facts on which the advice of council was grounded, and exercising your own good sense in cool and candid deliberation on these facts, and the consequences deducted from them, according to the usage and sentiments of civilized nations, you will see the trans- action in a very different light from that in which it appears at the time of writing your Letter, and ascribe the advice of the council, not to want of attention to the sacred nature of public Conventions, of which I hope we shall never, in any circum- stances, lose sight, but to a desire of stopping the effusion of the unoffending blood of women and children, and the unjustifiable severities exercised on our captive officers and soldiers in general, by proper severity on our part.

I have the honor to be, with much personal respect,

Sir,

Your most obed't & most h'ble Servant,

THOMAS JEFFERSON.

The imprisonment of these officers was brought to the attention of General Washington, and on August 6 he wrote to Jefferson, advising that the irons be removed. His request was at once acceded to, and on September 29, 1779, the Virginia Council ordered that Governor Hamilton, Captain La Mothe, and Philip Dejean be sent to Hanover Court House, to remain at large on parole. The prisoners objected to a parole which would prevent them from saying anything to the prejudice of the United States, and so they were remanded to confinement in jail until they could " determine with themselves to be inof- fensive in word as well as deed." They were appa- rently again put into irons. Efforts in their behalf were continued, and the records of the Virginia Council for October, 1779, contain a memorandum of a letter from Governor Jefferson to Colonel Mat- thews, who had been a prisoner in Hamilton's power ; Matthews pleaded for leniency towards Hamilton, and brought a second letter from Washington, dis- approving of his being in irons. These were again taken off, and Jefferson wrote to Colonel Matthews as follows :

Governor Hamilton and his companions were imprisoned and ironed, first in retaliation for cruel treatment of our captive citi- zens by the enemy in general. 2nd. For the barbarous species of warfare which himself and his Savage allies carried on in our west-

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ern frontier. 3rd. For particular acts of barbarity, of which he himself was personally guilty, to some of our citizens in his power. Any one of these charges was sufficient to justify the measure we took. Of the truth of the first yourself are witness. Your situa- tion, indeed, seems to have been better since you were sent to New York; but reflect on what you suffered before that, and knew others of your countrymen to suffer, and what you know is now suffered by that more unhappy part of them who are still confined on board of the prison ships of the enemy. Proofs of the second charge, we have under Hamilton's own hand ; and of the third, as sacred assurances as human testimony is capable of giving. Humane conduct on our part was found to produce no effect ; the contrary, therefore, was to be tried.

In a letter to Washington, dated November 28, 1779, Jefferson says:

Lamothe and Dejean have given their parole, and are at Han- over Court House ; Hamilton, Hay, and four others are still obsti- nate. They, therefore, are still in close confinement, though their irons have never been on since your second letter on the subject.

On June 15, 1780, Governor Hamilton and the other prisoners were in confinement at Charlottes- ville, Va., and Colonel James Wood, then in com- mand of that place, wrote to Governor Jefferson .

SIR,-

I am Honored with your Letter of the 9th instant, with the sev- eral Inclosures, and shall think myself Happy if I am able to carry your Ideas into Execution.

I have issued Peremptory Orders for all the officers, without dis- tinction, to repair within five days to the Barracks, and shall cer- tainly enforce them with strictness. * *

* I am well assured that had the Assembly extended their resolutions no farther than to have restricted the Officers to the Limits of the County, and called in all their Supernumerary Servants, it would have answered a much Better Purpose. I hope I shall be excused for giving my opinion thus freely, as your Excellency may be assured it proceeds from my zeal for the Service. * * * I shall be extremely glad to be informed by the return of the Dragoon whether the officers are to be closely confined to the Barracks ; whether some of them who have built Huts, within the distance of four miles, are to be removed ; and whether I am to demand other paroles of them, and what the Terms of the new ones are to be.

P. S. General Hamilton requests to know whether the General Officers, their Aid-de-camps, Brigade Majors, and Servants, are meant to be included. He says they will willingly give any Parole that may be thought necessary.

For some unexplained reason General Washington continued to interest himself in these prisoners, and on September 26, 1780, Jefferson wrote to him, from Richmond, as follows :

I was honored, yesterday, with your favor of the 5th instant, on the subject of prisoners, and particularly of Lieutenant Governor Hamilton. You are not unapprised of the influence of this officer with the Indians, his activity and embittered zeal against us. You also, perhaps, know how precarious is our tenure of the Illinois County, and critical is the situation of the new coun- ties on the Ohio. These circumstances determined us to retain Governor Hamilton and Major Hay within our power, when we delivered up the other prisoners. On a late representation from the people of Kentucky, by a person sent here from that country, and expressions of what they had reason to apprehend from these two prisoners, in the event of their liberation, we assured them they would not be parted with, though we were giving up our other prisoners.

It is probable that Washington replied, opposing the determination of Jefferson, for on October 10 Governor Hamilton was released on the following parole :

I, Henry Hamilton, Lieutenant Governor and Superintendent of Detroit, do hereby acknowledge myself a prisoner of War to the Commonwealth of Virginia, and having permission from his Excellency Thomas Jefferson, Governor of said Commonwealth, to go to New York, do pledge my faith and most sacredly promise upon my parole of Honor, that I will not do, say, write, or cause to be done, said, or written, directly or indirectly, in any respect whatever, anything to the prejudice of the United States of Amer- ica, or any of them, until I shall be enlarged from my captivity by Exchange or otherwise, with the consent of the said Governor of Virginia or his successors, and that I will return, when required by the said Governor or his successors, to such place within the said Commonwealth as he shall point out, and deliver myself up again to him or the person acting for or under him.

In testimony whereof I have hereunto set my hand and seal at Chesterfield, this roth day of October, 1780.

HENRY HAMILTON.

On the same day Major Jehu Hay, of the Detroit militia, was paroled to go to New York.

Of the other prisoners taken by Colonel Clark, Schiefflin escaped in April, 1780, and returned to Detroit, and on June I following, while in confine- ment, Maisonville committed suicide. On March 4, 1781, Hamilton, Lamothe, and McBeath were ex- changed.

With regard to the character of Governor Hamil- ton and the warfare that he encouraged, Mr. Tucker, in his Life of Jefferson, on page 129, questions the justice of the stigma which has been publicly affixed to the character of this British officer. Mr. Tucker says that in early youth he was acquainted with him ; and that "he was an educated and well-bred gentle- man, possessed of a soldierly frankness, great liber- ality, etc." He also says, "Colonel Clark makes no mention of his ill treatment of prisoners." Con- cerning this defense, it is a sufficient answer to refer to Clark's letters to the inhabitants of Vincennes and to Governor Hamilton, both of which are amply verified. For the rest, the letter of Jefferson to the Governor of Detroit will safely stand against the statement of Jefferson's historian, who does not seem to have been aware of its existence.

The best defense that can be made for Hamilton is that he acted under orders from his superiors; but he seems to have been a willing instrument, and to have gone beyond any instructions in his endeavor to punish the Americans.

In 1784, when General Haldimand went back to England, Mr. Hamilton, as the oldest member of the Legislative Council, was left in charge of the duties of Governor of Canada, for about a year, when Henry Hope succeeded him as the regular appointee.

Returning again to the history of the efforts to capture Detroit, we find that while Hamilton was

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meditating on his evil deeds in a Virginia prison, efforts were still being made to organize an expedi- tion against Detroit; and the letters of Colonel Daniel Brodhead, in command of Continental troops at Pittsburgh, are full of interesting particulars. He succeeded General McIntosh at that place, and in a letter dated April 16, 1779, addressed to Major- General Armstrong, gives these facts as to McIn- tosh's proposed expedition against Detroit :

The Board of War informed me before I left Carlysle that the views of Congress were that it was too late to prosecute their main object. But General McIntosh was more ambitious. He swore that nothing less than Detroit was his object, and he would have it in the winter season. In vain was the nakedness of the men, the scanty supplies, worn-out, starved horses, leaness of the cattle, and total want of forage, difficulty, under such circum- stances, of supporting posts at so great a distance in the enemy's country, and other considerations, urged.

General McIntosh determined to make a trial, and it was owing to his determination that the military absurdity called Fort McIntosh was built by the hands of hundreds that were eager to wield sword and gun. The following letter from Colonel Brod- head to Major-General Green, dated Pittsburgh, May 26, 1779, gives particulars regarding the fort :

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The history of Detroit and Michigan; or, The metropolis illustrated; a chronological cyclopedia of the past and present, Vol I, Part 53

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902 Publication date: 1889 Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co Number of Pages: 1096

Author: Farmer, Silas, 1839-1902
Publication date: 1889
Publisher: Detroit, S. Farmer & co
Number of Pages: 1096