USA > Ohio > History of Ohio, covering the periods of Indian, French and British dominion, the territory Northwest, and the hundred years of statehood > Part 23
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which George Croghan was a major. At the same time, Gen. Elijah Wadsworth, commanding the northeastern division of militia, organ- ized three companies and put them in the field.
Hull, commissioned a brigadier-general, arrived at Cincinnati in April, and relieved Meigs of command at Dayton, May 25th, mean- while busying himself in finding arms, equipment and clothing for the volunteers, and organizing some sort of a system of commissary supply. He was not enthusiastic over the enterprise, but the govern- ment was confident of the capacity of the American militia to subdue the British lion, and the Ohio regiments were full of hope and enthusiasm. They marched to Urbana in May, and there welcomed the arrival of the reinforcement of the Fourth United States regi- ment, three hundred men, under Col. James Miller, who had been given a triumph at Cincinnati as the heroes of Tippecanoe. From Urbana the little army moved to Manary's blockhouse (now Belle- fontaine), the frontier settlement of northwest Ohio. Thence to Detroit the country was an unbroken wilderness, part of the way without even a footpath, level country, slashed with swamps, marshes and rivers, and including the famous Black Swamp, for many years afterward the terror of western emigrants. The army was com- pelled to carry all subsistence and forage in wagons, and in order that the wagons might proceed a road must be cut through the dense forests, bridges built and corduroy laid over the rivers and swamps. Isaac Zane and other guides went ahead and blazed the way, and the soldiers, armed with axes, grubbing-hoes, spades and shovels, fell to work. McArthur's regiment, in two days, built the road from Manary's, thirty miles to the Scioto, where Fort MeArthur was con- strueted, and the other regiments, taking their turn, performed simi- lar feats, much of the time working in steady rain. Fort Necessity was built where they were compelled to stop and rest after a sixteen miles' struggle through rain and mud. On Blanchard's fork another stockade, Fort Findlay, was erected. Gen. Robert Lucas and Will- iam Denny, sent on to Detroit, had returned bringing news of dan- ger from the Indians, and at Fort Findlay orders were received from Washington to hasten. Leaving all camp equipage the troops pushed on to the rapids of the Manmee, Cass' regiment cutting the way, and, arriving there, the pack-horses were so worn ont that bag- gage, hospital stores and road-making tools were shipped on the schooner Cuyahoga, and thirty sick soldiers on a smaller boat, for Detroit. Marching ahead, Hull received at Frenchtown on the Raisin river, another message from Washington, written on the same day as the one received at Findlay, informing him that war had been declared June 18th. This important message had been forwarded by mail to Cleveland ! Hull sent men down to the coast to stop his transports, but they were too late. The Cuyahoga was captured off Fort Malden, and in it was a trunk containing the rolls of the army
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and Hull's papers. The British had the news from Washington before Hull.
There was no delay in the advance to Detroit, except to build a bridge over the Huron river, where the army spent a night, with the British brig, the Queen Charlotte, hovering off the mouth of the river, observing their movements. On the night of July 6th they reached the little trading town of Detroit, where stood Fort Wayne, in a dilapidated condition, and a few hundred Michigan militia were available. Hull now had about two thousand fighting men, and under the circumstances he could not be blamed for resisting the entreaties of MeArthur and Cass to go ahead and storm Fort Malden without artillery. The guns of the fort were not fitted for use, and it was necessary to manufacture carriages. He waited until he had received from Washington definite orders to make the invasion, and crossed the river July 12th, under cover of a demonstration lower down by MeArthur's men. Camping at Sandwich, Hull issued a proclamation, said to have been composed by Cass, which was a model of pomposity. The Canadians were exhorted to remain quiet, while the hosts of America, of which this army was only the van- guard, should rescue them from the dragon of tyranny. It was also threatened that if the British should have Indian allies, the first stroke of the tomahawk would be the signal for "an indiscriminate scene of desolation." This proclamation seems to have really had great effect. Many of the Canadian militia deserted, a considerable number of settlers sought the protection of Hull and some of the Indians refused to take up arms for the British.
Hull waited at Sandwich three weeks, building a sort of navy of floating batteries to drive the British boats from the river, and believ- ing his work was progressing well as long as the Canadians showed increased friendliness. He was also awaiting news of the advance of the other armies of invasion in the east. Meanwhile the troops were elamorons for an attack on Fort Malden, but he would not risk it without artillery. Instead, the men were given their first exper- ienee in war in various excursions. McArthur led his men up to the river Thames through a country much more advanced in settle- ment than any part of Ohio, and captured a large store of British army supplies and keel boats, and Colonel Cass made a reconnois- sance to the river Aux Canards'or Tarontee, on the road to Malden, and gained possession of the bridge, after a skirmish which was much magnified. But Hull did not see fit to hold this advantage. Find- lay, McArthur and Denny also had skirmishes at the Aux Canards river, in all of which men were sacrificed, Denny losing six killed and two wounded. The British destroyed the bridge, and supported by their navy, held the river in such force that a small attacking party had no power against them, and the effort to find another crossing place was defeated by the Indians under Tecumseh.
Finally Hull was informed that the British had taken Mackinac
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and the Indians were rising throughout Michigan, that he could expect no co-operation in eastern Canada, and that General Broek was col- lecting troops to reinforce the Malden garrison. Hull's line of sup- ply lay across the Detroit river, around the head of Lake Erie and across the Manmee river, exposed in several places to the enemy. Hearing that Capt. Henry Brush, of Chillicothe, and 150 men, had reached the river Raisin, thirty-six miles below Detroit, with a sup- ply train, Major VanHorn was sent with two hundred of Findlay's regiment to bring the train through, but it was found that the Indians and British had occupied Brownstown, half way between Detroit and the Raisin, and VanHorn was defeated with considerable loss, Captains Gilchrist, Ullery and MeCullough being among the killed. Under such eireninstances Hull decided to retreat from Canada, in the hope of holding Detroit if he could open communications with Ohio. Governor Harrison had already written Governor Shelby that if reinforcements and supplies could not be forwarded "Detroit must fall." Major Denny, with 250 men and some artillery, was left in fort on the Canada side.
From Detroit Colonel Miller, with a battalion of regulars and some companies of Ohioans under Majors VanHorn and Morrison made a second attempt to open the way for Brush. At the Indian village of Maguaga they met a body of British, and Indians under Teenmseh, and a fierce battle was fought, in which Miller lost one- fourth of his men killed or wounded, but held the field, from which the enemy were driven. In the stormy night that followed MeArthur and two hundred men went down by boat or horse to Miller's camp. Next morning a British brig, the Hunter, took position off shore, and, the use of boats being impossible, the wounded men were hauled in wagons to Detroit, on the only road there was, along the river, under the fire of the British guns. Says McDonald: "When the teams were running at full speed, and when the wagon wheels would come in contact with a stump or root or a stone, the jar would throw the wounded soldiers in heaps upon each other ; in this way the bandages would come loose and the broken bones be torn from their places, and their wounds bleed afresh ; and by the time the carriages had passed, the road was made slippery with the blood of the poor wretched sol- diers." This expedition having failed, Miller returning to Detroit, Hull made another effort to open the door of the trap in which he was placed, sending Me Arthur and Cass with four hundred picked men toward the Raisin, by a roundabout way through the back country.
Meanwhile the garrison across the river had been withdrawn, and General Brock occupied the Canada side opposite Detroit, ereeted batteries, and demanded the surrender of Detroit. Hull refused, and sent a messenger to reeall MeArthur and Cass. The British ships of war took position in the river, while the Indians invested the town, and Broek opened fire with his batteries on the 15th. One of the cannon balls killed two officers outright, and tore off the legs
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of Dr. James Reynolds, of Cass' regiment, who died lamenting that he would never again see Zanesville.
On August 16th Brock landed a force on the American side, and marched on the fort, In it the population of the town had taken refuge from the British artillery and the scalping knives of the Indians. Hull, burdened with the sense of many lives already lost; fearing the massacre of the settlers it was part of his duty to save from danger; with a large part of his fighting force absent; ordered his artillery not to fire, put out the white flag and surrendered, an act which he said "was dictated by a full sense of duty and a full conviction of its expediency." McArthur and Cass were meanwhile hastening back toward Detroit, but they were too late. Learning as they approached that Hull had surrendered, they attempted to retreat southward, but were so near starvation that when overtaken by two British officers and notified of their inclusion in the capitula- tion, they went into Detroit as prisoners of war. Hull and the regu- lars were sent to Quebec, but the Ohio troops were paroled and shipped to the Ohio coast. Brush's relief party was also included in the capitulation, but these Ohioans, on hearing of the surrender, fled back to the Maumee and made their escape to the settlements. But they were regarded as on parole and afterward regularly exchanged.
The story of this campaign has been given at some length, because it is one of the most notorious events of the history of the West, and because Ohio troops were prominently concerned in it. The Ohio troops did their duty honorably, suffered severely and were anxious to suffer more rather than surrender. When they returned home prisoners of war instead of conquerors, most of them joined in unre- strained censure of their general, though nothing can be more certain in the probabilities of war that either capture or death would have befallen them however the campaign was carried on. A military genius might have done something with enough men to detach forces to hold his line of communication. A military genius, with Hull's little command, might have risked his army in a dash at Fort Malden, without artillery, for the purpose of striking a blow that should keep the Indians quiet, but he could not have held the fort, as will occur to anyone who will glance at the geography, and any delay there would have been almost as dangerous as a repulse, which was as likely as success. It is denied that Hull knew that Dearborn had made an armistice of sixty days in eastern Canada, leaving the Brit- ish free to overwhelm him, but he was aware that he was not sup- ported. If he had known all, it has been suggested that his proper course was to retreat to Ohio, in which case, as McDonald says, "He would have been censured as a pusillanimous wretch ; but he would have saved his army, and time, which unfolds dark things, would have retrieved his character." But to retreat would be to abandon Detroit to Indian rapine, and his army to Indian warfare from which few would have escaped. The defeats about Brownstown revealed
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the dangers of retreat. He could have been cut off by the whole Brit- ish and Indian force at Brownstown, Raisin river or Maumee rapids. The garrison of Fort Dearborn (Chicago), attempting to retreat on the day that Brock opened fire on Detroit, was nearly all slaughtered. Hull chose the simplest way of avoiding a massacre at Detroit and the killing of his soldiers, and surrendered to the British officers.
The Ohio soldiers, however, wanted a battle before they became prisoners of war, and thought they could have repulsed the enemy in the assault of the 16th, though what they would have done after- ward no one has ever told. As Harrison said, "No military man would think of retaining Detroit, Malden being in possession of the enemy, unless his army was at least twice as strong as the enemy."
Cass, more of a politician than soldier, heartily supported the Madison administration in making Hull the scapegoat of its own heinous transgression of the first principles of war. Popular senti- ment was unanimous against Hull. All over Ohio the people were singing a ballad that began with such words as these: "Old Hull, you old traitor, You outeast of Nature!" The old gentleman was court-martialed for treason and various other things, and though acquitted of treason beyond the shadow of doubt was sentenced to death, whereupon the gracious administration struck his name from the rolls and permitted him to go home and await further orders.
The news of Hull's surrender was soon followed by despatches from the commandant at Fort Wayne, Ind., and from Governor Har- rison, who was at Cincinnati, asking help from Governor Meigs, as the Indians were about to wipe out the remaining military posts. The Ohio soldiers surrendered by Hull, being landed at the Huron river, were mistaken at first for a British invasion, increasing the panic that prevailed along the frontier. But the men of Ohio responded promptly to the call for troops to defend the State. Before the worst was known regarding Hull three battalions of three hundred each had been raised to reinforce MeArthur, Findlay and Cass. They marched under Gen. Edward W. Tupper, at that time a resident of Gallipolis, and were at Urbana when tidings arrived of the surrender. This was the nucleus of a gathering of militia there, of which Governor Meigs took command. By the last of August General Worthington, Colonel Dunlap and Colonel Adams, with abont five hundred men, arrived at the St. Marys river, sixty miles above Fort Wayne, for the relief of that post from Forts Manary and MeArthur were garrisoned and the works strength- ened. The Ohio Indians, yet friendly, were called together for pro- tection and to guard against hostile influence, and eight hundred were soon in a "concentration" camp at Urbana.
The Fourth division , militia were called out, under Maj .- Gen. Elijah Wadsworth, a veteran of the Connecticut line in the Revolu- tion, with the Jefferson county brigade under Gen. John Miller, the Columbiana brigade under Gen. Rezin Beall, the Trumbull-
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Cuyahoga brigade under Gen. Simon Perkins, and the brigade from the remainder of the Western Reserve under Gen. Joel Paine .* There was a general rally of the able-bodied men to the rendez- vous at Cleveland, while many women and children fled to the interior settlements. All over the State men were leaving their homes and little farms to serve their country, and heavy burdens fell upon the women, generally careworn with many children and weak- ened by the omnipresent fever and chills. But nowhere was the war felt more severely than in the Reserve, exposed to invasion from the lake, and the danger of straggling Indians.
Early in September General Wadsworth had four hundred men at the mouth of the Huron, under General Perkins, to defend that post, while General Beall occupied the site of Mansfield with about six hundred militia. Kentucky was also contributing to the com- mon cause, and her governor strained the law to appoint Governor Harrison major-general of militia, that he might lead three regi- ments of volunteers up the Miami valley. When the popular victor at Tippecanoe reached Dayton Governor Meigs called on Ohioans to join him. A battalion of mounted riflemen was organized in the Miami valley under Colonel Finley (Findlay),i to take part in the campaign for the succor of Fort Wayne. Harrison, bringing up his forces to join the Ohioans at the St. Marys post, soon advanced on Fort Wayne, and relieved that post, where a brother of Governor Meigs had fallen during the siege.
General Winchester, of Tennessee, a veteran of the Revolution, had been assigned to chief command in the West. As the Seven- teenth and Nineteenth United States regiments advanced through Ohio to become the nucleus of his army, many Ohioans enlisted to fill out their ranks, and in these as well as other commands of the reg- ular service, Ohioans fought throughout the war, in the Niagara as well as the Detroit campaigns. Winchester's effort was to estab- lish a line for the protection of the State, by occupying posts at Cleveland, Mansfield, Urbana, Dayton, Lower Sandusky (Fremont), the Maumee Rapids and Fort Wayne. He had no opportunity to demonstrate his fitness for command, as the people of the West clam- ored for Harrison to lead them, and the government, yielding, com- missioned him as major-general in the regular army, giving him precedence over Winchester, who retained command at Fort Wayne.
*Wadsworth, born in Connecticut in 1747, settled at Canfield In 1802; was one of the proprietors of the Reserve and a prominent man until his death in 181 .. Simon Perkins, born in Connecticut in 1771, explored the Reserve for the proprietors in 1798, and settling at Warren in 1806, had charge of a large part of the country. Rezin Beall was a Pennsylvanian who had served with Wayne in 1792-94.
+The Findlay who was with Hull, say McAfee and Lossing. But Col. Sam- uel Finley, a veteran of the Revolution, pioneer of Chillicothe, and prominent in the organization of the State, Is credited by his biographers with leading a regiment of mounted volunteers In this war, while Col. James Findlay is not.
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After the first alarm, the Ohio militia for permanent service were organized in two brigades, under General Tupper at Fort McArthur, and under General Perkins on the Sandusky. The latter was ordered to build a road to the Maumee rapids.
It would be falsifying history to say that Ohio was unanimous in all respects at this time. Many were opposed to the war, and there were severe erities of those in authority. Governor Meigs did not escape, and he declared in September that "Slander, with her thou- sand tongues, assails me." But a meeting of Ohio militia officers, at Urbana, expressed full confidence in his administration.
The Indians of Ohio as a whole remained friendly to the whites, though sometimes under great provocation. Some of them rendered valuable service against the hostiles, notably a Shawanee known as Captain Logan, who after saving the women and children of Fort Wayne by leading them to Piqua, kept the garrison from surrender by running the blockade with news of the approach of assistance.
Harrison was expected to recapture Detroit as soon as possible, and he attempted to prepare an immediate movement, but though the difficulties and dangers were no greater than those into which Hull had been sent, the new commander could do nothing effectual for many months. His plan for a fall campaign was to converge three columns at the Maumee rapids, establish a great base of supplies, and then advance to Brownstown, cross and take Fort Malden, and thus compel the evacuation of Detroit. The left column was to be under Winchester. The central column, of 1,200 Ohio infantry and 800 mounted men, under Gen. E. W. Tupper, was to march from Fort MeArthur, while General Perkins, with the right wing, would advance by the Sandusky route.
Winchester marched down the Maumee, causing the retreat of a body of British and Indians, who had occupied old Fort Defiance and were advancing on Fort Wayne. Captain Cotton and seventy- two men, of Perkins' brigade, had a skirmish with Indians Septem- ber 29, 1812, the only fight in the Western Reserve, which is remem- bered as "the battle of the Peninsula." Young Joshua R. Giddings was one of the volunteers in the ranks. Col. Allen Trimble led a body of five hundred Ohio mounted riflemen into northeastern Indiana, and defeated the hostile Indians on the St. Joseph, and burned their villages. By this time it was apparent that a fall cam- paign could not be carried out, and Harrison consented to undertake a winter campaign on the ice though he warned the government that the unnecessary cost of it would build a navy on the lake that would compel the evacuation of Detroit. He made his headquarters at Franklinton and did his best to put troops in the field and supply them.
General Tupper had been ordered to drive the Indians from the foot of the Maumee rapids, and after long delay, embarrassed by the
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refusal of the militia to serve under the orders of General Winches- ter, he moved within sight of the enemy's camp, but after a slight skirmish, retreated on the night of November 15th to Fort MeArthur. In December Lieut .- Col. John B. Campbell, with six hundred mounted men, marched from Franklinton against the Mis- sissinewa villages in Indiana, and after a severe fight defeated the hostiles and burned their huts, but lost eight killed and forty-eight wounded, besides two hundred men disabled by frost and siekness. Winchester was ordered to occupy the Maumee rapids and establish the depot, and accordingly the left wing trudged through the snow early in January, 1813, and reached the rapids on the 10th. Gen- eral Paine's Ohio brigade arrived about the same time. Thus, with no fighting except what was brought on by raids against the Indians, General Harrison was able, within four months after taking com- mand, to reach the Ohio base of his proposed campaign against Canada.
Winchester, at the rapids, received an appeal from the people of Frenehtown ( Monroe, Mich.), for protection, and sent six or seven hundred men under Colonels Lewis and Allen, who crossed the Raisin river and defeated the enemy, British and Indians combined, on January 18th. Winchester determined to keep this advantage, taking up 250 men himself, and Harrison, hurrying to the Manmee rapids, advised Winchester to "told fast the position, at any rate,"# and started out Perkins' Ohio brigade as reinforcements. But the reinforcements were hardly on the way, before the startling news arrived that Winchester's command had been ent to pieces. There- upon General Harrison fell back to the rapids, destroyed his new mili- tary depot and withdrew his eight or nine hundred men behind the Portage river. General Proetor, the British commander at Raisin river, also fearful of his enemy, beat a similar retreat, but with sev- eral Inindred American prisoners.
Soon the particulars came in of the terrible disaster on the Raisin, January 22d-how General Proetor was able to land from Malden and plant a battery commanding Winchester's position in the night, unnoticed ; how the sudden attack in the morning demoralized a great part of the Americans, who were either eut down by the Indians or captured, General Winchester being among the prisoners, and how the remainder bravely held ont under Major Madison, though Winchester had surrendered them, until protection against massaere .was promised. About two hundred Amerieans were killed in this frightful affair, and eight hundred captured.
This practically ended General Harrison's fall and winter cam- paign against Detroit. Gen. John Armstrong, secretary of war,
* This has a curious analogy to Cass' occupation of the Aux Canard river, before Fort Malden, and desire to hold the position, which poor Hull, being "incompetent," refused to sanction.
I-14
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who was unfriendly to Harrison, has pointed out that the popular western general violated eleven essential principles of war in his campaign. MeAfee, in his history of the war, declares that the advanced troops subsisted for two weeks in December on bad beef and hickory roots. "Chaos and miscondnet reigned in every depart- ment, and particularly in that of supplies."
Early in February General Harrison advanced again, in the hope of making his campaign on the iee, and with about two thousand men occupied the military reservation at the foot of the Maumee rapids and built a strong fortified camp, called Fort Meigs. Near the oppo- site or northwestern bank, a little way down the river, was the aban- doned British fort that Wayne had menaced after the battle of Fallen Timbers in 1795. There was soon a rumor of hostile gather- ings on the lower Maumee and several hundred men were sent down the frozen river on a fruitless raid, taking along a cannon, which gave them employment by breaking through the ice. Another scouting party of 250 men, under Captain Langham, went by way of the blockhouse at Lower Sandusky, ont over the lake. They were instrueted to approach Malden at night, and burn the fleet and storehouses, but after reaching Middle Bass island, March 3d, it was prudently decided that the ice was too much broken up to make the passage. Consequently the last dream of a winter campaign was abandoned. After a visit to Cincinnati, Harrison brought Mills' Ohio regiment to reinforce Fort Meigs and made ready to resist a probable attack by the British.
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