While these matters were under discussion in March, the President, unable to find an army officer fitted to command the force ordered to Detroit, pressed Governor Hull to reconsider his refusal; and Hull, yielding to the President’s wish, was appointed, April 8, 1812, brigadier-general of the United States army, and soon afterward set out for Ohio. No further understanding had then been reached between him and Dearborn, or Secretary Eustis, in regard to the military movements of the coming campaign.
The force destined for Detroit consisted of three regiments of Ohio militia under Colonels McArthur, Findlay, and Cass, a troop of Ohio dragoons, and the Fourth Regiment of United States Infantry which fought at Tippecanoe,—in all about sixteen hundred effective men, besides a few volunteers. April 1 the militia were ordered to rendezvous at Dayton, and there, May 25, Hull took command. June 1 they marched, and June 10 were joined at Urbana by the Fourth Regiment. Detroit was nearly two hundred miles away, and the army as it advanced was obliged to cut a road through the forest, to bridge streams and construct causeways; but for such work the militia were well fitted, and they made good progress. The energy with which the march was conducted excited the surprise of the British authorities in Canada,[232] and contrasted well with other military movements of the year; but vigorous as it was it still lagged behind events. Hull had moved only some seventy-five miles, when, June 26,[233] he received from Secretary Eustis a despatch, forwarded by special messenger from the Department, to warn him that war was close at hand. “Circumstances have recently occurred,” wrote Secretary Eustis, “which render it necessary you should pursue your march to Detroit with all possible expedition. The highest confidence is reposed in your discretion, zeal, and perseverance.”
THE
SEAT OF WAR ABOUT LAKE ERIE.
Engraved from a Map Published
by John Conrad.
Struthers & Co., Engr’s, N. Y.
The despatch, dated June 18, was sent by the secretary on the morning of that day in anticipation of the vote taken in Congress a few hours later.[234] Hull had every reason to understand its meaning, for he expected to lead his army against the enemy. “In the event of hostilities,” he had written June 24,[235] “I feel a confidence that the force under my command will be superior to any which can be opposed to it. It now exceeds two thousand rank and file.” On receiving the secretary’s pressing orders Hull left his heavy camp-equipage behind, and hurried his troops to the Miami, or Maumee, River thirty-five miles away. There he arrived June 30, and there, to save transportation, loading a schooner with his personal baggage, his hospital stores, entrenching tools, and even a trunk containing his instructions and the muster-rolls of his army, he despatched it, July 1, up the Lake toward Detroit. He took for granted that he should receive from his own government the first notice of war; yet he knew that the steamboat from New York to Albany and the road from Albany to Buffalo, which carried news to the British forces at Malden, was also the regular mode of conveyance for Detroit; and he had every reason to suspect that as his distance in time from Washington was greater, he might learn of war first from actual hostilities. Hull considered “there was no hazard” in sending his most valuable papers past Malden;[236] but within four-and-twenty hours he received a despatch from Secretary Eustis announcing the declaration of war, and the same day his schooner was seized by the British in passing Malden to Detroit.
This first disaster told the story of the campaign. The declaration made at Washington June 18 was published by General Bloomfield at New York June 20, and reached Montreal by express June 24; the same day it reached the British Fort George on the Niagara River and was sent forward to Malden, where it arrived June 30. The despatch to Hull reached Buffalo two days later than the British express, for it went by ordinary mail; from Cleveland it was forwarded by express, June 28, by way of Sandusky, to Hull, whom it reached at last, July 2, at Frenchtown on the river Raisin, forty miles below Detroit.
The slowness of transportation was made conspicuous by another incident. John Jacob Astor, being engaged in extensive trade with the Northwestern Indians, for political reasons had been encouraged by government. Anxious to save the large amount of property exposed to capture, he not only obtained the earliest intelligence of war, and warned his agents by expresses, but he also asked and received from the Treasury orders[237] addressed to the Collectors on the Lakes, directing them to accept and hold such goods as might be brought from Astor’s trading-posts. The business of the Treasury as well as that of Astor was better conducted than that of the War Department. Gallatin’s letters reached Detroit before Eustis’s despatch reached Hull; and this incident gave rise to a charge of misconduct and even of treason against Gallatin himself.[238]
Hull reached Detroit July 5. At that time the town contained about eight hundred inhabitants within gunshot of the British shore. The fort was a square enclosure of about two acres, surrounded by an embankment, a dry ditch, and a double row of pickets. Although capable of standing a siege, it did not command the river; its supplies were insufficient for many weeks; it was two hundred miles distant from support, and its only road of communication ran for sixty miles along the edge of Lake Erie, where a British fleet on one side and a horde of savages on the other could always make it impassable. The widely scattered people of the territory, numbering four or five thousand, promised to become a serious burden in case of siege or investment. Hull knew in advance that in a military sense Detroit was a trap.