A people that could feel its vanity flattered by such glories as the war gave in 1813 must have felt the want of flattery to an unusual degree. The idea was extravagant. Not so much the glories as the disgraces of the war roused public sympathy; not so much the love of victory as the ignominy of defeat, and the grinding necessity of supporting government at any cost of private judgment. At such a moment any success was keenly felt, and covered every failure. The slow conviction that come what would the nation must be preserved, brought one man after another into support of the war, until the Federalists found their feet in a quicksand. The “crisis” produced the opposite effect to that which Burke’s philosophy predicted.
Congress finished its work, and August 2 adjourned. Immediately afterward the President went to Montpelier to recover his strength in the air of the Blue Ridge. The session had not been unsatisfactory, for although the Senate refused to impose an embargo, wanted by the President in order to cut off illegitimate trade with England’s dependencies, and although the same body put its negative on the appointments of Gallatin and Jonathan Russell, yet Congress passed the tax-bills, authorized another loan of seven and a half millions, and made the business of trading under a British license a penal offence. The operations of war alone remained to burden the President’s mind.
CHAPTER IV.
The fall of Detroit and Chicago in August, 1812, threw the American frontier back to the line of the Wabash and the Maumee, and threatened to throw it still farther back to the Indian boundary itself. The Miami or Maumee River was defended by Fort Wayne; the Wabash had no other defence than the little fort or blockhouse which Harrison built during the Tippecanoe campaign, and named after himself. Fort Harrison stood near the later city of Terre Haute, close to the border of Illinois; Fort Wayne stood within twenty miles of the Ohio border. The width of Indiana lay between the two.
Had Brock been able, after the capture of Detroit, to lead his little army into Ohio, he might have cleared not only the Maumee River, but the whole western end of Lake Erie from American possession. Recalled in haste to defend Niagara, Brock left only two or three companies of troops as garrison at Detroit and Malden. The Indians could do little without the aid of regular forces, but they tried to carry both Fort Wayne and Fort Harrison by stratagem. The attacks were made almost simultaneously a few days after September 1, and not without skill. In the case of Fort Harrison the Indians were nearly successful, not so much in fighting as in burning it. With great difficulty its young captain, Zachary Taylor, of the Seventh Infantry, succeeded in saving his post. Fort Wayne was held by Captain James Rhea of the First Infantry until reinforcements arrived, September 12. Except the usual massacres of scattered families, the Indians accomplished nothing.
Upon the State of Ohio, with its quarter of a million inhabitants, and of Kentucky with four hundred thousand, fell the immediate burden of defending the border between the Ohio and the Lakes. Governor William Henry Harrison of the Indiana Territory leaving Vincennes June 19, the day after the declaration of war, was at Cincinnati when threatening news began to arrive from Detroit. Harrison had military knowledge and instincts. He saw that after the capture of Mackinaw Detroit must fall, and that Hull could save himself only by evacuating it.[44] Harrison’s ambition, which had drawn him to Tippecanoe, drew him also to lead the new crusade for the relief or recovery of Detroit. He went to Kentucky at the invitation of Governor Scott, and under the patronage of Scott and Henry Clay he took the direction of military affairs. August 24 news reached Kentucky that Hull was shut in Detroit, and must surrender unless immediately relieved.[45] The Governor of Kentucky at once summoned what was then called a caucus, composed of himself, his successor elect Governor Shelby, Henry Clay, Justice Todd of the United States Supreme Court, Major-General Hopkins of the Kentucky militia, various Congressmen, judges, and other citizens,[46] whose whole authority was needed to warrant giving to Harrison, who was not a citizen of Kentucky, the commission of major-general and the command of the expedition to Detroit. By general acclamation, and on the warm assurances of universal popular approval, the measure was taken; and Harrison started at once for Cincinnati and Detroit to organize the campaign. The news of Hull’s surrender met him as he left Frankfort.
By this combination of skill and accident, Harrison reached the object of his ambition,—the conduct of war on a scale equal to his faith in his own powers; but the torrent of Western enthusiasm swept him forward faster than his secret judgment approved. Appointed by caucus the general of volunteers, he could keep his position only by keeping his popularity. Without deciding precisely where to march, or what military object to pursue, he talked and acted on the idea that he should recover Detroit by a coup-de-main.[47] He knew that the idea was baseless as a practical plan, and futile as a military measure; but nothing less would satisfy the enthusiasm of his Kentucky volunteers, and the national government almost compelled him to pretend what he did not at heart believe possible.
The confusion thus created was troublesome. First, Harrison insisted on commanding the troops marching to relieve Fort Wayne, and obliged the good-natured General Winchester, who outranked him, to yield the point.[48] Then after a forced march with the Kentuckians down the St. Mary’s River, having relieved Fort Wayne, Harrison was obliged, September 19, to surrender the command to Winchester, who arrived with orders from the Secretary of War to take general charge of the northwestern army. Harrison then left Fort Wayne for Piqua. Meanwhile the President and Eustis, learning what had been done in Kentucky, September 17, after much debate decided to give to Harrison the commission of brigadier-general, with the command of the northwestern army, to consist of ten thousand men, with unlimited means and no orders except to retake Detroit.[49] Brigadier-General Winchester, who was already at Fort Wayne, was given the option of serving under Harrison, or of joining the army at Niagara.
These new orders reached Harrison September 25 at Piqua. Harrison then resumed command, and two days afterward, September 27, wrote to the secretary, announcing his plan for the autumn campaign. Three columns of troops, from widely distant quarters, were to move to the Maumee Rapids,—the right column, consisting of Virginia and Pennsylvania troops, by way of the Sandusky River; the centre column, of twelve hundred Ohio militia, by Hull’s road; the left column, consisting of four Kentucky regiments and the Seventeenth U. S. Infantry, was to descend the Auglaize River to Fort Defiance on the Maumee, and thence to fall down that river to the point of junction with the two other columns.
Compared with Hull’s resources, Harrison’s were immense; and that he had no serious enemy to fear was evident from his dividing the army into three columns, which marched by lines far beyond supporting distance of each other. At the same time he ordered Major-General Hopkins of the Kentucky militia to march with two thousand men up the Wabash into the Indian country, and to destroy the Indian settlements on the Wabash and Illinois rivers. Had a British force been opposed to the Americans, its general would have had little difficulty in destroying some one of these four isolated columns, and driving Harrison back to central Ohio; but only bands of Indians, not exceeding five hundred at most, were to be feared before the army should cross the Maumee, and little anxiety existed on account of enemies, unless for the safety of Fort Wayne.