USA > Texas > Border fights & fighters; stories of the pioneers between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi and in the Texan republic > Part 18
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After the pusillanimous surrender of Hull at Detroit, a vigorous effort was inaugurated to recover the lost city and drive the British from the peninsula of Michigan. After various hesitations the supreme command of the force designed for the recapture and invasion of Canada was conferred upon Harrison, who was appointed a ma- jor-general in the regular army. His force was assem- bled in three small divisions, the left being under the com- mand of Brigadier-General James Winchester.
Winchester was a veteran of the Revolution. He had
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1
been a lieutenant in the Virginia Continental line at the age of twenty-four. It was his misfortune to be captured early in the Revolutionary War and to spend over four years as a prisoner. Most of the fighting was over when he was released, and as he had enjoyed no opportunity for distinguishing himself, consequently he had not risen above a subordinate rank. He was at this time over sixty years old; a brave, upright, estimable gen- tleman, with no other qualifications whatever for military command.
Under him was a force of some twelve hundred men, in- cluding the Seventeenth U. S. Regular Infantry, under Colonel Wells, who had fought brilliantly at Tippecanoe, the First, Second, and Fifth Kentucky Volunteers, the First Kentucky Riflemen, and some other troops. The soldiers, who had been enlisted in August, were provided only with clothing for summer campaigning, and as the winter approached, they suffered terrible hardships. The winter was one of unusual severity.
Harrison appealed personally to the women of Ken- tucky, and with patriotic zeal they labored to provide blankets, overcoats and other clothing for their men in the field, but these supplies had not yet reached Winches- ter's detachment. Harrison intended to concentrate his men at the Rapids of the Maumee, preparatory to marching on the British head-quarters at Malden, now Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada; and thither he directed Winchester to repair early in January, to fortify the place and to establish a depot to which would be sent the sorely needed supplies.
The Kentucky troops were not well affected toward Winchester at first. He had been sent out by the Na- tional Government to supersede Harrison in the chief
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command, and a bitter feeling had been engendered there- by. Harrison had found it necessary to appeal to the pa- triotism of the troops; but Winchester himself, by kindli- ness of heart, shown in the lax discipline he maintained, had changed the state of affairs, so that he had become personally popular with the men, although their efficiency had not been promoted by his actions.
They were, however, in good spirits at last in spite of hardships and exposures, and were become so zealous that when they were ordered to march to the Maumee Rapids, finding their horses and mules, as ill provided as their masters, unequal to the labor, the men dragged the cannon and supplies over the frozen country, gladly tak- ing hold of the traces and pulling the wagons and guns with their own hands.
Everything connected with the army was in a chaotic state. There were few, if any, trained soldiers among the officials. The war had not yet developed those whose talents enabled them to supplement their lack of expe- rience, and things went on very slowly indeed; as they al- ways do, even in the best of times-as they did in the Spanish-American War, for instance.
II. A Hazardous Expedition
While they were waiting in the cold for the bringing up of the supplies, the arrival of re-enforcements, and the approach of the other detachments of the army, which Harrison was vainly endeavoring to hasten, an appeal for help was brought to Winchester from a little village called Frenchtown, situated on the River Raisin, a few miles above the place where it empties into Lake Erie and where is now the city of Monroe, Michigan.
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The settlement was a small one, of some thirty families and as many houses. It was French in its origin and dated back in the previous century. The first settlers had named the stream upon which they had established them- selves the Rivière aux Raisins, on account of the preva- lence of wild grapes which they found there.
The settlement was menaced by a body of Canadians and Indians under the command of Major Reynolds, who had been despatched to seize it as a convenient outpost for watching the Americans, by Colonel Proctor, the British commander in the northwest. Messengers were sent to Winchester's camp asking him to send a detachment to drive away the enemy and protect the citizens from the Indians.
Moved by feelings of humanity, he committed a most serious military blunder. Feelings of humanity seem to find little place in military manœuvres, unfortunately. Frenchtown was within eighteen miles of Malden, in which lay a force of five thousand British and Indians. It was about thirty miles from the camp on' the Maumee. Winchester divided his small force into two parties, and on the 17th of January, 1814, he sent the first moiety, some six hundred and fifty men, under Colonel Lewis, to dispossess the British and Indians from Frenchtown. He immediately re-enforced him with a small detach- ment under Colonel Allen, which overtook the advance before the battle the next day.
Winchester's soldiers, whose terms of service were shortly to expire, were clamorous for movement. They did not wish to go home without having struck one blow at least, and through their officers they had strenu- ously urged upon the feeble general the despatch of the expedition. It does not appear that Winchester made
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any great resistance to their demand, or that he ever realized his blunder.
The weather was bitter cold, but the ill-clad troops, re- joicing in the prospect of fighting, set forth sturdily upon their hazardous undertaking. They marched rapidly, and after a day and a night approached Frenchtown. They crossed the River Raisin upon the ice, formed up in the woods, seized the town, and drove out the advance guard of the allies, whom they found drawn up in a convenient situation ready to receive them.
There was a spirited little engagement in the afternoon of the 18th, in which the British supported by a howitzer held their own for a time and inflicted a loss of some twelve killed, including one officer, and fifty-five wound- ed, including three officers, but they were finally driven from successive positions by the Americans. They re- treated in good order, and maintained an unbroken front until evening put an end to the battle, which was cer- tainly a victory for the Americans, since they remained in possession of the town and battle-field.
Colonel Lewis, whose conduct had been characterized by courage and skill, withdrew to the town and went into camp. His wounded were gladly cared for in the houses of the French people and his men established themselves in a good defensive position, enjoying through the hospi- tality of the villagers the first good warm meal they had eaten for a long time. A messenger was at once sent back to Winchester telling of their success, and then they remained quietly in camp within striking distance of the whole British army to wait their general's pleasure.
The houses of the village were mostly surrounded by gardens, the greater part enclosed by " puncheon " fences, which were in effect small stockades of heavy timber, or
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split logs, between four and five feet high and admirably adapted for defensive warfare. Lewis seems to have knocked out some of the intercepting fences so as to make a clear stockade around the southern part of the town, in which he posted his troops.
The messenger with the news of the success of the de- tachment raised the greatest enthusiasm in Winchester's camp. His men clamored to be led forward to the new position. Although there was no strategic importance to be attached to the possession of Frenchtown, and to hold it removed the division from its base of supplies and disorganized the plan of the commander-in-chief, it seemed on the face of it a bold, threatening, forward movement, and as such appealed to the unthinking.
It was, in fact, so rash a movement that it amounted to foolhardiness. If one can forget that Proctor was a coward and an ass, it might be likened to thrusting one's head into a lion's mouth. At any rate, Winchester de- termined to establish his camp on the Raisin. Leaving some three hundred men at Maumee with instructions to guard the stores until they could be sent for, and also to receive other stores, and despatching a messenger to Har- rison with the first news of the little victory and the pro- jected movement, Winchester, accompanied by Colonel Wells and the Seventeenth regulars, marched to French- town. When they got there on the 20th a petty little question of precedence which arose necessitated an ar- rangement which brought about the ultimate disaster of all of them.
Wells, as a colonel in the regular service, was senior in rank to Lewis and was thus entitled to what is known as the right of the line. On the left of the stockade occu- pied by Lewis there was another garden enclosure which
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would have afforded`excellent cover for Wells, but in a spirit of military punctilio he chose to maintain his right
BRITISH
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Map of Frenchtown and the Massacre on the Raisin.
to the right of the line, and accordingly encamped his men in the open on the right of Lewis, with no pro-
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tection whatever. His detached force was therefore a weakness rather than a strength to the army.
Winchester seems to have made no objection to the foolish arrangement. Indeed, it was only intended to be temporary, for the next day, the 21st, the officers pitched upon a suitable location for a fort large enough for the whole army, which they arranged to commence on the 22nd. Winchester established his head-quarters at the house of a man named Navarre, some three-quarters of a mile from the camp and south of the Raisin, a stream seventy yards wide and now frozen solid between its low banks.
There they lay, therefore, some nine hundred and fifty officers and men, without artillery, without provisions, with only a scanty supply of ammunition, ill-clothed, with no adequate commissariat, utterly unsupported and with- in easy striking distance of six times their number of the enemy. To add to their misfortunes the foolish question of precedence had so disposed them that over one-third of the force was in an untenable position. Wars have been waged and great peoples ruined over questions of precedence more than once.
Proctor, who in this one solitary instance seems to have exhibited some little capacity, at once moved down to at- tack them with six pieces of artillery and a force estimated at twelve hundred British and Indians, of whom three hundred were regulars of the Forty-first and the Royal Newfoundland Regiments, two hundred of the remainder being Canadian volunteers embodied in regiments, and the balance Wyandotte Indians led by a celebrated chief known as Round Head. Proctor supposed that he was to meet Lewis' detachment only, or he would have taken a larger force. He was ignorant of Winchester's arrival
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with a re-enforcement. However, as the event showed, he had more than enough for the purpose.
In the American camp there seems to have been a neg- lect of the most rudimentary duties of a soldier. No scouts were ordered, no pickets placed, and even the sen- tries were not extended as they should have been. A large supply of ammunition was left undistributed at Win- chester's head-quarters, although some of the troops had only ten rounds with them.
Colonel Wells and Colonel Lewis finally began to fear that their position would invite attack and made represen- tations to General Winchester snugly ensconced in the Navarre house across the river. He pooh-poohed their fears and made light of their suggestions, until finally the news was brought by one of the French inhabitants that a large force of British and Indians had left Malden and were approaching Frenchtown. This was contradicted vehemently by another Frenchman, who bore the historic name of La Salle, who it was afterwards learned was in the pay of the British. Winchester was reassured by La Salle's protestations and accordingly did nothing.
III. The Battle of Frenchtown
The night of January 2Ist was intensely cold, the ground was covered with snow, the wind blew fiercely. The poorly clad sentries almost perished during their long vigils, and they naturally kept an indifferent watch. Some of the approaches to the town were left entirely unpicketed. No scouting parties were sent out. The American army lay huddled around its fires, or crowded the huts and houses of the village seeking shelter from the freezing cold of the bitter winter. The whole army
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passed the night in confident security, and Proctor with his well-clad troops and Indians was enabled to approach near the camp without discovery.
Between four and five o'clock, probably nearer five, while it was yet dark, the drummer-boys began beating the reveille. The echoes of the drums had scarce died away under the black sky when three rifle shots from the nearest sentries, instantly followed by the report of a can- non and the bursting of a bombshell, crashed through the morning air. The discharge was succeeded by the rat- tling of musketry mingled with the cheers of the British and the yells of the Indians.
The startled Americans sprang to their arms in the gray misty morning, and in their bewilderment opened a fire upon the flashes of light which told of the presence of the enemy. If Proctor had realized the situation he could have rushed the camp and surprised the Americans al- most in their sleep. He chose, however, to bombard the pickets with his artillery, and the first gun, with a few ran- dom shots from the American pickets upon him as he marched forward in the snowstorm and darkness, fol- lowed by the general discharge, apprised the Americans of the advent of the enemy.
Fortunately the darkness prevented much damage from being done on either side by the firing, and it was not until daybreak that the battle became serious. Mean- while Proctor extended his line, placed two of his guns to the eastward of Lewis' division, and massed a large force of Indians on the exposed flank of Wells' command.
Winchester had arisen when he had heard the sound of firing in the winter morning, hastily dressed and galloped to the front with his staff. There was no want of courage. in the old man. He at once took position on the right
.
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flank of Wells' troops. As it grew lighter he discovered the mass of Indians menacing this right, the discovery being emphasized by the severe fire which the Indians poured upon the regulars from the cover of the trees with which the country abounded. Then for the first time he seems to have realized the untenable position of the men, and he ordered them to withdraw into the stockade, or, as it is sometimes alleged, to retire and reform behind the houses back of Wells' position.
The greater portion of these troops had never been in action before. As a rule it is only seasoned veterans who can safely be withdrawn from a position in the heat of a fierce action. The little prairie upon which the town stands was now ringing with musketry. The Americans were fighting coolly, although they were suffering great loss. It was evident, however, that the position of Wells' regiment was hopeless. Winchester had to order the retrograde movement or see the flank cut to pieces where it stood.
The regiment started back in good order, but the Ind- ians, mistaking the manœuvre for a retreat, contrary to their practice broke from cover and rushed upon the Americans. They were two to one at the point of con- tact, the march became a run, the run engendered a panic, and in a wild, disorganized mass the soldiers streamed past the stockade, through the town and made for the frozen river.
Colonel Lewis in the stockade, seeing the disaster, de- spatched Colonel Allen's regiment to charge the advanc- ing Indians and give the regulars time to recover. He himself gallantly left the stockade and joined Winchester, Wells, Major McLanahan, and other officers in an heroic effort to stay the wild rout, but all in vain. Allen's men,
4
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who charged the Indians bravely, were shattered by a heavy fire, the Indians made a countercharge in the smoke, the Americans were swept away and at once fol- lowed the others in retreat, the savages close on their heels.
Round Head had handled his savages with great skill. and he was now reaping the reward of his generalship. The fleeing men were shot down, tomahawked, and scalped in scores. Of the whole lot, only thirty-three es- caped. The remainder were overtaken and surrounded south of the Raisin and butchered without mercy. One young officer surrendered himself, and twenty men and the whole number, saving himself, were immediately shot, or tomahawked, and scalped. Colonel Wells and Major McLanahan were killed and most of the other officers as well.
Colonel Allen, desperately wounded, backed up against a tree for support. His offer to surrender was at first ac- cepted, but two Indians made for him with hostile intent. Allen, perceiving their design, determined to sell his life dearly. He cut the first man down and killed him with one terrific blow of the sword. The second man shot him dead. He was one of the finest gentlemen of Kentucky.
General Winchester and Colonel Wells were taken alive. The Indians stripped the poor old general and his surviving officers of their uniforms, so that they nearly perished with cold, and then marched them to Proctor's head-quarters. The right wing of the American army had not only been routed but annihilated. The battle, so far as they were concerned, had ceased when they began to retreat. The field was turned into a shambles. The Indians in this part of the affair suffered but little loss.
Meanwhile Proctor had been furiously assailing the
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stockade. Three times he had launched his regulars and Canadians in force upon it. Although dismayed and ap- palled by the repulse of the right wing, the Americans un- der Major Madison, a veteran of the Revolution, in which he had fought under George Rogers Clark, at the age of twelve, and of the Indian Wars under St. Clair and Wayne, put up a fierce defence, Major Graves, the senior officer, having been severely wounded early in the action. Three times they repulsed the British, killing and wound- ing over half the regulars present. So accurate was their rifle fire that sixteen men were killed or wounded, in quick succession, around the nearest six-pounder of the English, and the service of the gun was abandoned.
The Indians, flushed with their victory, now joined the beleaguering force and poured in a tremendous fire upon the stockade, which was spiritedly returned, and a heavy loss was here inflicted upon the savages.
Proctor finally withdrew his cannon and had about made up his mind to abandon the siege when he resolved to try a stratagem. The frozen, exhausted, old American general was brought to him. Winchester had just wit- nessed the annihilation of nearly half his force. Proctor assumed a threatening manner and declared that the stockade was practically in the power of the British, and unless it were immediately given up he would abandon it to the Indians, with the result that all the Americans would be massacred. The British commander said that if the matter came to a storm he would be unable to con- trol the Indians. If, however, Winchester would order his men to surrender, Proctor pledged his sacred honor that he would give the prisoners protection from the Ind- ians, treat them as prisoners of war, and allow the officers to retain their side arms and private property.
" Proctor
had a fiery interview with the American commander."
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Winchester, a kind-hearted old man, whose nerves had been greatly shaken by the awful slaughter he had wit- nessed, for the supposed sake of his men wrote an order directing Major Madison to surrender. Winchester, be- ing a captive, had no right to give an order of any kind, and no obedience would have been required from any man to such an order.
So successful had been the defence of the stockade that when Madison's men saw the flag of truce coming they imagined that it might be a request for a parley to permit the British to secure their dead and wounded and march away, or perhaps even surrender. Though how they could have thought that troops in the open, capable of re- treating, would surrender to troops in a stockade is diffi- cult to understand. Madison's men knew that the right wing had been repulsed, but were ignorant that it had been annihilated, and when they received the order, and the news as well, they were appalled.
Through some error Winchester's order for surrender did not specify anything about protection or other condi- tions. Proctor, who had come himself with the flag of truce, had a fiery interview with the American commander, who refused absolutely to surrender until promised safety for his men from Indian attacks. This Proctor assured him in the most solemn manner; thereupon Madison yielded his position.
He probably would not have done so, but his ammuni- tion was all but exhausted. Had Proctor made another attack this fact would have been developed and the Amer- icans would have been at the mercy of the enemy. As soon as the surrender was announced the Indians, frenzied by the excitement of battle and the number of slain, im- mediately rushed upon the Americans tomahawk and
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scalping knife in hand. Fortunately the troops still re- tained their arms and they turned upon the savages with muskets, bayonets, and bowie knives, and taught them a salutary lesson. Proctor had manifested little desire, and had made no attempt to restrain the Indians, but they were so savagely handled that they fled, leaving these Americans severely alone.
There had been about six hours of fighting, during which the Americans had lost about three hundred and fifty killed. There were some seventy-five severely wounded in addition and about five hundred were made prisoners. Proctor, in deadly anxiety lest Harrison should approach him with his army, immediately put his force in array to march back to the main body at Malden. The American wounded were left at Frenchtown under the care of two of their surgeons who had survived the slaughter of the battle, in charge of a British major and three interpreters with no force to protect them. Proc- tor promised to send sledges to fetch them the next day.
IV. The Murder of the Wounded
The Indians marched away with Proctor, but it was learned by the inhabitants of the village that they halted six miles from Frenchtown by Proctor's permission for " a jollification "-a war or scalp dance, or some such hellish revel. The night of the 22nd was passed in terri- fied apprehension by the poor wounded men for whom the surgeons were doing the best they could. On the morning of the 23rd some two hundred of the savages re- turned to Frenchtown. They were already excited by the liquor they had imbibed and they procured an addi- tional supply by breaking into some of the houses. The wounded prisoners were dragged forth. Those who
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were unable to walk were stripped, shot, tomahawked, and scalped. Some of them were left in houses which were set on fire and then burned to death.
The lives of about thirty who could manage to drag themselves along were spared, and they were driven in the frightful cold toward the head-quarters at Malden. All who could manage to stagger tried to make the jour- ney; they hobbled along till their strength gave out and were butchered where they fell. Many of the prisoners were not given up to the British, but were retained in bondage by the Indians.
This was the way Proctor kept his promise. These two hundred Indians comprised the escort he had ordered to bring up to Malden the wounded prisoners who had trusted to his honor. An old report from a Canadian pa- per, in my possession, has the following comment: " All day throughout the Indians behaved nobly, and the instant the enemy surrendered, their forbearance, as in former actions, was strikingly conspicuous." Wasn't it?
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