CHAPTER LII.
General Brock Prepares for an Attack on Detroit, and with a Small Force takes General Hull and his Army Prisoners, and Acquires Possession of Detroit and the Territory of Michigan—Incidents Preceding and Attending the Taking of Detroit—General Brock's Proclamation to the Inhabitants of the Michigan Territory—His Council with the Indians, and Conversation with the Great Chief Tecumseh, and Estimate of him—General Brock Returns to York (Toronto)—What he Did in Nineteen Days.
General Brock did not content himself in replying to General Hull on paper, in defence of the British Government and the people of Canada; he answered him in a more substantial way on the battle-field. General Brock lost no time in collecting the few soldiers in Upper Canada, and the militia volunteers, and proceeding by boats, vessels, and by land, from Niagara to Detroit, to meet face to face the boasting commander of the Grand Army of the West, and, in less than four weeks of his manly reply to Hull's inflated proclamation, he made Hull and all his army prisoners of war, with the surrender of the whole Michigan territory. It was an achievement worthy of perpetual remembrance, that General Brock, with forces hastily collected, "consisting of thirty of the Royal Artillery with three six-pounders, under the command of Lieutenant Troughton, two hundred and fifty of the 41st Regiment, fifty of the Newfoundland Fencibles, and four hundred Canadian militia—in all amounting to seven hundred and thirty, to whom six hundred Indians attached themselves—making an aggregate of one thousand three hundred and thirty;" we say, it is an achievement worthy of all remembrance and honour, that General Brock should, with such motley and slender forces, cross the Detroit river, and, by the skilful arrangement of his handful of soldiers, take, without shedding a drop of blood, a fort strongly protected by—iron ordnance, nine twenty-four-pounders, eight twelve-pounders, five nine-pounders, three six-pounders; brass ordnance, three six-pounders, two four-pounders, one three-pounder, one eight-inch howitzer, one five and a-half inch howitzer—in all thirty-three pieces of ordnance; and defended by upwards of 2,500 regular soldiers and militia.
But there was this essential difference between the two armies: the little Canadian army had homes, families, and liberties to defend, connection with the mother country to maintain, and the consciousness of right; the great American army, with its fortifications, had the consciousness of long-continued and wide-spread wrongs in depredations against their western Indian neighbours, bloated avarice for conquest, and inveterate hatred of Great Britain.
There are several incidents connected with this remarkable military achievement. Mr. Thompson, in his History of the War of 1812, says: "General Brock having made such arrangements, in the government of the province, as were necessary during his absence from York, proceeded thence to Fort George, and thence to Long Point, on Lake Erie, where he was joined by two hundred and sixty of the militia, who had, in a few days, and in the very height of their harvest, gallantly volunteered their services to share the dangers of the field in defence of their country, together with the detachment of the 41st Regiment, who had been previously sent to that quarter." (Thompson's History of the War of 1812, p. 106.)
Among the 260 volunteers from the county of Norfolk—Long Point, Lake Erie—were the elder brother and brother-in-law of the writer of these pages (he being then ten years of age); the one of them was lieutenant and the other captain, who, with a great number of their neighbours, proceeded in a vessel from Port Ryerse to Amherstburg—making the passage in forty-eight hours—General Brock marching by land. The vessel with the militia volunteers reached Amherstburg some five days before General Brock, and, under the command of Colonel Proctor and the direction of a skilful engineer, commenced erecting a battery at Windsor, opposite to Detroit, behind a tuft of trees which skirted the river shore. Sentries were stationed at convenient distances along the north shore of the river, to prevent any intercourse with the American side; while the militia, officers and men, worked each night with the utmost quietness, in the erection of the battery, retiring at the approach of day. In four nights the battery was erected and mounted with cannon, when General Brock arrived, approved of what had been done, called a Council of the Indian allies, as well as of his officers, and determined forthwith to cross the river and attack Fort Detroit. The Indians were to cross in the night, which they did some three or four miles below Detroit, and spread themselves in the woods that surrounded the town, which then contained from 6,000 to 8,000 inhabitants. The night-erected battery was unmasked by felling the trees and underwood in front of it, when, to the astonishment and terror of the Americans, they saw a battery fully equipped, and already firing effectually upon their town and fort. Early in the morning of the 15th of August, General Brock, with his little army of 730 men (the militia being accoutred as regular soldiers), crossed the river unopposed about three miles below the fort (which was in the centre of the town), and marched in order of battle, under cover of corn fields, to within half a mile of the fort, from which, not cannon balls, but a flag of truce was sent out, proposing the surrender to the British commander of the fort, army, town, and territory.[195]
The terrific war-whoop of the dreaded Indians, who seemed to swarm in the woods around the town, filled the people and General Hull with irresistible terror; and at the very moment that General Hull was holding a council of war with his officers in a room within the fort, a shell, thrown from the British battery at Windsor, fell into the council room, killed some officers, and wounded several more. This catastrophe, with the terrible yells of the surrounding Indians, seemed to have decided General Hull and his advisers that surrender "was the better part of valour."
A second incident connected with the surrender of Detroit and the Michigan territory is the council which General Brock held with the Indians the day before the attack upon and surrender of Detroit, and his interview with them the day after, for the account of which I am indebted to Colonel John Clarke's manuscripts in the Dominion Library at Ottawa:
"On General Brock's arrival at Sandwich, a council of war was assembled on the following morning. Along with others were 1,000 Indians, whose equipment generally might be considered very imposing.