USA > Ohio > Allen County > A standard history of Allen county, Ohio : an authentic narrative of the past, with particular attention to the modern era in the commercial, industrial, educational, civic and social development > Part 16
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I am, very respectfully, Your Excellency's Most Obedient Servant, Edward W. Tupper, Brigadier Gen. Ohio Quota."
In a letter, dated January 8, 1813, Harrison wrote to the Secretary of War: "My plan of operation has been, and now is, to occupy the Miami Rapids, and to deposit there as much provisions as possible, to move from thence with choice detachment of the army, and with as much provision, artillery and ammunition as the means of transportation will allow, make a demonstration towards Detroit and, by a sudden passage of the strait upon the ice, an actual investiture of Malden. * * *
It was my intention to have assembled at the Rapids from 4,500 to 5,000 men, and to be governed by circumstances in forming the detachment with which I should advance."
General Winchester had been authorized to proceed to the Maumee Rapids as soon as he had accumulated sufficient supplies to make the advance safe. On his way from Defiance a dispatch reached him from Harrison recommending the abandonment of this project. But Har- rison treated Winchester as an equal and not as an under officer. Hence Winchester followed his own ideas and continued the march. On the tenth of January, 1813, he reached a point above the site of the Battle of Fallen Timbers. He had with him an army of 1,300 men. Here he established an improvised encampment and storehouse. The soldiers were able to gather corn from the fields, which was boiled whole and supplied them with some additional food. Some improvised devices were made to pound corn into meal. The enemy were encamped in consider- able numbers around and about the site of Fort Miami, but they retreated. A number of messengers arrived at his camp from Frenchtown (now Monroe) representing the danger to which the inhabitants were ex- posed from the hostility of British and Indians and almost tearfully begging for protection. These representations excited the sympathies
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of the Americans and turned their attention from the main object of the campaign, causing them to forget to a great extent proper military precaution. These messengers reported that the Indians had threatened to kill the inhabitants and burn the town. A council of officers was called by General Winchester and a majority were in favor of sending a strong detachment to the relief of Frenchtown.
Col. William Lewis was first dispatched with 550 men on January 17th. A few hours later Col. John Allen followed with 110 men, . and overtook the others at the mouth of the river. Marching along the frozen borders of the bay and lake they reached there on the afternoon of the following day. Attacking the enemy who were posted in the village, they gained possession of it after a spirited engagement. Learn- ing that the savages were collecting in force, General Winchester became alarmed and started from the Maumee Rapids on the 19th with all the troops that he could detach to the relief of that settlement, in all about 250 men. They arrived there on the 20th instant. As soon as General Harrison received word of Winchester's advance he was alarmed and made a quick advance to the Rapids. The artillery was ordered to follow and droves of hogs started. He arrived there on the 20th and immedi- ately sent a courier to Frenchtown.
Had General Winchester followed the advice of those wiser than himself, a disaster might have been prevented. But he relaxed him- self in the good home of Colonel Navarre, where he was established, and was not as vigilant as he should have been. He left his troops in open ground, and took no precautions against surprise. Scouts reported that a large body of British and Indians were approaching and would attack him that night. Other information of a similar nature was brought in, but he was unmoved by these reports. He seemed to be under an evil spell. As a result, an attack was made upon him in the early morn- ing of the 22d. The British and their dusky allies approached entirely undiscovered. General Winchester attempted to rejoin his troops but was captured by an Indian and led to Colonel Proctor. Winchester was persuaded to order his troops to surrender under promise of protection, but the gallant Major Madison refused until the third request was received. Only a shortage of ammunition induced them to surrender at all. Several hundred of his men were killed in battle or afterwards massacred and the dreaded Indian yell was heard on every side. One troop of a score of men under Lieutenant Garrett were compelled to surrender while retreating and were all massacred except the lieutenant himself. Of another party of thirty which surrendered half were shot or tomahawked. The remainder of his troops were taken prisoners and marched to Amherstburg. Most of them were afterwards released upon parole. General Winchester was kept as a prisoner for more than a year.
The surrender was doubtless induced by the statement of the British commander that an Indian massacre could hardly be prevented in case of continued resistance, and a promise of help to all the wounded. But the promise was not kept. Only thirty-three of the Americans escaped death or captivity. This great disaster at the River Raisin was most lamentable, but it was not without its good results. The loss of the enemy has never been known, but it must have been heavy. "Remember the Raisin" became a slogan that spurred many to enlist in the army, and do valiant service for their country. It had the same effect upon them as did "Remember the Alamo" among the Texans. General Har- rison was blamed by his enemies for permitting the advance and then for not sending reinforcements. The advance was made without his
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knowledge and he arrived too late to be of assistance. If he erred at all it was in permitting too great a latitude to General Winchester, when he was the commander-in-chief.
The situation for the Americans did indeed begin to look lugubrious. For a year there had been only a succession of disasters. All the military operations in the Northwest had resulted favorably for the enemy. Mackinac had been surrendered. There had been a bloody massacre at Fort Dearborn (Chicago) ; General Hull had yielded to cowardice; now come the overwhelming defeat and massacre of the troops under 'Gen- eral Winchester. Nothing had been achieved to mitigate these losses. The entire frontier was greatly alarmed. From every settlement there came urgent and almost pitiful appeals for protection. The settlers lived in daily fear of war parties of the savages. The man who left home feared he would never again behold his loved ones. Many indeed did flee to Kentucky to escape the dangers of the Ohio country.
CHAPTER X
A YEAR OF VICTORIES
General Harrison was not dismayed by the disasters that had over- taken his forces. All the combativeness in his nature was aroused and he bent his energies to retrieving the Northwestern Army from the year of disasters for which he was not in any sense responsible. Reinforce- ments were demanded and precautions taken to prevent any further unfortunate happenings to the troops under his command. His earliest efforts were devoted to freeing Northwestern Ohio from the enemy.
General Harrison wrote to the Secretary of War from "headquarters, Foot of the Miami (Maumee) Rapids, February 11, 1813," as follows: "Having been joined by General Leftwich with his brigade, and a regi- ment of the Pennsylvania quota at the Portage River on the 30th ultimo, I marched thence on the 1st instant and reached this place on the morning of the 2nd with an effective force of sixteen hundred men. I have since been joined by a Kentucky regiment and part of General Tupper's Ohio Brigade, which has increased our numbers to two thousand non- commissioned officers and privates. I have ordered the whole of the troops of the Left Wing (excepting one company for each of the six forts in that quarter) the balance of the Pennsylvania brigade, and the Ohio brigade under General Tupper, and a detachment of regular troops of twelve months volunteers under command of Colonel Campbell, to march to this place as soon as possible.
"I am erecting here a pretty strong fort (Meigs) capable of resisting field artillery at least. The troops will be placed in a fortified camp covered on one flank by the fort. This is the best position that can be taken to cover the frontier, and the small posts in the rear of it, and those above it on the Miami (Maumee) and its tributaries. The force placed here ought, however, to be strong enough to encounter any that the enemy may detach against the forts above. Twenty-five hundred would not be too many. But, anxious to reduce the expenses during the winter within as narrow bounds as possible I have desired the Governor of Kentucky not to call out (but to hold in readiness to march) the fifteen hundred men lately required of him. * * * Attention will still be paid to the deposit of supplies for the ensuing campaign. Im- mense supplies of provisions have been accumulating along the Auglaize River, and boats and pirogues prepared to bring them down as soon as the river opens."
The experience of General Harrison in frontier warfare, especially under General Wayne in this valley, induced him to select as the site of a fort in this section the high right bank of the Maumee River, just a short distance below the lowest fording place and near the foot of the lowest rapids. The original plan of this fort embraced something over eight acres of ground, and the irregular circumference of the. enclosure measured about a mile and a third in length. At short intervals there were blockhouses and batteries, and between these the entire space was picketed with timbers 15 feet long, from 10 to 12 inches in diameter, and placed three feet into the ground. It was built under the personal supervision of Capt. Eleazer D. Wood, chief engineer of the army. As soon as the outlines of the fort were decided upon, the different branches of labor were assigned to the various corps in the army.
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"To complete the picketing," says Captain Wood, "to put up eight blockhouses of double timbers, to elevate four large batteries, to build all the storehouses and magazines required to contain the supplies of the army, together with the ordinary fatigues of the camp, was an under- taking of no small magnitude. ยท Besides, an immense deal of labor was likewise required in excavating ditches, making abatis and clearing away the wood about the camp; and all this was done, too, at a time when the weather was inclement, and the ground so hard that it could scarcely be opened with the mattock and pickaxe."
General Harrison himself was untiring in his movements. He was kept busy visiting the various camps in his work of supervision, for we find dispatches dated from various headquarters. About the 1st of March word reached Fort Meigs that General Proctor had ordered the assembling of the Canada militia and the Indian allies early in April, pre- paratory to an attack on Fort Meigs. To encourage the Indians, he had assured them of an easy conquest, and had promised that General Harri- son should be delivered up to Tecumseh himself. That Indian chief had an unquenchable hatred for the American commander since the Battle of Tippecanoe. The mode of attack, so it was reported, would be by con- structing strong batteries on the opposite side of the river, to be manned by British artillerists, while the savages would invest the fort on that side of the river. "A few hours action of the cannon would smoke the Americans out of the fort into the hands of the savages," confidently said one of the officers.
It was a very difficult matter to maintain an effective force on this frontier owing to the short terms of enlistment and the irregularity of their expirations. The forces within Fort Meigs were so seriously weak- ened by the expiration of the term of the enlistment of many of the Virginians and Pennsylvanians, that not more than five hundred effective soldiers remainded. The Kentucky Legislature passed an act adding $7.00 a month to the pay of any fifteen hundred Kentuckians already in the service, who would remain until others were sent to relieve them. General Harrison was almost discouraged at times, for in one communi- cation he writes: "I am sorry to mention the dismay and disinclination to the service, which appears to prevail in the western country." As soon as the ice broke, advantage was taken of the high water to transport supplies down the river to Fort Meigs from the supply depots farther up on the Maumee and Auglaize.
The British kept themselves informed of the American preparations through their savage allies. As Fort Meigs enjoyed comparative quiet for several weeks, the soldiers gradually became more venturesome. In March a small party of soldiers while hunting game near old Fort Miami were shot at by a British reconnoitering party, and Lieutenant Walker was killed. Another bullet lodged in a Bible or hymn-book, carried by a soldier in his breast pocket, saving him from death or a severe wound. Intense excitement again arose about the first of April over a desperate encounter of about a dozen French volunteers who, while reconnoitering by boat in the channels about the large island below the fort, were sur- prised and violently assailed at close quarters by two boatloads of sav- ages. In the encounter that ensued only one Indian escaped death, but several of the Frenchmen were also slain, and only three came away unscathed.
The Canadian militia assembled at Sandwich on the seventh of April, pursuant to call. On the 23d of that month General Proctor's army, consisting of almost one thousand regulars and militia, embarked at Malden on several vessels and sailed for Fort Meigs, being convoyed by
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two gunboats with artillery. The savages, amounting to fully fifteen hundred, crossed the Detroit River and made their way to the rendez- vous on foot, although a few sailed the lakes in small boats. The ves- sels arrived at the mouth of the Maumee River on the 26th inst., and a couple of days later the army landed near the ruins at Fort Miami, about two miles below Fort Meigs, and on the opposite side of the river.
"Yesterday the British let loose a part of their savage allies upon the fort from the opposite shore, while the former were concerting plans below. There is little doubt the enemy intends erecting batteries on the opposite shore. No force can reduce the fort. All are in fine spirits, anxiously waiting a share of the glory to be acquired over the British and their savage allies; though one thing is certain, whilst their forces are so far superior they cannot be driven from their position on the opposite shore. Captain Hamilton, who was detached with a discov- ering party estimated their forces at three thousand-independent of the Indians lurking in the neighborhood."
The effective force at Fort Meigs at this time numbered about eleven hundred soldiers, which was really inadequate to cope with such a large, well trained, and far better equipped army. General Harrison himself had arrived on the 12th. Most of the savages immediately crossed the river and began to invest and harass Fort Meigs at every possible point, filling the air with their hideous yells and the firing of musketry both day and night. For the purpose of protection the timber had been cleared from the fort on all sides for about three hundred yards, with the exception of stumps and an occasional log. Behind these the savages would advance at night and sometimes disable a picket. These wily foes also climbed the trees at the rear of the fort, from which vantage points they were finally routed with far greater losses than they inflicted.
"Can you," said General Harrison in a stirring appeal to his troops, "the citizens of a free country who have taken arms to defend its rights, think of submitting to an army composed of mercenary soldiers, reluctant Canadians goaded to the field by the bayonet, and of wretched naked savages? Can the breast of an American soldier, when he cast his eyes to the opposite shore, the scene of his country's triumphs over the same foe, be influenced by any other feelings than the hope of glory? Is not this army composed of the same materials as that which fought and conquered under the immortal Wayne?"
The news of Harrison's danger had already reached General Clay and his command of 1,200 men, part of whom were under Col. William Dudley. They dispatched Leslie Combs and some soldiers, together with a Shawnee guide, to inform General Harrison of their approach. Combs and his party began their journey at Defiance on the first of May. His companions were two brothers named Walker, two others named respectively Paxton and Johnson, also young Black Fish, a Shawnee warrior. With the latter at the helm, the other four engaged with the rowing, and himself at the bow in charge of the rifles and ammunition, the party pushed off from Defiance, amid cheers and sad adieus, determined to reach Fort Meigs before daylight. The voy- age was full of danger. Rain was falling heavily, and the night was intensely black. They passed the rapids in safety, when heavy cannonad- ing was heard in the direction of the fort. For a moment Combs was perplexed. To return would be prudent, but would expose his courage to doubts; to remain until the next night, or proceed at once, seemed equally hazardous. A decision was soon made by the brave youth. He went forward with many misgivings, for he knew the weakness of
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the garrison, and doubted its ability to hold out long. Great was his satisfaction, therefore, when on sweeping around the last bend in the river he saw the stripes and stars waving over the beleaguered camp. Suddenly a solitary Indian appeared in the edge of the woods, and a moment afterward a large body of them were observed in the gray shadows of the forest, running eagerly to a point below to cut off the party. The gallant captain attempted to dart by them on the swift current, when a volley of bullets from the savages severely wounded Johnson and Paxton-the former mortally. The fire was returned with effect, when the Shawnee at the helm turned the prow toward the opposite shore. There the voyagers abandoned the canoe and, with their faces toward Defiance, sought safety in flight. After vainly attempting to take Johnson and Paxton with them, Combs and Black Fish left them. At the end of two days the captain reached Defiance, where General Clay had just arrived. The Walkers were also there, having fled more swiftly, because unencumbered. Combs and his dusky companion had suffered terribly.
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FORT MEIGS, 1812
Excessive rains hindered the British in planting their cannon as they wished. At times as many as two hundred men and several oxen would be engaged in the work of pulling a single 24-pounder through the mud. At first the work was carried on only by night but a little later, owing to the impatience of the commander, the work was continued by day, although some of the men were killed by shots from Fort Meigs. By the 30th of April they had completed two batteries nearly opposite Fort Meigs. The first battery contained two 24-pounders, while the other mounted three howitzers. A third battery of three 12-pounders was afterwards placed, as well as several mortars, in strategic positions. General Harrison ordered earthworks to be thrown up to protect the men from any cannon shots which might be fired at them from these newly erected batteries. Thus the shots from the enemy's cannon were opposed by solid walls of earth 12 feet high and 20 feet thick at the base. Behind these ramparts the defenders were placed, so that they were fairly well protected from the guns of the enemy. A few guns were placed by the British on the fort side, and to meet this
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new danger other traverses of earth were thrown up. A well was also dug behind the Grand Traverse, in order to provide a certain supply of water in case the investment should become close. The British fired almost incessantly with their cannon at Fort Meigs on the 1st, 2nd and 3rd of May. Two Americans were killed on the first day, and one man was so severely wounded that he died of tetanus ten days later. No fewer than five hundred balls and shells were thrown on the first day so it was estimated.
The supply of balls and shells within the fort was limited, and the defenders replied only occasionally when a good target offered. In order to increase the supply a reward of a gill of whisky was offered to the soldiers for every British ball brought in by them of a size to fit their guns. At night the soldiers might have been seen outside the stockade searching around for balls whose location they had noticed during the day. It is said that more than a thousand gills of whisky were paid out as rewards. Before completing their plans, the British constructed a third battery of three 12-pounder cannon between the two batteries mentioned above.
One of the militiamen voluntarily stationed himself on the embank- ment, and gratuitously forewarned the Americans of every approaching shot. In this he became so skillful that he could in almost every case predict the probable destination of the missile. As soon as the smoke issued from the muzzle of the gun, he would cry out "shot" or "bomb" as the case might be. Consider the contempt with which a gunner in the Great war who fired a monster that hurled half a ton or more of steel and explosive for a distance of twenty-five miles, would regard these pigmy cannon. It was all these guns could do to heave a six or eight pound ball across the river, a distance of a quarter of a mile. So leisurely was its flight that this man from the embankment could gauge the direction and warn his comrades. It seems like an absurdity to us today in the light of modern development in the matter of man-killing machines.
"Hey, there, block-house number one," he cried out. Then the boys of that defense would promptly duck for cover.
"Main battery, look out," would come his stentorian voice over the palisades. The men of that battery then had warning to seek shelter and would follow his advice "now for the meat-house."
"Good bye, old boy, if you will pass by," was the greeting to a wild shot that missed the fort altogether.
But even these leisurely flying iron balls were deadly, when a human target interposed in their flight. One day, while he was watching and jocularly commenting on the course of the balls, there came a shot that seemed to defy all the militiaman's calculations. He could not gauge the angle. He stood motionless and perplexed. No word of warning or jesting came from his lips. His eyes seemed transfixed. But the ball was approaching nearer and nearer, and in an instant he was swept into eternity. The gunners had hit their mark.
"The aborigines," says Rev. A. M. Lorraine, who was with the Americans, "climbing up into the trees, fired incessantly upon us. Such was their distance that many of their balls barely reached us but fell harmless to the ground. Occasionally they inflicted dangerous and even fatal wounds. The number killed in the fort was small considering the profusion of powder and ball expended on us. About eighty were slain, many wounded, and several had to suffer amputation of limbs. The most dangerous duty which we performed within the precincts of the fort was in covering the magazine. Previous to this the powder had been
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deposited in wagons and these stationed in the traverse. Here there was no security against bombs; it was therefore thought to be prudent to remove the powder into a small blockhouse and cover it with earth. The enemy, judging our designs from our movements, now directed all their shot to this point (particularly from their 24-pounder battery). Many of their balls were red-hot. Wherever they struck they raised a cloud of smoke and made a frightful hissing. An officer passing our quarters said, 'Boys, who will volunteer to cover the magazine?' Fool-like away several of us went. As soon as we reached the spot there came a ball and took off one man's head. The spades and dirt flew faster than any of us had before witnessed."
A white flag approached the fort and the bearers asked for a parley. A demand was then made for the surrender of the fortress by General Proctor. This was answered by a prompt refusal. "I believe I have a very correct idea of General Proctor's forces," said General Harrison. "It is not such as to create the least apprehension for the result of the contest, whatever shape he may be pleased hereafter to give to it. Assure the general, however, that he will never have this post surrendered to him upon any terms. Should it fall into his hands, it will be in a manner calculated to do him more honor, and to give him larger claims upon the gratitude of his government, than any capitulation could possibly do."
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