The spring of 1812 brought an ominous renewal of depredations. Two settlers were murdered within three miles of Fort Dearborn; an entire family was massacred but five miles from Vincennes; from all directions came reports of other bloody deeds. The frontier was thrown into panic. A general uprising was felt to be impending; even Vincennes was thought to be in danger. "Most of the citizens of this country," reported Harrison, on the 6th of May, "have abandoned their farms, and taken refuge in such temporary forts as they have been able to construct. Scores fled to Kentucky and to even more distant regions."
Tecumseh continued to assert his friendship for his "white brothers" and to treat the battle at Tippecanoe as a matter of no moment. The murders on the frontier he declared to be the work of the Potawatomi, who were not under his control, and for whose conduct he had no excuse. But it was noted that he made no move to follow up his professed purpose to visit Washington in quest of peace, and that he put forth no effort to restrain his over-zealous allies. It was plain enough that he was simply awaiting a signal from Canada, and that, as the commandant at Fort Wayne tersely reported, if the country should have a war with Great Britain, it must be prepared for an Indian war as well.
[CHAPTER IX.]
The War Of 1812 And The New West
The spring of 1812 thus found the back country in a turmoil, and it was with a real sense of relief that the settlers became aware of the American declaration of war against Great Britain on the 18th of June. More than once Governor Harrison had asked for authority to raise an army with which to "scour" the Wabash territory. In the fear that such a step would drive the redskins into the arms of the British, the War Department had withheld its consent. Now that the ban was lifted, the people could expect the necessary measures to be taken for their defense. In no part of the country was the war more popular; nowhere did the mass of the able-bodied population show greater eagerness to take the field.
According to official returns, the Westerners were totally unprepared for the contest. There were but five garrisoned posts between the Ohio and the Canadian frontier. Fort Harrison had fifty men, Fort Wayne eighty-five, Fort Dearborn fifty-three, Fort Mackinac eighty-eight, and Detroit one hundred and twenty—a total force of fewer than four hundred. The entire standing army of the United States numbered but sixty-seven hundred men, and it was obvious that the trans-Alleghany population would be obliged to carry almost alone the burden of their own defense. The task would not be easy; for General Brock, commanding in upper Canada, had at least two thousand regulars and, as soon as hostilities began, was joined by Tecumseh and many hundred redskins.
While the question of the war was still under debate in Congress, President Madison made a requisition on Ohio for twelve hundred militia, and in early summer the Governors of Indiana and Illinois called hundreds of volunteers into service. Leaving their families as far as possible under the protection of stockades or of the towns, the patriots flocked to the mustering-grounds; many, like Cincinnatus of old, deserted the plough in midfield. Guns and ammunition in sufficient quantity were lacking; even tents and blankets were often wanting. But enthusiasm ran high, and only capable leadership was needed to make of these frontier forces, once they were properly equipped, a formidable foe.
The story of the leaders and battles of the war in the West has been told in an earlier volume of this series. ¹ It will be necessary here merely to call to mind the stages through which this contest passed, as a preliminary to a glimpse of the conditions under which Westerners fought and of the new position into which their section of the country was brought when peace was restored. So far as the regions north of the Ohio were concerned, the war developed two phases. The first began with General William Hull's expedition from Ohio against Fort Malden for the relief of Detroit, and it ended with the humiliating surrender of that important post, together with the forced abandonment of Forts Dearborn and Mackinac, so that the Wabash and Maumee became, for all practical purposes, the country's northern boundary. This was a story of complete and bitter defeat. The second phase began likewise with a disaster—the needless loss of a thousand men on the Raisin River, near Detroit. Yet it succeeded in bringing William Henry Harrison into chief command, and it ended in Commodore Perry's signal victory on Lake Erie and Harrison's equally important defeat of the disheartened British land forces on the banks of the Thames River, north of the Lake. At this Battle of the Thames perished Tecumseh, who in point of fact was the real force behind the British campaigns in the West. Tradition describes him on the eve of the battle telling his comrades that his last day had come, solemnly stripping off his British uniform before going into battle, and arraying himself in the fighting costume of his own people.