USA > Texas > Border fights & fighters; stories of the pioneers between the Alleghenies and the Mississippi and in the Texan republic > Part 19
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The fate of Captain Hart, the brother-in-law of Hen- ry Clay, was particularly harrowing. Although badly wounded he had begged of Captain Elliott that he might be taken with the other prisoners on the 22nd, and the men of his company offered to carry him. But Elliott pledged his honor that Hart would be safe and that his own private sleigh should be sent for him the next morn- ing. This Elliott had been a whilom personal friend of Hart's and a man who was indebted to Hart's family for many kindnesses before the war. He had charge of the Indian allies and is reputed to have said significantly to some of the wounded who asked for attendants and assist- ance, "that he would leave them to the Indians, who were all good doctors !"
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Elliott, of course, broke his promise; his honor was no stronger than Proctor's, and Hart was ruthlessly killed with the rest the next morning. His last words were a prayer to God for strength to meet his fate.
The British loss was twenty-four killed and one hun- dred and fifty-eight wounded, most of the casualties be- ing from the regular regiments. The Indian loss was probably under fifty. The American loss was between three hundred and ninety and four hundred killed, be- sides the few wounded whose lives were spared. Thirty- three got away and about five hundred and forty were captured.
Yes, there was sorrow and grief in the tidings to the people of Kentucky. But they were inflamed to furious wrath by the story of the killing by the Indians of the men who had surrendered and of the ruthless butchery of the helpless wounded permitted by Proctor. This affair was known colloquially as " The Massacre of the Raisin," and the war-cry of the Americans, which was heard on many fields and most fiercely at the Battle of the Thames, where Proctor fled like a coward and Tecumseh died like a hero, was, " Remember the Raisin." It is reported that some of the Kentucky borderers flayed the bodies of the Ind- ians, cutting their skins into long razor strops after the Battle of the Thames to " Remember the Raisin."
One of the most damning indictments that has ever been drawn against any civilized nation is that against Great Britain for employing the Indians as allies in this war against the Americans, although in justice to one Indian it may be said, that if Tecumseh had been with Proctor on this occasion it is probable that the massacre might not have occurred.
PART V THE NORTHWEST TERRITORY IV George Croghan and the Defence of Fort Stephenson
GEORGE CROGHAN AND THE DE- FENCE OF FORT STEPHENSON
I. A Boy in Command of Other Boys
T HIS is a story of a mere boy and a lot of other boys, on the frontier; an account of their heroic but forgotten exploit. It is barely mentioned in the larger histories, and its value is scarcely understood. Important or not, it introduces us to specimens of young American manhood of which we may well be proud.
Strange to say, few people at present have any but the vaguest idea as to who George Croghan was, and fewer still have ever heard of the fight at Fort Stephenson ; yet the names of both soldier and battle were once on every- body's lips, and they deserve a high and honorable place in the long and brilliant galaxy of American fights and fighters.
Prior to the War of the Rebellion, by specific acts of Congress, from time to time, some forty-two of our sol- diers and sailors were awarded medals for heroic exploits or successful battles. Eleven went to Revolutionary he- roes, the French and Tripolitan Wars were credited with one each, the War of 1812 with twenty-seven, and two .commanders were so distinguished in the Mexican War. The total number of medals for all causes distributed by act of Congress prior to 1861 was eighty-four.
The War of 1812 brought forth so large a number be-
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cause every captain who took a ship in the marvellous sea fights of the period, received a medal. Also, in several of these' ship and squadron engagements medals were awarded to subordinate officers for distinguished con- duct. Therefore, it would be fair to say that possibly not more than twenty-five separate actions in eighty-five years of thrilling history in which six wars were fought have been commemorated by the United States in this signal way. To digress; but two medals were awarded in the Rebellion (to Grant and Commodore Vanderbilt) and but one since (to Dewey). Now the general medal of honor has taken the place of the old-fashioned Con- gressional award.
One of the 1812 medals was awarded to George Cro- ghan for his heroic defence of Fort Stephenson, and this little prelude shows the importance of it in our history. I believe Croghan was the youngest man to be so signally honored.
Croghan was a Kentuckian. The family was one of prominence in early American history. His mother was a sister of the famous George Rogers Clark, and it was in her house near Louisville, where Croghan was born No- vember 15, 1791, that the old Revolutionary hero died. Croghan's father had been a Revolutionary soldier, a ma- jor, who had fought with credit during that struggle. His parents were fairly well-to-do, and he received the best education then obtainable, at William and Mary College, Virginia, where he graduated in 1810, at the age of eighteen-a bright youth indeed !
When General William Henry Harrison started on his Indiana campaign to break up the conspiracy of Tecum- seh, in 1811, young Croghan, whose predilections were entirely military, accompanied the expedition as a volun-
The Defence of Fort Stephenson 293
teer aid to Colonel Boyd, who commanded the United States troops on this occasion. He distinguished himself at the famous night battle of Tippecanoe, received a coveted appointment in the army, and the War of 1812 found him a captain in the Seventeenth Regiment of United States Infantry. He participated in all of Har- rison's early campaigns and he again distinguished him- self in a sortie at the famous siege of Fort Meigs, where he did valiant service as Harrison's aide-de-camp. He was mentioned in the despatches and rewarded by being promoted major of the Seventeenth Infantry.
After the abandonment of the siege by the British he was sent with a battalion of his regiment, comprising with the officers one hundred and sixty men, to garrison Fort Stephenson. These officers, all youths, most of them junior in years to their boyish commander, have earned a place in history, and their names are here set down: Captain James Hunter, Lieutenants Benjamin Johnston and Cyrus A. Baylor, Ensigns John Meek, Jo- seph Duncan, and Edmund Shipp; all of the Seventeenth Regulars except Meek, who belonged to the Ninth. With them went Lieutenant Anderson, who, having no command, served valiantly as a volunteer in the ranks.
Fort Stephenson was a ramshackle old stockade, built around a former Indian trader's house at the head of nav- igation on the Sandusky River, about twenty miles from the Lake Erie shore, in what is now Sandusky County, Ohio. The place was sometimes called Lower Sandusky, and the battle is frequently referred to as the defence of Lower Sandusky. The stockade, which was not in par- ticularly good repair, was made of piles sixteen feet high, and surrounding them was a dry ditch about eight or nine feet wide, and five or six feet deep. The fort, enclosing
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about an acre of ground, was laid out in the form of a par- allelogram, with a blockhouse at the northeast corner and a guardhouse at the southeast. To supplement these Croghan had erected another blockhouse midway on the
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Map of Fort Stephenson.
north wall, from which he could enfilade the ditch. He also strengthened the palisade, and put it in as good a state of repair as possible.
The place had not been designed as a fort. Originally it had only been intended as a defence against Indians.
0
DVANCE GUARD OF 200
GRENADIERS
The Defence of Fort Stephenson 295
It was situated on low ground near the river, commanded. by surrounding hills, and was untenable in the face of ar- tillery. It was a depot of supplies of some importance, although the great depot for Ohio was at Upper San- dusky, some twenty miles up the river. There was also a third depot and much valuable government material at Erie, where Perry had been busily engaged in building and outfitting his famous squadron. Fort Stephenson, therefore, was an outpost which stood between the two great depots in which were stored the provisions and mu- nitions of war for all the American armies in the north- west. It was at the apex of a triangle, the base line of which connected Erie and Upper Sandusky. Its fall would leave a way open to attack one or the other of these vitally important places without much difficulty. Harrison with a very inconsiderable force was posted at Seneca Falls, about ten miles away from Fort Stephen- son.
In the latter part of July, 1813, General Proctor, with a large force numbering at least three thousand Indians under Tecumseh, and six hundred British regulars, crossed the Lake from Malden and appeared before Fort Meigs on the Maumee. Finding that he could not tempt the small garrison to a sortie by a clever ruse in- vented by Tecumseh, he determined to leave the fort for the present, and re-embarking his regular soldiers in gun- boats and directing the Indians to follow them along the shore, he made a swift dash at Fort Stephenson. He ex- pected to capture it without difficulty, fall on General Harrison's little force at Seneca Falls, and after defeating it have the government storehouse and in fact the whole of Ohio at his mercy. Harrison, of course, divined his plan, and the people of the northwest who could remem-
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ber the bloody massacre at the Raisin River, well knew what to expect from the mercy of Proctor and his braves. It was Croghan who frustrated this brilliant scheme.
II. The Impudence of the Young Captain
A few days before the arrival of the British, Harrison had examined the place and pronounced it untenable against the artillery and regulars, as indeed by right it was. He thereupon directed Croghan, if the British ap- proached, to abandon it and retreat. If the Indians came alone, as they had no artillery, the place might be de- fended. Harrison's scouts apprised the American gen- eral of the withdrawal of the allies from Fort Meigs, and their advance upon Fort Stephenson. Although the abandonment would leave either great depot open to at- tack, he determined upon it, hoping that he could assem- ble a force to relieve Erie, or to defend Upper Sandusky, as Proctor chose one or the other plan. On the night of the 29th of July, therefore, Harrison sent word to Croghan to destroy the place at once and retreat to Seneca Falls. The messengers lost their way, had to flee for their lives from the Indians, and did not reach Croghan until late in the morning of the 30th of July. The doughty American called his boy officers together in a council of war and finding them in high spirits and willing to stand by him, immediately despatched the fol- lowing remarkable note to Harrison:
" Sir :- I have just received yours of yesterday, ten o'clock P. M., ordering me to destroy this place and make good my retreat, which was received too late to be car- ried into execution. We have determined to maintain this place, and by heavens, we can."
The Defence of Fort Stephenson 297
It was a plucky but very impudent document from a youthful major to a veteran major-general! Harrison was a trained soldier and he could not brook for a moment having his orders disobeyed in this manner. He sent a squadron of cavalry with an officer to supersede Croghan and ordered him to report at head-quarters at once. The cavalry fought its way down the river through hostile Ind- ians, of whom they managed to kill nearly a score, by the way, and delivered the message. Croghan turned the fort over to Colonel Wells, and repaired at once to head-quar- ters. He explained that the general's orders had been delayed in reaching him and the woods were now filled with Indians. He did not think it prudent under the cir- cumstances to retreat with so large a body of infantry, and he had worded his reply in the bluff way in which he did in the hope and expectation that it would fall into the hands of the enemy. He expressed himself as confident of his ability to hold the post, or at least make the British pay a staggering price for it, and begged to be reinstated in his command and to be given permission to try it. Harrison, who was very fond of the young fellow, gen- erously accepted his explanation, and allowed him to resume his command.
Croghan immediately returned to the fort, relieved Wells, and made vigorous preparation for its defence against the expected attack, which was not long delayed. On the first of August, about noon, the Indians were per- ceived in large numbers surrounding the fort. Tradition has it that one of them climbed a tall tree overlooking the enclosure, but before he could make any report of what he saw he was shot dead by the unerring rifles of the Kentuckians. Others who made the attempt fared in the same way, and the Indians at last concluded that it
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would not be safe to reconnoitre in that manner. They gathered in some force on the edge of the clearing finally, but a discharge from a six-pound gun,* Croghan's soli- tary piece of artillery, easily dispersed them.
About four o'clock in the afternoon the British boats appeared at a bend in the river and opened fire upon the fort from the boat guns. The British troops were disem- barked about a mile below the fort, and a five and a half inch howitzer was landed and began a cannonade, a fire the garrison received for the most part in silence, although the six-pounder which was mounted in the northeast blockhouse was dragged from port-hole to port-hole to give the impression of force, and fired occasionally. The number of the besiegers was about twelve hundred, of whom seven hundred were Indians. Tecumseh, with two thousand savages, was placed some miles back to menace the troops in Fort Meigs and the camp at Seneca Falls, if either moved to relieve Fort Stephenson, and he took no part in the battle. The odds were heavy enough as it was; twelve hundred with ample artillery, against one hundred and sixty and one gun, led by youths !
As soon as the British landed, Colonel Elliott and Ma- jor Chambers, accompanied by Captain Dixen of the Royal Engineers, commanding the Indian auxiliaries, were sent forward with a white flag by General Proctor to demand the surrender of the fort.
Ensign Edmund Shipp, the youngest officer in the post, and he must have been a mere boy indeed, was sent out to discover the purport of the flag; whereupon, after the
* The soldiers called this cannon " Good Bess," for what reason it is hard to say. Why is it that so many guns, rifles, cannon, etc., famous in his- tory have been called "Bess " or "Betsy "? What's in that name to make it appropriate, I wonder ?
The Defence of Fort Stephenson 299
usual salutations, an interesting conversation took place. Colonel Elliott demanded the " instant surrender of the fort, to spare the effusion of blood, which we cannot do, should we be under the necessity of reducing it by our powerful force of regulars, Indians, and artillery."
"My commandant and the garrison," replied the gallant young Shipp, " are determined to defend the post to the last extremity and bury themselves in its ruins, rather than surrender it to any force whatever."
" Look at the immense body of Indians," urged Dixen, " they cannot be restrained from massacring the whole garrison in the event of our undoubted success."
" Our success is certain," added Chambers promptly.
" Sir," said Elliott, "you appear to be a fine young man. I pity your situation. For God's sake urge the surrender of the fort and prevent the slaughter which must follow resistance should you fall into the hands of the savages."
" It is a pity," continued Dixen beseechingly, " that so fine a young man as your commander is represented to be, should fall into the hands of the savages. Sir, for God's sake surrender and prevent the dreadful massacre that will be caused by your resistance."
" When the fort shall be taken," replied Shipp daunt- lessly, entirely unaffected by these terrifying appeals, which only disclosed the incapacity of the British to con- trol their red allies, " there will be none to massacre. It will not be given up while a man is able to resist."
Pretending to be fearful for Shipp's safety, Colonel El- liott thereupon urged him to go back to the fort at once. As the boy officer turned away, an Indian sprang from the bushes and endeavored to wrest his sword from him and cut him down. It was with great difficulty, which is be-
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lieved to have been a pretence, that Dixen dragged away the savage and besought Shipp to return with all speed to save his life, as he could not control the Indians! The bluff did not work at all. The young subaltern did not scare a little bit. Croghan was standing on the rampart, watching the scene, and when he perceived the insult to his envoy he shouted :
"Come in, Shipp, and we'll blow 'em all to hell!"
Language which it is presumed he did not learn at William and Mary College, but which was singularly ap- propriate at the time! It was a bold defiance indeed from the one hundred and sixty to the twelve hundred. There was a massacre sure enough, too, as it turned out, but the Americans were not the victims.
III. Desperate Fighting
The bombardment began at once, and continued with more or less vigor all the night, during which the British landed five six-pounders, parking three of them in a bat- tery on a hill covered by trees, about two hundred and fifty yards from the stockade, and disposing of the others to advantage. In the morning they opened a furious fire to which the Americans made little or no reply. During the night, with immense labor, Captain Hunter, the sec- ond in command, had succeeded in transporting the six- pound gun to the blockhouse on the north wall. Antici- pating an assault upon the northwest corner of the fort upon which the fire of the British had been concentrated during most of the day, the gun had been so placed as to rake the ditch. It was loaded with a half charge of pow- der, on account of the short range, and a double charge
.
IN MARCHAND.
" The young subaltern did not scare a little bit."
The Defence of Fort Stephenson 301
of slugs and bullets. The port-hole was masked and the gun remained hidden.
During the day whenever an Indian or a soldier showed himself outside of cover the Kentuckians took quick and generally successful shots at him, but otherwise the gar- rison made little response to the continuous cannonading, husbanding their powder, of which their supply was small. They were very busy, however, carrying sacks of flour and bags of sand from the storehouse to support the northwest corner of the stockade, which was being breached and demolished under the heavy battering it was receiving from the British guns. Croghan, of course, had taken his position on the northwest corner.
Everyone was on the alert, however, when about five o'clock in the afternoon a storming party of some three hundred soldiers of the Forty-first Regiment rushed for the northwest corner, while at the same time two hundred grenadiers made a detour through the woods and ad- vanced to attack the south wall. Under cover of a fierce fire from the batteries and from every tree or hill on the high ground, which surrounded the fort, which would serve to conceal an Indian, the attack was delivered. The sky was black with storm clouds at the time, and peals of thunder in heavy detonations mingled with the roaring of the cannon and the rattle of the musketry.
The place was covered with smoke which concealed the main advance until the English were within twenty feet of the fort. The first warning the startled Ameri- cans had was the sight of the grim faces of the red-coats shoving through the smoke. A deadly rifle fire which flashed from every port-hole checked them and threw them into confusion.
The hesitation of the British, however, was but mo-
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mentary. Lieutenant-Colonel Short, their leader, sprang to the head of the column. Waving his sword in the air, he so inspirited them that they once more advanced. They came on with fixed bayonets without firing, in spite of a rapid and continuous discharge from the fort. Al- though many fell, they did not hesitate even when they reached the edge of the ditch, crying, " Come on, men ! We'll give the damned Yankees no quarter!" Short, followed by Major Muir, and Lieutenant Gordon of the Forty-first, and the redoubtable Dixen, leaped into the ditch, and tried to scramble up the other side of it.
The Americans could not depress their rifles sufficient- ly to reach the men in the ditch, unless they exposed themselves above the stockade, which would be to invite destruction from the fire of the Indians. Short and his men, who had followed him most gallantly, concluded that when they gained the ditch they were safe for the time. Alas, they knew nothing of the masked six-pound- er, for at this instant, the port was thrown open and the cannon, effectively served by some Pittsburg volunteers, hurled its deadly charge of bullets and slugs at short range into the British huddled together in the ditch. No less than fifty men were killed, or so seriously wounded by that awful discharge that they could not escape from the death trap, and numbers of others were slightly injured. Colonel Short received a mortal wound and with his last effort raised his handkerchief upon the point of his sword, pleading for mercy, although but a moment since he had threatened to give no quarter. Gordon was instantly killed; Muir, Dixen, and other officers were wounded, but managed to escape.
Appalled by such an awful slaughter and met by a con- tinuous withering fire from the American rifles and mus-
The Defence of Fort Stephenson 3º3
kets, the Englishmen who had not yet entered the ditch hesitated for a moment and, being without a leader, turned and fled, pursued by effective discharges from the six- pounder and dropping on their retreat in scores. On the south wall, where Hunter commanded, the attacking party under Colonel Warburton had fared scarcely any better. On both sides of the fort a long swath of dead or wounded grenadiers, writhing upon the ground in agony, showed the ebb and flow of the disastrous attack.
The retreating British soon gained the safe shelter of the woods, where they were finally re-formed, and the cannonade which had been intermitted at the moment of storm was feebly resumed. Croghan, however, knew that he had nothing more to fear. The assault had been repulsed with fearful loss, the actual fighting occupying scarcely half an hour. He had made good his defiance and had held the fort.
The situation of the wounded men in the ditch was pit- iful. The British could make no move to extricate them or succor them. To come out in the open and face those rifles was death to them; and the Americans did not dare to open the gate and go into the ditch for the same rea- son. The poor soldiers had to lie there and endure their sufferings as best they could through the long night. Croghan was a merciful man and he did what he could for them. Buckets of water-the first thing a wounded man in battle craves-were lowered down to them over the stockade, and a small trench was dug beneath it into the ditch through which those who were able to crawl could come into the American works for help. Some of the more slightly wounded managed to reach their own lines under cover of the darkness.
The loss of the British had been so severe during the
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action of the two days-between twenty-five and thirty per cent. of the five hundred engaged, not including the casualties among the Indians, which were considerable- that Proctor retreated during the night with such precip- itancy that he left behind one boatload of stores and munitions of war; and the next morning the triumphant defenders gathered some seventy stand of arms, in addi- tion to those taken from the men who had been swept into eternity in the ditch, which had been abandoned by the British in their hasty flight. The American loss was one poor fellow killed and seven wounded, none severely !
The American supply depots were saved, and the whole state of. Ohio was again delivered from the fear of a Brit- ish conquest, with its attendant savage horrors, by the pluck and devotion of this young man and his gallant lit- tle band. As General Harrison said, in his report of the occurrence :
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