Four days after crossing the river, General Hull sent Colonels Cass and Miller, with a detachment of two hundred and eighty men, towards Malden. These gallant officers pushed to the river Canards, within four miles of the fort, and driving the British pickets who held the bridge from their position, took possession of it, and immediately dispatched a messenger to General Hull, announcing their success. They described the occupation of the post as of the utmost importance in carrying out the plan of the campaign, and begged that if the army could not be moved there, that they might be allowed to hold it themselves—the General sending reinforcements as occasion demanded. Instead of being gratified at this advantage gained over the enemy, General Hull seemed irritated, condemned the attack as a breach of orders, and directed the immediate return of the detachment. These brave officers persisting in their request, he gave them permission to retain the position, provided they were willing to do so on their own responsibility, and without any aid from him.
This he knew they would not do. Such a proposition, from the commanding officer, indicated a weakness of judgment, and a willingness to resort to the most transparent trickery to escape responsibility, that no apology can excuse. From the statements of the British afterwards, it appeared that the approach of this detachment filled the garrison with alarm; the shipping was brought up to the wharves, and the loading of baggage commenced, preparatory to flight. On two sides the fort was in a dilapidated state, while seven hundred men, of whom only one hundred were regular troops, constituted the entire garrison. From the panic which the approach of Cass and Miller created, there is no doubt that the appearance of the whole army, of two thousand men before the place, would have been followed by an immediate surrender. One thing is certain, if General Hull supposed that a garrison of seven hundred men behind such works, could make a successful defence against nearly three times their number, he had no right to regard his strong position at Detroit, when assailed by only an equal force, untenable. Either Malden could have been taken, or Detroit was impregnable. The troops felt certain of success, and were impatient to be led to the attack, but he pronounced it unsafe to advance without heavy artillery; besides, he wished to wait the effect of his proclamation on the enemy. The Indians and Canadian militia, he said, had begun to desert, and in a short time the force at Malden might be "materially weakened." Two thousand men sat quietly down to wait for this miserable garrison of seven hundred, six hundred of whom were Canadian militia and Indians, to dwindle to less force, before they dared even to approach within shot. The army was kept here three weeks, till two twenty-four pounders and three howitzers could be mounted on wheels strong enough to carry them, and yet a few weeks after, behind better works than those of Malden, and with a force fully equal to that of his adversary, he felt authorized to surrender, though the largest guns brought forward to break down his defences, were six pounders.
The cannon at length, being mounted, were with the ammunition placed on floating batteries, ready to move on Malden, when the order to march was countermanded, and the army, instead of advancing against the enemy, recrossed the river to Detroit, over which it had passed a few weeks before to the conquest of Canada. General Hull had issued a proclamation, sent out two detachments, mounted two heavy cannon and three howitzers, and then marched back again. Such were the astonishing results accomplished by the first grand army of invasion.
The gathering of the Indian clans, and reinforcements pouring into the British garrison, had alarmed him. The news seemed to take him by surprise, as though it for the first time occurred to him that during these three or four weeks in which he remained idle, the enemy might possibly be active.
The surrender, at this time, of Fort Mackinaw, situated on the island of the same name in the straits between Lakes Huron and Michigan, was a severe blow to him, for it opened the flood-gates to all the Indians, Canadians and British in the north-west. This fort was the key to that section of the country, and the grand depôt of the fur companies. By its position it shielded General Hull from all attack in that direction. Lieutenant Hanks commanded it, with a garrison of sixty men. As soon as the British commander of St. Joseph's, just above it, received news of the declaration of war, he took with him some two hundred Canadians and British, and four hundred Indians, and suddenly appearing before the fort demanded its surrender. This was the first intimation to Lieutenant Hanks of the commencement of hostilities. He capitulated without offering any resistance, and the Indians at once rallied around the British standard. Here was another blunder, a double one. In the first place, private enterprise had outstripped the action of Government. The British officer at St. Joseph's, though more remote than Mackinaw, received the declaration of war nine days before it reached the American commander at the latter place, or rather, Lieutenant Hanks did not receive it at all, either from the Government or General Hull. Colonel Roberts, of St. Joseph's, with his band of Canadians and Indians, was kind enough to convey the information.
It is surprising that General Hull, after his experience, did not at once provide that a post so vital to him, should not become the victim of the same criminal negligence which had paralyzed his efforts. Fifteen days intervened between his receiving the notification of war, and the taking of Fort Mackinaw, and yet no messenger from him, the Governor of the Territory, and commander-in-chief of the forces in that section, reached the garrison. Were it not for the calamitous results which followed, the whole campaign might be called a "comedy of errors."
Three days previous, however, to the retreat of Hull from Canada, he committed another error which increased his embarrassments. Proctor, who had arrived at Malden with reinforcements, threw a small detachment across the river to Brownstown, to intercept any provisions that might be advancing from Ohio to the army. Captain Brush, who was on the way with the mail, flour and cattle, was thus stopped at the River Raisin. To open the communication and bring up the provisions, Major Van Horne was dispatched with two hundred volunteers and militia. But the detachment, marching without sufficient caution, was led into ambush, and utterly defeated. Only about one-half returned to the army. Both Gen. Hull and Major Van Horne were to blame in this affair—the former for not sending a larger detachment, when he knew the enemy must be on the march, while at the same time he was ignorant of his force. This error is the more culpable, because he did not expect an immediate attack; for, after the detachment was despatched, he remained quietly in Canada, and then crossed at his leisure to Detroit. He therefore could, without danger, have spared a larger force, and should have done so, especially when the want of provisions was one of the evils he would be called upon to encounter. On the other hand, Major Van Horne should have heeded the information he received, that the enemy were in advance, in position, and not allowed his little army to rush into an ambuscade.
General Hull's position had now become sufficiently embarrassing. "The whole northern hive was in motion." Reinforcements were hastening to the support of Malden; his communications on the lake were cut off by British vessels, while the defeat of Van Horne announced that his communications by land were also closed. The latter he knew must be opened at all hazards, and Colonel Miller was dispatched on the route which Van Horne had taken with four hundred men to clear the road to the river Raisin. Leaving Detroit on the 8th of August, he next day in the afternoon, as he was approaching Brownstown, came upon the enemy covered with a breast work of logs and branches of trees, and protected on one side by the Detroit river, and on the other by swamps and thickets. The British and Canadians were commanded by Muir, and the Indians by Tecumseh. Captain Snelling leading the advance guard approached to within half musket shot, before he discovered the enemy. A fierce and deadly fire was suddenly opened on him, which he sustained without flinching, till Colonel Miller converting his order of march into order of battle, advanced to his support. Seeing, however, how destructive the fire of the enemy was, while the bullets of his own men buried themselves for the most part in the logs of the breastwork; perceiving, also, some symptoms of wavering, Miller determined to carry the works by the bayonet. The order to charge was received with loud cheers; and the next moment the troops poured fiercely over the breastwork, and routing the British and Canadians pressed swiftly on their retiring footsteps. Tecumseh, however, maintained his post, and Van Horne, who commanded the right flank of the American line, supposing from his stubborn resistance that it would require more force than he possessed to dislodge him, sent to Colonel Miller for reinforcements. The latter immediately ordered a halt, and with a reluctant heart turned from the fugitives now almost within his grasp, and hastened to the relief of his subordinate. On arriving at the breastwork, he found the Indian chief in full flight. He then started again in pursuit, but arrived in view of the enemy only to see him on the water floating away beyond his grasp.
He, however, had established the communication between the army and the river Raisin, and dispatched Captain Snelling to Detroit with the account of the victory, and a request for boats to remove the wounded, and bring provisions for the living, and reinforcements to supply the place of the dead and disabled. General Hull immediately sent Colonel McArthur with a hundred men and boats, but with provisions sufficient only for a single meal.[17]
Colonel Miller was some twenty miles from the supplies, but not deeming it prudent with the slender reinforcements he had received, and the still scantier provisions, to proceed, remained on the battle field, and sent another messenger declaring that the communication was open, and it required only a few more men and a supply of provisions, to keep it so. The next evening, the messenger returned, bringing instead of provisions a peremptory order to return to Detroit. It is doubtful whether Colonel Miller ought not to have advanced without waiting for further reinforcements, and formed a junction with Captain Brush, who had an abundance of provisions, and a detachment of a hundred and fifty men. But, after the communications were established, he did not probably see so much necessity for dispatch as for security. But General Hull seemed to be laboring under a species of insanity. After sending forth two detachments to open his communications, and finally succeeding, he deliberately closed them again, and shut from his army all those provisions, the want of which he a few days after gave as a reason for surrendering. The rapid concentration of the enemy's forces, in front of him, might have been given as a sufficient cause for suddenly calling in all his troops to defend Detroit, had he not two days after sent Colonel McArthur, accompanied by Cass, with a detachment of four hundred men, to obtain by a back, circuitous and almost wholly unknown route through the woods that which Colonel Miller had secured, and then been compelled to relinquish.