USA > Ohio > The Ohio country between the years 1783 and 1815 : including military operations that twice saved to the United States the country west of the Alleghany Mountains after the revolutionary war > Part 11
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"I am compelled to declare it as my deliberate opinion that, if this bill [for the admission of Orleans (Louisiana) as a State] passes, the bonds of this Union are virtually dissolved; that the States which compose it are free from their moral obligations; and that as it will be the right of all, so it will be the duty of some, to prepare definitely for a separation amica- bly, if they can, violently, if they must."
Hostilities were continued to the westward, some murders and captivities of Americans being reported; and some blockhouses were built along the frontier for the refuge and defence of the re- maining settlers.
Governor Harrison had not remained idle. He had instituted preparations for defence, and for advance movements. By appointment he was visited by the chief leader of the hostile Aborigines, his written report of the visit, August 6, 18II, being in part as follows:
"The Shawnee Chief Tecumseh has made a visit to this place with about three hundred Indians,
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though he promised to bring but a few attendants; his intentions hostile, though he found us prepared for him. Tecumseh did not set out until yesterday; he then descended the Wabash attended by twenty men on his way to the southward. After having visited the Creeks and Choctaws he is to visit the Osages, and return by the Missouri. The spies say his object in coming with so many was to demand a retrocession of the late purchase [of Aborigine claims to land]. At the moment he was promising to bring but a few men with him he was sending in every direction to collect his people. That he meditated a blow at this time was believed by almost all the neutral Aborigines."
Governor Harrison reported, September IIth, from Vincennes as follows:
states that almost every Indian from the country above this had been or was gone to Malden on a visit to the British Agent. We shall probably gain our destined point at the moment of their return. If then the British agents are really endeavoring to instigate the Aborigines to make war upon us, we shall be in their neighborhood at the very moment when the impressions which have been made against us are most active in the minds of the savages. succeeded in getting the chiefs together at Fort Wayne, though he found them all preparing to go to Malden. The result of the council discovered that the whole tribes (including the Weas and Eel Rivers, for they are all Miamis) were about equally divided in favor of the Prophet and the United States,
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From 1809-1812
- reports that all the Aborigines of the Wabash have been or now are on a visit to the British Agent at Malden; he has never known more than one-fourth as many goods given to the Aborigines as they are now distributing. He examined the share of one (not a chief) and found that he had received an elegant rifle, twenty-five pounds of powder, fifty pounds of lead, three blankets, three strouds of cloth, ten shirts, and several other articles. He says every Aborigine is furnished with a gun (either rifle or fusil) and an abundance of ammunition. A trader of this country was lately in the King's store at Malden, and was told that the quantity of goods for the Indian Department which had been sent out this year, exceeded that of common years by £20,000 sterling. It is impossible to ascribe this profusion to any other motive than that of instigating the Aborigines to take up the tomahawk; it cannot be to secure their trade for all the peltries collected on the waters of the Wabash in one year if sold on the London market would not pay the freight of the goods which have been given to the Aborigines."
Tecumseh and the Prophet had been advising discontinuance of trade with Americans. Action on this advice led to some clandestine trading, to more fraudulent practices by the Aborigines, and to their violence. But the principal result was observed as an additional incentive to turn the Savages to the British whose lavish gifts had already drawn nearly all of them to Fort Malden.
Meetings of citizens along the frontier were
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held during the summer of 1811; and memorials stating the depredations and murders by the Aborigines, accompanied by petitions for pro- tection, were sent by them to President Madison.
Governor Harrison was given additional regular troops and militia, and the second week in October they advanced up the Wabash towards the Prophet's town by the Tippecanoe River to stop his influence for further murderous raids. Peace messengers were sent forward, but they were violently treated, and on the night of the roth a sentinel of the American command was severely wounded by the Prophet's adherents. Governor Harrison commanded the Americans in person. He advanced cautiously and, on the 6th of November, meeting some of the Prophet's messen- gers near his town, made an agreement for a council the next morning. But, true to the treacherous nature of the Savages, they made a stealthy attack in the dark about a quarter past four o'clock in the morning, when, in the words of Governor Harrison's report, "they manifested a ferocity uncommon to them. To their savage fury our troops, nineteen twentieths of whom had not before been in battle, opposed that cool and deliberate valor which is characteristic of the Christian soldier." The Savages retreated.
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From 1809-1812
The Americans in this Battle of Tippecanoe num- bered a few over seven hundred; and the number of Savages was estimated as nearly the same. The American loss was sixty-two killed and one hun- dred and twenty-six wounded. The loss of the Savages was estimated at a larger number.
The condition of the frontier settlements was but little, if any, improved by this defeat of the Shawnee Prophet's army. To dishearten the Savages seriously, it was necessary to give them a crushing defeat, or a series of defeats. Depre- dations and murders continued in the West, and grave apprehensions pervaded the entire country.
Among the petitioners to the President and Congress for protection, were the prominent citizens of the Territory of Michigan, living at Detroit, who gave statistics from which the following are extracted, viz .: The population of the Territory, December 10, 1811, was given as four thousand seven hundred and sixty-two, about four fifths of whom were French, the remainder being largely Americans, with a few British, and some servants of African blood.1
1 African slaves were brought into this western region by the Aborigines, and were taken to Detroit from an early date. They were bought first by the French, and later by the British, army officers, and merchants, by whom they were retained as servants for many years.
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They were distributed in nine principal settle- ments each settlement having a "double frontier" -the British on one side, the Savages on the other. The first three of these settlements were named as: I, the mouth of the Maumee River; 2, the River Raisin; 3, the River Huron, in Michigan Territory. The other settlements were at De- troit, and northward, and westward. There were two forts, Detroit with a garrison of ninety- four soldiers, and Michilimackinac with seventy- nine soldiers. Additional forts were petitioned for, with stronger garrisons, and cavalry.
Wandering bands of hostile Aborigines and "British emissaries" continued to visit every camp, and Fort Malden. Had the petitions of the settlers for more forts and cavalry been granted, and these hostile mischief-makers been arrested and imprisoned, the influence of the "Prophet " and of the British could have been greatly reduced and many American lives saved. The policy of forbearance, delay, and hoping for peace was continued until long after the British and their savage allies were again thoroughly organized.
Governor Howard of Missouri Territory wrote March 19, 1812, detailing depredations and "most barbarous murders" by Savages; and the letters
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From 1809-1812
of like import from Captain Nathan Heald were frequent from Chicago, including the report of killing and eating two Americans by Winnebagoes at the lead mines near the Mississippi River.
The Trading Agent at Fort Wayne, then Major Benjamin F. Stickney, after reporting a grand council of twelve tribes by the Wabash River, wrote May 25th, what he had before written to Governor Hull, viz .:
"The time appears to have arrived when it is necessary, if possible, to cut off all communication between the Indians within the territory of the United States, and Canada."
This was a very tardy suggestion of a policy the enforcement of which should have seemed a necessity many years before this date. Tribe af- ter tribe and band after band of the Aborigines, including several hundred Ottawas of the lower Maumee, had been enticed to remove to the Tip- pecanoe, or to near Malden, and again to ally themselves closely with the British for a general war.
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CHAPTER XVI
SAD BEGINNING OF THE WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE
Tardy Action of Congress-Declaration of War against Great Britain-This War of 1812 the Real War for In- dependence-The Army of the Northwest the First in the Field-Forts McArthur, Necessity, Findlay, and Miami Built-Sad Inefficiency of General Hull-He Orders the Abandonment of Fort Dearborn-Massacre and Canni- balism by British Allies-Hull Surrenders Fort at Detroit without Effort for Defence-Brave and Patriotic Work by Captain Brush.
N TOTWITHSTANDING the numerous reports of many American agents and officers, during several years of depredations and mur- derings by the Savages, and the accumulated evidence of their incitement by British traders, other agents, and officers, it was not until June 13, 1812, that the committee of Congress reported it proved that the British had been working among these Aborigines with the intention of securing them as allies against the United States;
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From 1812-1813
that the British had incited them to hostilities and presented them with weapons of warfare which had already been used against the Americans; and that it was the duty of the President of the United States to use the necessary means to protect the frontiers from the attacks with which they were yet threatened.
The war cloud that had been lowering for several years, settled into a formal declaration of war against Great Britain, June 18, 1812, on account of the enemy's interference with Amer- ican trade, enforced by a blockade; the search of American vessels; the impressment of American seamen, and the encouragement of the Aborigines in their savagery against Americans. This last charge was yet far more apparent in the West than to the general public in the East and was, as yet, scarcely mentioned by those highest in authority in the East.
This was to be the real war for independence from Great Britain, as foreseen by Benjamin Franklin; the war of 1775-1783 was only Revo- lutionary.
Governor William Hull, of Michigan Territory, was in Washington during part of the winter and spring of 1812, and he urged the President to increase the military force in the Northwest; and
V
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for the third time he called attention to the positive necessity for an American naval fleet on Lake Erie.
The President made requisition early in April upon Governor Return J. Meigs of Ohio for twelve hundred militia to be ready for immediate march to Detroit. He also appointed Com- mander Stewart, Agent on Lake Erie, and ordered the building of vessels for defence.
On April 8th, Governor Hull was commissioned Brigadier-General in the United States army, and he was ordered to take charge of the Ohio troops. It appears that this was against his desire, and it was surely a very serious mistake. Hull arrived May 25th at Dayton, Ohio, the place of rendezvous, and the volunteer troops were at once given to his command by Governor Meigs. They moved northward June Ist to Urbana, where they were joined by the Fourth Regiment of United States troops, which the President had ordered forward from Vincennes.
It was the desire of General Hull to go as direct to Detroit as practicable, and this course led through a trackless forest until arrival at the Maumee River a little below Roche de Bout. Colonel Duncan McArthur's First Regiment was detached to cut a road from Urbana, which was
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From 1812-1813
done to the Scioto River near the present Kenton, and there they built two blockhouses and con- nected them with stockades, which, later, received the name Fort McArthur.
The army arrived at this post June 19th. The Second Regiment, under Colonel James Findlay, was here detached to cut and bridge a road onward. On June 22d, Fort McArthur was garrisoned by Captain Dill's company, and leaving the sick in his care, the army moved forward. Heavy rains made the way across the morasses at the headwaters of the Blanchard River well-nigh impassable, and, after a laborious struggle, and under great annoyance from the small flies and mosquitoes, they were obliged to halt sixteen miles from Fort McArthur. Here were built another stockade and houses which were named Fort Necessity. With lessening food supplies, the horses and oxen were put on short allowance, and rearrangements were made whereby the wagons were to be relieved of more of their burden by packs on the horses "and every man who could make a packsaddle was detailed on that business; but as soon as a sufficient number of saddles were made the order was rescinded, and the saddles were deposited in the blockhouses. "
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The weather improving, the army advanced and, after three days, arrived at the Blanchard River, on the left bank of which Colonel Findlay's detachment had nearly completed a stockaded enclosure about one hundred and fifty feet square, with a blockhouse at each corner, and a ditch in front. General Hull gave this place of refuge in the forest the name Fort Findlay. It was situated but a few squares north of the present court-house in the city of Findlay, Ohio.
A messenger, Colonel Dunlap, here delivered to General Hull, on June 24th, an order from the Secretary of War for the army to proceed at once to Detroit and there expect further orders. This order was dated the morning of June 18th, the day that war was declared, but no mention of this act was made in the order. Colonel Mc- Arthur, however, received communication the same day from Chillicothe, stating on authority of Thomas Worthington, then United States Senator from Ohio, that war would be proclaimed before this writing could be delivered to him. This letter was shown to General Hull who, from his previous information, knew that war was imminent.
President Madison and William Eustis, Secre- tary of War, early provided for three armies for
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From 1812-1813
the prosecution of the War of 1812, viz .: The Army of the Northwest, under General Hull, which was the first in the field; the Army of the Center, under Solomon Van Rensselaer, whose headquarters were at Niagara; and the Army of the North, under General Joseph Bloomfield, whose head-quarters were at Plattsburg, New York.
The object of the remaining part of this book is to follow the movements, failures, and successes of the Army of the Northwest, which will be cred- ited with turning the contest against the British, and with the saving of the region west of the Allegheny Mountains, for the second time, at least, to the United States.
General Hull directed Colonel Lewis Cass, with the Third Regiment, to cut and prepare a road northward from Fort Findlay. Much of the heavy baggage was stored at this fort, to be forwarded as desired, and the army proceeded as soon as practicable. After a few days' march, they arrived at the Maumee River, opposite the site of General Wayne's battle-field of Fallen Timber, where encampment was made for the night. Fording the river at the rapids here, the next encampment was made near a small village of American settlers, and at the site of the British Fort Miami of 1794-1796.
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Here the schooner Cuyahoga under Captain Chapin was chartered for Detroit, and loaded with much of the heavier baggage, including entrenching implements, hospital stores, the heaviest part of the officers' personal effects, and even thoughtlessly including the General's com- mission, the instructions from the Secretary of War, and the complete muster rolls of the army. Thirty soldiers were detailed as guard for the schooner, which also carried as passengers the wives of three subordinate officers.
The sequel proved that it would have been far better for the American cause had General Hull also gone with his private papers, direct to the British. Captain McPherson, of Cincinnati, here suggested to the General that war must have been declared, and that the schooner would be captured by the enemy. The Cuyahoga, accompanied by a sloop carrying the sick under care of Surgeon's Mate James Reynolds, sailed, however, from the Maumee River, July 1, 1812, the former to be captured by the British next day, when passing Fort Malden. The sloop was belated and, going up the shallower channel west of Bois Blanc Island, evaded the enemy and arrived at Detroit July 3d.
Lieutenant Davidson and twenty-five privates
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From 1812-1813
were detached to build and occupy a blockhouse at the ruins of Fort Miami,1 and, July Ist, the army continued the march northward through the best cleared country in the West, it having been the highway, with many settlements, of the French and British, for one hundred and fifty years or more.
General Hull did not formally learn of the declaration of war until the afternoon of July 2d, when he was overtaken near Frenchtown (the present Monroe, Michigan) by a messenger with such information from the Secretary of War; and he here also learned of the capture of his schooner. The British garrison at Fort Malden had previously received notification of the war, and was alert for action. Fort Michili- mackinac (later Mackinac, and Mackinaw) with a garrison of fifty-seven soldiers was surrendered to a far superior force of British and Savages July 17th, the commandant, Lieutenant Porter Hicks, first learning at their demand for surrender that war was declared.
Late in July, Hull ordered the abandonment of Fort Dearborn, Chicago, Captain William Wells
1 See the article on the six Forts Miami in the Ohio Archeo- logical and Historical Quarterly, April, 1903, vol. xii., p. 120 et seq., by Charles E. Slocum.
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The Ohio Country
bearing the order from Fort Wayne. Members of the garrison, and others, including Captain Wells, who had been a very efficient scout, inter- preter, and soldier with Wayne, and later, suffered massacre on leaving the fort, by Savages who ate the heart and part of the body of Wells particularly.
Governor Meigs, Thomas Worthington, and Jer- emiah Morrow, as United States Commissioners, held a council at Piqua, Ohio, August 15th, with such representatives of the Aborigines as could be gathered, for the purpose of securing their neutrality with the British. A number of the Ohio tribes were represented, but little could be done with them, they having heard the report from Michilimackinac and Chicago.
Full account of the weak conduct of General. Hull, which has been several times and fully written, will not be given space here. It culmi- nated, August 16th, in the surrender to the British of Detroit, with nearly two thousand American soldiers, without any effort toward resistance having been made. This surrender was an irreparable loss to the Northwestern Army, and of corresponding value to the enemy. As heretofore seen on these pages, this post had for many years been a great vantage ground for the
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From 1812-1813
British; and the surrender also carried to the enemy two thousand and four hundred stand of arms, besides those in the arsenal; also of cannon : iron, nine 24-pounders, five 9-, three 6-, four 2-, and two I-pounders; and of howitzers, one 8-inch and one 52-inch; these according to the British official returns.
The Ohio volunteers in this unfortunate army were paroled, and sent across Lake Erie to Cleve- land, whence they walked to their respective homes. They were exchanged in March or early April, 1813. General Hull and the United States troops were retained as prisoners of war, and were sent to Montreal.
An additional two hundred and thirty volun- teers, under Captain Henry Brush, with one hundred beef cattle and other food supplies, sent by Governor Meigs to reinforce the army at De- troit, were held by the British from advancing beyond the river Raisin from the first days of August, without relief from Detroit. Hull included this force in his surrender; but when Captain Elliott, son of the notorious Captain Matthew Elliott, and his attendants came to claim this prize, Captain Brush placed them under arrest and im- mediately started his command and supplies south- ward, and conducted them back to Governor Meigs.
CHAPTER XVII
SLOW PROGRESS IN PREPARING TO MEET THE ENEMY
Efforts to Repair Hull's Loss-General Harrison Appointed Commander-in-Chief-Siege of Fort Wayne Relieved- General Winchester Appointed to Succeed Harrison without Cause.
W HEN the critical state of affairs at Detroit was made known to Governor Meigs, he immediately ordered the remaining part of Ohio's quota of the one hundred thousand detached militia, which the President was authorized to levy among the States, twelve hundred in number, to rendezvous under Brigadier-General Tupper at Urbana, which was well in the southern edge of the wilderness. When the Governor learned of the loss of Detroit, he became active in placing every effective force and point in good con- dition for successful defence against the Savages; also in advising the frontiersmen to gather and
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From 1812-1813
build blockhouses for the protection of their families.
Kentucky, under the Governorship of the veteran General Charles Scott, was prompt in gathering her quota of ten regiments of five hun- dred and fifty men each. Governor Harrison, who, the preceding year, had been commissioned to command the troops in Indiana and Illinois Territories, had, with his characteristic thought- fulness and good judgment, secured places of refuge for the settlers in his domain. He was also authorized to call on the Governor of Ken- tucky for any soldiers, needed from that State, which were not in service.
By invitation of Governor Scott, his comrade in General Wayne's campaign through Ohio, Harri- son visited Frankfort, inspected the militia, and was given a public reception, the principal citizens including Henry Clay uniting to do him honor; and in order that he might be chief in command of the Kentucky forces, Governor Scott com- missioned him, August 25, 1812, Major-General of the militia of Kentucky by brevet. It was not known by either party that President Madison had, on August 22d, commissioned him Brigadier- General in the Army of the United States.
Writing to Governor Meigs from Cincinnati on
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The Ohio Country
the 27th, General Harrison stated, that the Ken- tucky troops then with him were two regiments of infantry and one of mounted riflemen, which were ordered at once to Urbana; and that three regiments of infantry, one of dragoons, and one of mounted riflemen were in full march to join him-the whole number being over four thousand men. He further stated that "should the report of the capture of General Hull's army prove untrue, I shall join them either at that place [Urbana], or before they reach it, and proceed to Detroit without waiting for the regiments in my rear." He also inquired what assistance could be given him from Ohio.
The Kentucky troops marched up the Miami Valley, and were overtaken by General Harrison the third day. On September 2d, when above Dayton, they were overtaken by an express bearing the United States commission for Gen- eral Harrison and instructions for him to take command of the Indiana and Illinois troops, and co-operate with General Hull of Detroit, and Governor Howard of Missouri Territory, as Gen- eral James Winchester had been assigned to the chief command of the Northwestern Army.
The march was continued to Piqua, where they arrived September 3d, to learn that Fort Wayne,
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From 1812-1813
which had been rebuilt by Colonel Thomas Hunt in 1804, was strongly besieged by Savages, and that a strong command of British and Savages had been sent from Fort Malden for the conquest of the Maumee and Wabash valleys. The Abo- rigine Agent at Piqua, Colonel John Johnston, at the request of General Harrison, sent some Shawnee scouts yet on his pay-roll to the site of Fort Defiance, to ascertain if any British force had passed up the Maumee River to the siege of Fort Wayne. Captain John Logan, a friendly and efficient Shawnee half-breed, was sent to Fort Wayne, to learn and to report its condition as soon as possible.
Immediate action seemed imperative, and, without awaiting General Winchester's arrival or his orders, General Harrison ordered Lieu- tenant-Colonel John Allen's regiment of Federal troops, with two companies from Colonel Lewis's regiment, and one company from Colonel Scott's regiment, to prepare for a forced march to the relief of Fort Wayne.1
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