CHAPTER VI. MINOR BATTLES IN THE WEST.
Winchester's Expedition—Fight at Frenchtown—Massacre at the Raisin—Siege of Fort Meigs.
At the opening of the year 1813, General William Henry Harrison, who had won a high reputation by his victory over the Indians at Tippecanoe in 1811, being now in command of the forces in the West, endeavored to concentrate them for a movement against the British and savages at Detroit and Malden. An expedition composed mainly of Kentucky troops, under General James Winchester, was making its way northward through Ohio to join him; and Leslie Coombs, of Kentucky, accompanied by a single guide, went through the woods more than a hundred miles on foot to inform Harrison of their approach.
When Winchester's expedition reached the rapids of the Miami, he was met by messengers from the pioneers about the River Raisin, informing him that the enemy was organizing a movement against the settlements there, and imploring him to protect them. A detachment of six hundred and sixty men, under Colonels Lewis and Allen, was sent forward, and pushing on with the greatest possible rapidity, marching a part of the way over the frozen surface of Lake Erie, reached Frenchtown, on the Raisin, where Monroe, Michigan, now stands, on the 18th of January.
That place had been occupied a few days before by a hundred English and four hundred Indians, who now took the alarm and prepared to resist the advancing expedition. As he approached the village, Colonel Lewis formed his command in columns, and moved forward in the face of a heavy fire of musketry and artillery. The enemy was posted behind the houses and garden fences of the village, which stood on the north side of the river; and the Americans, who had no artillery, crossed over on the ice and at once made a charge. Finding themselves attacked vigorously in front and on the left flank at the same time, the British retreated about half a mile, and took a new position in the woods, where they were partly protected by fallen timber. Colonel Lewis sent a detachment to strike this position on its right flank; and as soon as he heard the firing there, Colonel Allen attacked it in front. The enemy retreated slowly, fighting at every step, and the Americans steadily pressed their advantage till dark, when they returned to the village and encamped. They had lost twelve men killed and fifty-five wounded. The loss of the enemy was not ascertained, but they left fifteen men dead on the field where the first engagement took place.
The news of this victory was sent at once to General Winchester, who came up promptly with a reënforcement of two hundred and fifty men. It was expected that the place would be attacked by a heavier British force from Malden, which was but eighteen miles distant, and preparations were made for constructing a fortified camp. But the enemy came before this could be completed. In the night of January 21st, Colonel Henry Proctor, with a force of about eleven hundred, British and savages, moved from Malden, and early in the morning of the 22d the American sentries were surprised. No pickets had been thrown out, and the troops were hardly brought into line when a heavy fire of artillery and small arms was opened, both in front and on the flanks, the yells of the savages being heard in the intervals of the discharges.
The attack in front was met and repelled by a steady fire, the Americans being considerably sheltered by the stout garden fences. On the right flank the attack was not so well resisted, and that wing was soon broken. It was rallied by Winchester, and reenforced by Lewis; but the enemy, seeing his advantage, followed it up, and the whole wing, reenforcements and all, was swept away, the remnant retreating in disorder across the river.
All efforts to rally the fugitives were vain, and in a little while the Indians overwhelmed the left wing also. The disorganized troops of this wing attempted to escape by a road that led to the rapids of the Raisin; but the savages were posted all along behind the fences, and shot down great numbers of them. They then took to the woods directly west of the village; but here also were savages lying in wait, and it is said that nearly a hundred were tomahawked and scalped before they had gone as many yards. One party of nearly twenty men surrendered, but all except the lieutenant in command were at once massacred by their treacherous captors. Another party of forty were overtaken after they had retreated three miles, and compelled to surrender, when more than half of them were murdered in cold blood. General Winchester and Colonel Lewis were captured by the Indians, but Proctor, with some difficulty, got them under his protection. Colonel Allen, after trying without success to rally his men, retreated alone nearly two miles, and there sat down on a log, being too much enfeebled by wounds to go farther. An Indian chief came up and demanded his surrender, promising protection; but almost immediately followed two others, who evidently intended to scalp him. Allen killed one of them with a single blow of his sword, and was immediately shot by the other.
Meanwhile the centre of the American line could not be dislodged from its position behind the fences. It was composed of Kentucky sharpshooters, and some idea of the havoc they made among the British regulars may be gained from the fact that out of sixteen men in charge of one gun thirteen were killed. Appalled at such losses, Proctor bethought him of a cheaper method than continued fighting. He represented to General Winchester, now a prisoner in his hands, that unless an immediate surrender were made, the result would be a complete massacre of the Americans. Winchester's fears were so wrought upon that he sent, by a flag of truce, orders to Major Madison to surrender. As he had no right to give orders of any kind while a prisoner in the hands of the enemy, Madison refused to obey, but offered to surrender on condition that safety and protection should be guaranteed to him and his men. When Proctor found he could not get the place in any other way without a great sacrifice of his troops, he agreed to the terms proposed, and the surrender took place.
But no sooner had the gallant little band become prisoners, than Proctor, like many other British officers of that day, forgot his promise, and the savages began to plunder the prisoners, unhindered by their English allies. Thereupon the Americans resumed their arms, and by a vigorous bayonet charge drove off the Indians.
The next day the British force started for Malden, taking with it all the prisoners who were able to march. The badly-wounded were left at French-town, with no guard but a British major and the interpreters. The injured men were taken into the houses, and attended by two American surgeons. On the morning of the 23d, about two hundred Indians who had accompanied Proctor as far as Stony Creek, and there had a carouse, returned to French-town, held a council, and resolved to kill all the prisoners who could not march away with them. They then proceeded at once to plunder the whole village, tomahawk the wounded men, and set fire to the houses. They perpetrated such outrages and cruelties that most of the historians have shrunk from detailing them. Many prisoners who managed to crawl out of the burning buildings were thrown back into the flames. A few of the strongest were marched off with the savages toward Malden; but as one by one they became exhausted, they were mercilessly tomahawked and scalped. These scalps were carried to the British headquarters, where the savages received the premium for them.
Of the American force engaged in this affair, three hundred and ninety-seven were killed, five hundred and thirty-seven were prisoners, and but thirty-three escaped. The British are said to have lost twenty-four killed and a hundred and fifty-eight wounded. The loss of the Indians is unknown.
After the disaster at the River Raisin, General Harrison concentrated his remaining troops—twelve hundred men—and built Fort Meigs, at the foot of the rapids of the Maumee. This work was on the right bank of the stream, on high ground, and enclosed about eight acres. There were several strong block-houses, and considerable artillery.
General Proctor, with a force of about one thousand British and twelve hundred Indians, and two gunboats, set out on an expedition against this post in April. He crossed the lake, ascended the river, and on the 28th landed about two miles below the fort, but on the opposite bank. Here he erected a battery, and subsequently he planted two others, above the fort but on the left bank, and one below and very near it on the right bank. The Indians, commanded by the famous Tecumseh, were landed on the right bank, to invest the fort in the rear. The batteries opened fire on the 1st of May, and kept it up steadily four days; but it had very little effect, owing largely to a traverse twelve feet high and twenty feet thick which the garrison had constructed while the batteries were being erected. Proctor on the third day demanded a surrender, with the usual threat of massacre.
Learning that General Green Clay was coming to him with a reënforcement of eleven hundred Kentuckians, Harrison had sent word to him to hurry forward as fast as possible. At midnight on the 4th of May, two officers and fifteen men from this force descended the river and entered the fort, with the news that Clay was but eighteen miles distant. Harrison sent orders to him to send eight hundred of his men across the river at a point a mile and a half above the fort, thence to march down the left bank and capture and destroy the enemy's batteries; the remaining three hundred to march down the right bank and fight their way through the Indians to the fort.
The detachment landed on the left bank, commanded by Colonel Dudley, moved silently down upon the British batteries, and then, raising a terrific yell, were upon them before the enemy could realize that he was attacked. The guns were spiked and their carriages destroyed; but instead of crossing to the fort at once, as Harrison's orders directed, the victors, flushed with their success, were drawn into a running fight with some Indians, and finally fell into an ambush, and all but about a hundred and fifty were either captured or killed. That number reached their boats and crossed.
The detachment on the right bank, under General Clay himself, had some difficulty in landing, and lost a few men in fighting its way through the Indians, but ultimately reached the fort. While these movements were going on, three hundred and fifty men of the garrison, under Colonel John Miller, made a sortie against the battery on the right bank, captured it, spiked the guns, and returned with forty-three prisoners.
When Clay's troops reached the fort, they were joined by another sallying party, and the combined force moved against the Indians, whom Tecumseh commanded in person, and drove them through the woods at the point of the bayonet. Tecumseh attempted to move a force of British and Indians upon their left flank and rear, to cut off their return to the fort, but this movement was frustrated by Harrison, who understood Indian warfare quite as well as the great chief himself.
Proctor's savage allies, disgusted at his want of success, now began to desert him, and he was obliged to raise the siege and retreat. This he did not do, however, without keeping up his reputation for treachery and cold-blooded cruelty. His prisoners were taken to old Fort Miami, a short distance down stream, where the savages were allowed to murder more than twenty of them. Captain Wood, an eye-witness, says: "The Indians were permitted to garnish the surrounding rampart, and to amuse themselves by loading and firing at the crowd, or at any particular individual. Those who preferred to inflict a still more cruel and savage death selected their victims, led them to the gateway, and there, under the eye of General Proctor, and in the presence of the whole British army, tomahawked and scalped them." It is said that the horrible work was stopped by Tecumseh, who, coming up when it was at its height, buried his hatchet in the head of a chief engaged in the massacre, crying: "For shame!—it is a disgrace to kill a defenceless prisoner!" "In this single act," says the witness who narrates it," Tecumseh displayed more humanity, magnanimity, and civilization than Proctor, with all his British associates in command, displayed through the whole war on the northwestern frontiers."
The total loss to the Americans in these actions was eighty-one men killed, two hundred and sixty-nine wounded, and four hundred and sixty-seven made prisoners. It is uncertain what the British loss was, but it was probably somewhat smaller than that of the Americans.
In July, Proctor and Tecumseh, with a combined English and savage force of about five thousand, returned to Fort Meigs and attempted to draw out the garrison by strategy; but Harrison was, as usual, too shrewd for them, and they turned their attention to Fort Stephenson. This was an oblong stockade fort, about a hundred yards long and fifty yards wide, with high pickets, surrounded by a deep ditch or moat. There was a strong block-house at each corner. It was on the Sandusky, where the town of Fremont, Ohio, now stands. The garrison consisted of one hundred and sixty men, commanded by Major George Croghan.
The British sailed around into Sandusky Bay, and up the river, while their savage allies marched overland and invested the fort in the rear, to prevent the approach of reënforcements. Harrison believed the fort to be untenable, and had sent orders to Croghan to abandon and destroy it; but these orders did not reach the Major till retreat had become impossible.
On the 1st of August Proctor sent in a flag of truce, and demanded an immediate surrender, accompanied with the usual threat that if it were refused the Indians would massacre the entire garrison as soon as the place was taken. The ensign who met the flag made answer that Major Croghan and his men had determined "to defend the fort, or be buried in it." Proctor opened fire from his gunboats and four guns which he had placed in battery on shore, and bombarded the fort continuously for two days and nights. As this fire was directed mainly against the northwest angle, Croghan expected the main attack to be made at that point, and prepared for it. Besides strengthening the walls with bags of sand and bags of flour, he placed his only gun, a six-pounder, where it would enfilade the ditch on that side, loaded it with a double charge of slugs, and masked it.
It was after sunset on the 3d when the storming parties approached. Two columns passed around the western side of the fort, to threaten the southern face, while a third, commanded by a Lieutenant-Colonel Short, approached the northwest angle. When it was within twenty yards, the Kentucky riflemen gave it a volley that thinned the ranks, but did not stop its progress. The Lieutenant-Colonel and a large number of his men scaled the outer line of pickets, and poured into the ditch. "Now, then," he shouted, "scale the pickets, and show the d——d Yankee rascals no quarter!"
The next moment, Croghan's single piece of artillery was unmasked and fired. It completely swept the ditch, cutting down nearly every soldier in it, while a volley of rifle-balls finished the bloody work. Lieutenant-Colonel Short, who was mortally wounded, immediately raised his handkerchief on the point of his sword, to ask for quarter.
Another column of red-coats attempted the task at which the first had so wofully failed, and the deadly performance of the howitzer and the rifles was repeated. The columns that approached the fort on the south were driven off by a single volley, and the battle was ended. In the night the British gathered up their dead and wounded, and the next morning they were seen to sail away, leaving behind a quantity of military stores. They acknowledged a loss of twenty-seven killed and seventy wounded; but it was probably much larger. One American was killed, and seven wounded.