“If ... we divide, distribute, and render inefficient the force authorized by law, we play the game of the enemy within and without. District among the field-officers the seaboard!... Go to Albany or the Lake! The troops shall come to you as fast as the season will admit, and the blow must be struck. Congress must not meet without a victory to announce to them.”
Dearborn at Boston replied to these orders, July 13,[249] a few hours after Hull’s army, six hundred miles away, crossed the Detroit River into Canada and challenged the whole British force on the lakes.
“For some time past I have been in a very unpleasant situation, being at a loss to determine whether or not I ought to leave the sea-coast. As soon as war was declared [June 18] I was desirous of repairing to Albany, but was prevented by your letters of May 20 and June 12, and since that time by the extraordinary management of some of the governors in this quarter. On the receipt of your letter of June 26 I concluded to set out in three or four days for Albany, but the remarks in your letter of the 1st inst. prevented me. But having waited for more explicit directions until I begin to fear that I may be censured for not moving, and having taken such measures as circumstances would permit for the defence of the sea-coast, I have concluded to leave this place for Albany before the end of the present week unless I receive orders to remain.”
A general-in-chief unable to decide at the beginning of a campaign in what part of his department his services were most needed was sure to be taught the required lesson by the enemy. Even after these warnings Dearborn made no haste. Another week passed before he announced, July 21, his intended departure for Albany the next day, but without an army. “Such is the opposition in this State as to render it doubtful whether much will be done to effect in raising any kind of troops.” The two months he passed in Boston were thrown away; the enlistments were so few as to promise nothing, and the governor of Massachusetts barely condescended to acknowledge without obeying his request for militia to defend the coast.
July 26, one week after Hull had written that all his success depended on the movements at Niagara, Dearborn reached Albany and found there some twelve hundred men not yet organized or equipped. He found also a letter, dated July 20, from the Secretary of War, showing that the Government had begun to feel the danger of its position.[250] “I have been in daily expectation of hearing from General Hull, who probably arrived in Detroit on the 8th inst.” In fact Hull arrived in Detroit July 5, and crossed into Canada July 12; but when the secretary wrote, July 20, he had not yet heard of either event. “You will make such arrangements with Governor Tompkins,” continued Eustis, “as will place the militia detached by him for Niagara and other posts on the lakes under your control; and there should be a communication, and if practicable a co-operation, throughout the whole frontier.”
The secretary as early as June 24 authorized Hull to invade Canada West, and his delay in waiting till July 20 before sending similar orders to the general commanding the force at Niagara was surprising; but if Eustis’s letter seemed singular, Dearborn’s answer passed belief. For the first time General Dearborn then asked a question in regard to his own campaign,—a question so extraordinary that every critic found it an enigma: “Who is to have command of the operations in Upper Canada? I take it for granted that my command does not extend to that distant quarter.”[251]
July 26, when Hull had been already a fortnight on British soil, a week after he wrote that his success depended on co-operation from Niagara, the only force at Niagara consisted of a few New York militia, not co-operating with Hull or under the control of any United States officer, while the major-general of the Department took it for granted that Niagara was not included in his command. The Government therefore expected General Hull, with a force which it knew did not at the outset exceed two thousand effectives, to march two hundred miles, constructing a road as he went; to garrison Detroit; to guard at least sixty miles of road under the enemy’s guns; to face a force in the field equal to his own, and another savage force of unknown numbers in his rear; to sweep the Canadian peninsula of British troops; to capture the fortress at Malden and the British fleet on Lake Erie,—and to do all this without the aid of a man or a boat between Sandusky and Quebec.
CHAPTER XV.
General Hull, two days after entering Canada, called a council of war, which decided against storming Malden and advised delay. Their reasons were sufficiently strong. After allowing for the sick-list and garrison-duty, the four regiments could hardly supply more than three hundred men each for active service, besides the Michigan militia, on whom no one felt willing to depend. Hull afterward affirmed that he had not a thousand effectives; the highest number given in evidence two years later by Major Jesup was the vague estimate of sixteen or eighteen hundred men. Probably the utmost exertion could not have brought fifteen hundred effectives to the Canadian shore. The British force opposed to them was not to be despised. Colonel St. George commanding at Malden had with him two hundred men of the Forty-first British line, fifty men of the Royal Newfoundland regiment, and thirty men of the Royal Artillery.[252] Besides these two hundred and eighty veteran troops with their officers, he had July 12 about six hundred Canadian militia and two hundred and thirty Indians.[253] The militia deserted rapidly; but after allowing for the desertions, the garrison at Malden, including Indians, numbered nearly nine hundred men. The British had also the advantage of position, and of a fleet whose guns covered and supported their left. They were alarmed and cautious, but though they exaggerated Hull’s force they meant to meet him in front of their fortress.[254] Hull’s troops would have shown superiority to other American forces engaged in the campaign of 1812 had they won a victory.
