"Major Chambers. General Proctor could never think of saying anything to wound your feelings, sir. The character of general Harrison, as an officer, is well known. General Proctor's force is very respectable, and there is with him a larger body of Indians than has ever before been embodied.
"General Harrison. I believe I have a very correct idea of general Proctor's force; it is not such as to create the least apprehension for the result of the contest, whatever shape he may be pleased hereafter to give it. Assure the general, however, that he will never have this post surrendered to him upon any terms. Should it fall into his hands, it will be in a manner calculated to do him more honor, and to give 178 him larger claims upon the gratitude of his government than any capitulation could possibly do."
The siege was continued, but without any very active efforts against the fort, until the morning of the 9th of May, when the enemy retreated down the bay, leaving behind them a quantity of cannon balls, and other valuable articles.
The force under general Proctor amounted, as nearly as could be ascertained, to six hundred regulars, eight hundred Canadian militia, and about eighteen hundred Indians. The number of troops under general Harrison, including those which arrived on the morning of the fifth, under general Clay, was about twelve hundred in all. The number fit for duty did not, perhaps, equal eleven hundred.
The number of the American troops killed and massacred on the north side of the river, was upwards of seventy. One hundred and eighty-nine were wounded, and eighty-one killed, in the two sorties from the fort. The loss of the British and Indians, in killed and wounded, could never be satisfactorily ascertained. That it was very considerable, there can be no doubt.
The enemy brought against fort Meigs a combined army of near three thousand men, under Proctor, Elliott and Tecumseh, and prepared, by a train of artillery, for vigorous operations. These were prosecuted with skill and energy. The Indians, led on by the daring Tecumseh, fought with uncommon bravery, and contributed largely to swell the list of our killed and wounded. It is said, that the sagacious leader of the Indian forces did not enter upon this siege with any strong hopes of ultimate success; but having embarked in it, he stood manfully in the post of danger, and took an active, if not a leading part, in planning and executing the various movements which were made against the fort. The spirit with which these were prosecuted may be in part inferred from the fact, that during the first five days of the siege, the enemy fired upon the fort with their cannon, fifteen hundred times,[74] many of their balls and bombs being red-hot, and directed specially 179 at the two block houses containing the ammunition. These shots made no decided impression upon the picketing of the fort, but killed or wounded about eighty of the garrison.
It has been already stated that the distinguished leader of the Indians, in this assault upon camp Meigs, entered upon it with no sanguine hopes of success. His associate, general Proctor, however, is said to have entertained a different opinion, and flattered himself and his troops with the prospect of splendid success and rich rewards. In case of the reduction of the fort and the capture of its garrison, the British general intended to assign the Michigan territory to the Prophet and his followers, as a compensation for their services; and general Harrison was to have been delivered into the hands of Tecumseh, to be disposed of at the pleasure of that chief.[75]
One of the public journals of the day[76] states that this proposition originated with Proctor, and was held out as an inducement to Tecumseh, to join in the siege. General Harrison subsequently understood, that in case he had fallen into Proctor's hands, he was to have been delivered to Tecumseh, to be treated as that warrior might think proper: and in a note to Dawson's Historical Narrative, the author of that work says, "There is no doubt that when Proctor made the arrangement for the attack on fort Meigs with Tecumseh, the latter insisted and the former agreed, that general Harrison and all who fought at Tippecanoe, should be given up to the Indians to be burned. Major Ball of the dragoons ascertained this fact from prisoners, deserters and Indians, all of whom agreed to its truth." Whatever may have been the actual agreement between Proctor and Tecumseh in regard to general Harrison and those who fought with him at Tippecanoe, it is hardly credible that this chief had any intention of participating in an outrage of this kind, upon the prisoners. Tecumseh may possibly have made such an arrangement with Proctor, and announced it to the Indians, for the purpose of exciting them to activity and perseverance, in carrying on the siege; but that this chief seriously meditated any such outrage, either against general Harrison 180 or his associates, is not to be credited but on the best authority. It will be recollected that Tecumseh, when but a youth, succeeded by his personal influence, in putting an end to the custom of burning prisoners, then common among a branch of the Shawanoes. In 1810, at a conference with general Harrison, in Vincennes, he made an agreement that prisoners and women and children, in the event of hostilities between the whites and the Indians, should be protected; and there is no evidence that this compact was ever violated by him; or indeed, that through the whole course of his eventful life, he ever committed violence upon a prisoner, or suffered others to do so without promptly interfering for the captive. To suppose, then, that he really intended to permit general Harrison, or those who fought with him on the Wabash, to be burned, would have been at variance with the whole tenor of his life; and particularly with his manly and magnanimous conduct at the close of the assault upon fort Meigs.
The prisoners captured on the fifth, were, taken down to Proctor's head-quarters and confined in fort Miami, where the Indians were permitted to amuse, themselves by firing at the crowd, or at any particular individual. Those whose taste led them to inflict a more cruel and savage death, led their victims to the gateway, where, under the eye of general Proctor and his officers, they were coolly tomahawked and scalped. Upwards of twenty prisoners were thus, in the course of two hours, massacred in cold blood, by those to whom they had voluntarily surrendered. At the same time, the chiefs of the different tribe were holding a council to determine the fate of the remaining captives, when Tecumseh and colonel Elliott came down from the batteries to the scene of carnage.
A detailed account of the noble conduct of the former in regard to these captives is contained in the following extract from a letter,[77] upon the accuracy of which reliance may be placed. The writer, after contrasting the brave and humane Tecumseh with the cruel and reckless Proctor, says: