USA > Ohio > Auglaize County > History of western Ohio and Auglaize County, with illustrations and biographical sketches of pioneers and prominent public men > Part 16
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The next morning two hundred Indians came down from Malden. They were painted black, and it is scarcely possible that the British officers should not have known the mission upon which they had entered. By the terms of the surrender, General Proc- tor agreed to protect his captives by a guard. No such guard was furnished the wounded.
The savages at once, with frantic yells, commenced the work of plunder and slaughter. Everywhere was to be seen the gleam of the murderous tomahawk and the scalping knife. There were two large log houses, crowded with the wounded. The Indians set them both on fire, and the poor creatures were consumed in the flames. Some who tried to crawl out of the windows were tomahawked and thrown back into the glowing furnace. In these
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awful scenes of battle and of massacre two hundred and ninety Americans perished. These were generally young men, from the best families of Kentucky and Ohio. The wife of Henry Clay lost a brother here, who was killed and scalped by the savages. The few who were judged able to march, were saved and taken off towards Malden; but as often as any of them gave out on the way, they were tomahawked and left lying in the road. Major Wolfork, secretary to General Winchester, had found an asylum in the house of a French citizen; but he was discovered by the Indians, who placed him on a horse and were carrying him away. They took him by the house of Lasalle, a man who had been sus- pected of giving intelligence to the British before the battle, to whom he promised a large sum of money, if he would purchase him from the Indians. Lasalle replied that it was out of his power, but that probably his brother would, who lived in the next house. The Indian who had taken him, being willing to sell him, had turned to go there, when another savage shot him through the head. He was then tomahawked and scalped, and left to the hogs for two days, by which he was partly devoured before the inhabitants removed him.
"The circumstances respecting the fate of Captain Hart have been fully ascertained. When the Indians first entered the house, where he lay with Captain Hickman, Major Graves and others, and before the massacre had commenced, he was carried by Doc- tor Todd into an adjoining house, which had been plundered of its contents. An Indian then met them, who knowing the profession of the doctor, inquired why the surgeons were left with the wounded. He was told that it was by the direction of Colonel Proctor; and that Captain Elliott was a friend to Captain Hart, and had promised to send for him that morning. The Indian shook his head and observed, that Proctor and Elliott "were damned rascals, or they would have taken care of them last evening." He then said, "you will all be killed - but keep still - the chiefs are in council, and maybe the wounded only will be killed." Captain Hart offered him a hundred dollars to carry him to Malden; but he replied, you are too badly wounded. The savages now began to tomahawk the prisoners; and Doctor Todd was tied and taken to Strong creek, where there was a camp of the wounded British. He informed Captain Elliott and the sur- geon of what was going on at Frenchtown, and requested them
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to send back and endeavor to save some of the wounded. Captain Elliott replied that it was too late; that those who had been badly wounded were killed before that time; and that all who were still preserved by the Indians were now safe. Doctor Todd spoke of Captain Hart in particular, and stated that many who would be saved in the first instance, being unable to march far, must ulti- mately be sacrificed, unless means were taken to preserve them. To which Elliott replied, that charity began at home; that his own wounded must first be conveyed, and that if any sleds then re- mained, he would send them back. Doctor Todd was so anxious to get some person of influence sent back, that he tried to excite the avarice of the surgeon, by informing him that the surgical instru- ments, which were very valuable, were in the house with the wounded. He soon found that he had now touched the master passion of the British soul. An interpreter was immediately sent back for the instruments; but the conflagration had consumed everything before he arrived. The conversation of Captain El- liott clearly proved that the British officers had deliberately re- solved to abandon the wounded prisoners to an indiscriminate massacre, in direct violation of their solemn engagements at the surrender. If they did not instigate, they at least permitted the horrible scene without regret.
"After Doctor Todd had been taken from Captain Hart, one of the Indians agreed to carry him to Malden for a hundred dol- lars.' The Indian placed him on a horse, and was going through the commons of the town, when he met with another, who claimed the Captain as his prisoner. To settle the dispute they agreed to kill him and divide the remainder of his money and clothes be- tween them. They accordingly dragged him off his horse and dispatched him with a war club. When he found that his de- struction was inevitable, he submitted with fortitude and com- posure to his fate."
The foregoing history of the defeat and massacre at the river Raisin is taken from General Robert E. McAfee's "History of the Late War in the Western Country," published in 1816, and is, probably, as reliable an account of that sad reverse as has ever been given.
Of the American army, numbering about eight hundred, two hundred and ninety men were killed, massacred and missing, Thirty-three, only, escaped to the Rapids. Five hundred and forty-
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seven were taken prisoners by the British and about forty-five by the Indians. From the best information that can be obtained it is believed that the British loss in killed and wounded amounted to between three and four hundred. The loss was heaviest among the Indians, and the 4Ist regiment of British regulars "was very much cut up."
"The whole British force amounted to two thousand, one- half regulars and Canadians, commanded by Colonels Proctor and St. George; and the other, composed of Indians, commanded by Round-Head and Walk-in-the-Water. Tecumseh was not there - he was still on the Wabash collecting the warriors in that quarter."
On the 23d, the American prisoners were hurried to Am- herstburg, where they were crowded into a muddy woodyard, and exposed all night to a heavy cold rain, without tents or blank- ets. After leaving the battleground Proctor gave no attention to the wounded and slain, which he had promised in the capitula- tion ; nor would he pay any attention to the subject, when repeat- edly reminded of it by General Winchester and Major Madison. Captain Elliott once replied to their solicitations, that "the Indians were very excellent surgeons."
From the first, it is evident that Proctor determined to aban- don the wounded to their fate.
"The prisoners were detained at Amherstburg until the 26th, when they were divided into two parties, the first of which irarched on that day, and the other on the day following. They proceeded up the Detroit and Thames rivers, through the interior of Upper Canada, to Fort George on Niagara strait. On the jour- ney they suffered great hardships from the severity of the weather. the want of provisions, and the inhumanity of the guards. At Fort George they were paroled, and returned home by way of Erie and Pittsburgh, and thence down the Ohio river. The con- dition of the parole was, not to bear arms against his majesty or his allies, during the present war, until regularly exchanged. When some of the Kentuckians inquired, who were his majesty's allies - they were answered, that "his majesty's allies were known," from which it appears that some of these tools of British baseness were ashamed of the association which their sovereign had formed.
General Winchester, Colonel Lewis and Major Madison were
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detained and sent to Quebec, at which place, and at Beaufort in its vicinity, they were confined till the spring of 1814, when a gen- eral exchange of prisoners took place, and they returned home."
At the time of the engagement at the river Raisin General Harrison was at Upper Sandusky. On the evening of the 16th of January he received information by express that Winchester had reached the Rapids and that some important movement was meditated. He at once proceeded with all possible speed to Lower Sandusky, and on the 18th ordered forward a battalion of troops to support Winchester. On the 19th he learned for the first time the character of the meditated movement. He immediately dis- patched a regiment, the only remaining troops then at Lower Sandusky, to make a forced march to the Rapids. The General himself immediately set out across the Black Swamp to join Winchester.
"He started in a sleigh with General Perkins, to overtake the battalion, attended by a single servant. As the sleigh moved very slow from the roughness of the road, he took the horse of his servant and pushed on alone. Night came upon him in the midst of a frozen swamp, which was so imperfectly frozen that his horse sunk to his belly at every step. He had no recourse but to dismount and lead his horse, himself jumping from one sod to another which was solid enough to bear him.
Early on the morning of the 20th he reached Winchester's camp at the Rapids, having traveled over forty miles. Nothing could be done but wait the arrival of the reinforcements from Lower Sandusky as Winchester had left the night before."
On the evening of the 22d Colonel Perkin's regiment and the battalion of militia arrived at the Rapids, and later in the evening the news of Winchester's defeat, also reached the Rapids. A council of officers was immediately called by General Harrison to consider the situation. The unanimous opinion of the coun- cil favored a retreat to Portage river, a distance of eighteen miles, and the decision was immediately carried into effect. The retreat commenced on the 2d of March. A volunteer from Pittsburgh, in a letter to a friend, thus describes the suffering they endured :
"Early the next morning, at two o'clock, our tents were struck, and in half an hour we were on our way. I candidly . confess that on that day I regretted being a soldier. We marched thirty miles in an incessant rain. For eight miles of that dis-
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tance the water was over our knees, and often up to the middle. The Black Swamp, four miles from Portage river, and four miles in extent, would have been considered impassible by any men not determined to surmount every obstacle. The water on the ice was about six inches deep. The ice was very rotten, often breaking through where the water was four or five feet deep. That night we encamped on the best ground we could find, but it was very wet. It was next thing to impossible to kindle fires, We had no tents, no axes, our clothes were perfectly soaked through, and we had but little to eat. Two logs rolled to- gether, to keep me out of the water, was my bed."
The desire of General Harrison to retake Detroit before spring, was the cause of much suffering among the troops. He. assembled all the available troops he could at Lower Sandusky, early in February and returned to the Maumee. It now became apparent to him that the enterprise for the present must be postponed.
To make the ground at the foot of the Rapids a depot for troops, stores of subsistence, and artillery, Captain Wood, of the Engineers was ordered to fortify the position. A spacious fort was erected and called Fort Meigs, in honor of the Governor of Ohio. The distance of Fort Meigs to Fort Malden on the eastern bank of the Detroit river was only a three days' march.
The army now, at Fort Meigs, including the three hundred men left by General Winchester, to guard his stores, amounted to two thousand men. About the middle of February informa- tion was received from friendly Indians that six hundred Indian warriors were encamped on Maumee Bay, twenty miles below Fort Meigs. Upon receipt of the intelligence General Harrison selected eleven hundred men and proceeded down the river on the ice. At a late hour in the night they came in sight of the camp-fires ; but the wily foe had fled. Their scouts had been on the alert.
The weather was exceedingly cold, but cold as it was they did not stop to warm themselves, but immediately started in pursuit of the fugitives. They soon reached the head of Mau- mee Bay where they were exposed to the intensely cold wind from Lake Erie. Unfortunately for them it was found that the ice was not as thick on the bay as it was on the river. At an unlucky moment their only cannon, with the horses attached
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broke through. "It was still two hours before day, and the moon, which had thus far shone upon their icy path, was now sinking behind the forests. Three of the men, in attempting to extri- cate the horses, were plunged into the terrible bath, and nar- rowly escaped drowning. It was not safe to proceed without the cannon, and that could not be recovered until the light of day. The soldiers, waiting for two hours of midnight darkness on the bleak ice, without shelter and without fires, suffered in- tensely. As soon as the gun was recovered they pushed toward the river Raisin, which empties into the extreme western border of the lake. Near here they learned from their scouts, about sunrise, that the fleet-footed Indians were far away on their retreat, and would soon be behind the walls of Fort Malden. The weary, half frozen band, having accomplished nothing by all their sufferings, returned to Fort Meigs just as the evening gun had been fired. They had performed a march of forty-five miles on the ice in less than twenty-four hours."
John S. C. Abbott in his History of Ohio states that "A few days after this another expedition was undertaken, which we know not whether to designate as heroic or desperate. On Friday, the 26th of February, General Harrison called for vol- unteers to set out on a secret enterprise, which he informed them was important but hazardous in the extreme. Two hundred and fifty. men volunteered. He told them that they would not be informed of the nature of the enterprise until they were at some distance from the fort.
"About fifty miles east of Fort Meigs, on the Sandusky river, where the town of Lower Sandusky now stands, there was a blockhóuse called Fort Sanderson. It was garrisoned by two companies of militia. This little band took up its line of march for that fort. On the 2d of March they left the log-house with six days' provisions. Captain Langham was in command. When they had proceeded about half a mile he ordered a halt. He then revealed to them the object of the expedition. It was to march along Lake Erie, on the shore and on the ice, as best they could, till they reached the banks of Detroit river opposite Fort Malden. Quite a large British fleet, laden with provisions was frozen in at but a short distance from the fort. In the dark- ness of a winter's night they were to cross the river on the ice and set fire to the fleet, and the store-houses on the shore, with
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combustibles which they bore with them. They were then to retreat as rapidly as possible to the head of Maumee Bay, where General Harrison would meet them with a large force and escort them back to Fort Meigs. This surely was infatuation, not courage. The success of the enterprise depended upon so many contingencies that it could not reasonably have been expected to succeed.
"Having explained the plan Captain Langham gave liberty to all who deemed it too hazardous to withdraw. Twenty of the militia and seven of the Indians availed themselves of the lib- erty. The whole party, officers and men, now consisted of but two hundred. Of these twenty-four were drivers of sleds, and fourteen were Indian guides and scouts. It was known that the fort at Malden was strongly garrisoned by British troops, and that a body of nearly a thousand Indian warriors were encamped near by.
"Captain Langham and his party marched as rapidly as pos- sible down the western shore of Sandusky Bay. It was the wintry, windy, stormy month of March. Some marched on the land, and crossed the peninsula through the rugged wilderness to Portage River. Others took the southern, but far more cir- cuitous path, on the ice. A fierce tempest arose of rain and sleet. The soldiers were not provided with tents. They encamped in the storm, and through an awful night of suffering were drenched and half frozen. The next day was March 3d, and they pushed their adventurous way on the ice out in the lake to Middle Bass Island, about seventeen miles from their encampment of the pre- ceding night. Just before they left the land for this island, about twenty men, including several Indians, utterly disheartened, de- serted. The wind was then blowing fiercely from the north, and a smothering storm of snow beating into their faces impeded their progress.
"Early in the afternoon they reached the northwest side of the island, when the weather began to moderate. It was sup- posed that one continuous sheet of ice would extend from there across the lake to Malden. But it was found that the ice north of the island was weak, and in the distance north, the ice seemed to be broken up. There were also marks upon the ice. Some per- sons, probably spies, had recently passed that way to give the British warning of their approach.
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"Their plan was to go by what is called the Western Sister Island. But the guides now gave it as their opinion that it was impossible in that way to reach Malden. They said that the lake from the Middle Sister Island was doubtless broken up, as was also the Detroit river. From Middle Bass Island the distance to the mouth of the Detroit river was eighteen miles. To avoid being seen it would be necessary to perform that march in the dark. But as the weather was stormy and the ice soft, it might not be possible to accomplish this. Moreover there was great danger that a northerly wind might blow up, and they might be caught on the breaking, crashing ice, or if they should reach an island they might be helplessly cut off. The guides, therefore, unani- mously and peremptorily declared that they did not consider it safe to go any farther ; and that if Captain Langham persisted to advance he must himself assume the whole responsibility.
"The captain then called the men together and stated to them frankly the opinion of the guides. 'The enterprise,' said he, 'is one of great importance. Still it is possible that all may be lost in the lake by the breaking up of the ice. And thus the country will be deprived of very choice troops without obtaining- any service in return.'
"The soldiers were then called upon to express their opinion. These heroic men, with one voice, replied : 'We are ready to go wherever you are ready to lead us. We leave the decision with you.
"Very wisely the ill-judged expedition was abandoned. They directed their steps as rapidly as possible towards the land. They were confirmed in the wisdom of their decision by seeing before they reached the shore, in the distance, the dashing billows of the lake. General Harrison met them at the point of landing and escorted them in safety back to Fort Meigs."
After the abandonment of the Detroit campaign, General Harrison entrusted the command of Fort Meigs to General Left- wich, with instructions to complete the unfinished fortifications. The General then departed for the interior to promote the re- cruiting service, to visit his family, then suffering under severe sickness, and to hasten the movements of the militia from Ken- tucky, detached 'to supply the place of the Virginia and Penn- sylvania troops, whose period of service was about to expire. On the 30th of March, he received intelligence that the lake would
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soon be open-at the same time he learned that the militia at Fort Meigs would leave at the expiration of their service. Upon receipt of this intelligence he sent expresses to urge on the militia from Kentucky. The governor of Kentucky responded by send- ing three companies of militia under Major Johnson. Upon their arrival at Cincinnati, they were mounted on pack-horses, and proceeded with all possible expedition. Proceeding to Leb- anon General Harrison ordered Major Ball, and his dragoons who had been quartered at that point ever since their return from the Mississiniway expedition to march to Fort Meigs, where the men could act for a time, as infantry." Harrison then hastened to Fort Amanda on the Auglaize. Here he found Colonel Mil- ler and his regulars, just arrived from Chillicothe, and Colonel Mills of the militia, with one hundred and fifty men who had been building and had completed a fleet of boats. Into these boats the General and these troops and boat builders entered, and in this way, reached Fort Meigs on the 11th of April, 1813. The waters were high, out of their banks, and the navigation difficult and dangerous. The fleet, however, arrived in safety. Tarrying near the fort in the boats, over night, and ascertaining that the fort was not invested by the enemy, he and his detach- ment entered the fort early in the morning of the 12th of April. General Harrison was very much chagrined, to find upon his arrival in the fort that General Leftwich had totally disregarded his orders with regard to the completion of the unfinished works. Instead of doing so, "He pretended that the men could not be made to work, - said they were sickly, that the weather was bad, and what was most vexatious indeed, permitted them to burn the picketing timber for fuel, instead of getting it from the woods. After General Harrison left camp, not a single thing towards finishing the works was done, until Captain Wood returned on the 20th from Sandusky, to which place he had been sent to give directions for its fortification. He had the extreme mortification to find nothing at all done in his absence, except the destruction of the unfinished lines. This was most perplexing to him indeed, as the ultimate responsibility in case of an attack, would in a great measure attach to him, the fortifying of the camp having been solely committed to his charge. Many young officers, Croghan, Bradford, and Langham, were extremely cha- grined and vexed at this old phlegmatic Dutchman, who was
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not even fit for a pack-horse master, much less to be entrusted with such an important command."
Before reaching Fort Meigs General Harrison learned from a messenger from the river Raisin that Proctor would leave Malden, about the 7th of April, with a large force, well pro- vided with all the munitions of war, to attack Fort Meigs.
On his way from the interior the General wrote back to Governor Shelby for the remainder of the Kentucky drafted troops. The order was in direct violation of instructions from the War Department; but the critical situation of affairs in his opinion authorized the measure. "The most vigorous exer- tions were now made in the fort to prepare for a siege; and scouts were constantly sent out to watch for the approach of the enemy. A vigilant eye was directed down the river, and re- connoitering parties were frequently sent in boats to the mouth of the bay to survey the lake. On the 19th a scouting party brought in three Frenchmen from the river Raisin, who stated that the British were still making active preparations for an attack and were assembling an immense Indian force. The Prophet and Tecumseh had arrived with six hundred warriors from the country between Lake Michigan and the Wabash. This intelligence convinced the General that the attack by the Indians was to be expected on the posts in his rear, or on the settlements of the Big Miami and Wabash. He therefore sent an express to Governor Shelby to countermand the march of troops which he had recently requested."
On the 26th of April, as the troops were on parade, the at- tention of the officers was called to two strangers finely mounted, riding along the bank on the opposite side of the river. It being an unusual thing to see travelers in that wild country, and as it became manifest that they were very carefully surveying the works, it was inferred that they were spies. One of the guns was immediately brought to bear upon them, and a shot was sent whistling through the air, which tore up the earth at their feet. They immediately spurred their horses to flight. It was after- wards learned that the two visitors were the British General Proc- tor and the Indian Chief Tecumseh."
A state of general activity prevailed in the fort from the 20th to the 28th.
The tents were folded and stored away, and caves were dug
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for lodgings; for it was known that they would be exposed to: heavy shot and shells from the heavy siege guns of the enemy. The fort was surrounded by an embankment twelve feet high with a depth of twenty feet at the base.
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