Aug. 7.
When General Hull recrossed the river to Detroit, he left some hundred and fifty, convalescents and all, "to hold possession of that part of Canada," which he had so gallantly won, "to defend the post to the last extremity against musketry, but if overpowered by artillery to retreat."[18] In the mean time, General Brock, the commander of the British forces, approached, and began to erect a battery opposite Detroit to protect his army, and cover it in crossing the river. Not a shot was fired to interrupt his proceedings, no attempt made to destroy his shipping which had arrived. Daliba offered "to clear the enemy from the opposite shores from the lower batteries," to which General Hull replied, "I will make an agreement with the enemy, that if they will not fire on me I will not fire on them." Major Jessup asked permission to cross the river and spike the guns, but this was considered a too desperate undertaking. In short, every project that was proposed was rejected, and the twenty-four pounders and the howitzers slept dumb on their carriages, in the midst of these hostile preparations of the enemy.
At length, on the morning of the 15th, a messenger arrived from General Brock demanding an immediate surrender of the town and fort. To this summons Hull replied in a decided and spirited manner; but this did not seem to daunt the British commander. He immediately opened his fire from a newly erected battery, which, after knocking down some chimneys, and disabling a few soldiers, finally ceased at ten o'clock in the evening. The next morning it re-commenced, and under cover of its harmless thunder the British, in broad daylight, commenced crossing a river more than three thousand feet wide. This presumptuous attempt succeeded without the loss of a man. The troops then formed in column twelve deep, and marching along the shore, soon emerged into view, about five hundred yards from the fort. The opposing forces were nearly equal, but the position of the Americans gave them vastly the advantage. The fort proper was of great strength, surrounded by a deep, wide ditch, and strongly palisaded with an exterior battery of two twenty-four pounders. It was occupied by four hundred men, while four hundred more lay behind a high picket fence, which flanked the approach to it. Three hundred more held the town. Against this formidable array, General Brock, preceded by five light pieces of artillery, boldly advanced. He did not even have a vanguard, and rode alone in front of his column. To the most common observer, they were marching on certain and swift destruction. The militia who had never been under fire, were eager for the conflict, so confident were they of victory. On swept the apparently doomed column upon which every eye was sternly bent, while every heart beat with intense anxiety to hear the command to fire. In this moment of thrilling excitement, a white flag was lifted above the works, and an order came for all the troops to withdraw from the outer posts and stack their arms. Such a cry of indignation as followed, probably never before assailed the ears of a commander. Lieutenant Anderson in a paroxysm of rage, broke his sword over one of his guns and burst into tears. The shameful deed was done, and so anxious was General Hull that all should receive the benefit of this capitulation, that he included in it Colonels McArthur and Cass, and their detachment whom he had sent to the river Raisin, together with that entrusted with the supplies.
To enhance the regret and shame of this sudden surrender, it was soon discovered that McArthur and Cass, having heard the cannonading twenty-four hours before, had returned, and at the moment the white flag was raised were only a mile and a half from the fort, and advancing so as to take the enemy in rear. The result of a defence would have been the entire destruction of the British army. Ah! what a different scene was occurring on this same day, in another hemisphere. On this very morning Napoleon crossed the Dnieper, on his way to Moscow, and Murat and Ney, at the head of eighteen thousand splendid cavalry, fell on the Russian rear guard, only six thousand strong. Yet this comparatively small band, composed like most of the troops under Hull, of new levies, never thought of surrendering. First in two squares, and then in one solid square they continued their retreat all day—sometimes broken, yet always re-forming and presenting the same fringe of glittering steel, and the same adamantine front. Forty times were the apparently resistless squadrons hurled upon them, yet they still maintained their firm formation, and at night effected a junction with the main army, though with the loss of more than one-sixth of their number. It was to be left to Scott and Brown and Miller and Jessup and Jackson, to show that Russian serfs were not braver troops than American freemen.
It sometimes happens that events widely different in their character, and presenting still wider contrast in the magnitude and grandeur of the circumstances that attend them, are in their remote results alike, both in character and in their effect on the destiny of the world. Thus, six days after our declaration of war, Napoleon crossed the Niemen, on his march to Moscow. This first step on Russian territory was the signal for a long train of events to arise, which in the end should dash to earth the colossal power of Napoleon, while our movement was to break the spell which made Great Britain mistress of the seas; and two nations, one an unmixed despotism and the other a pure republic, from that moment began to assume a prominence they never before held, and from that time on, have been the only powers which have rapidly increased in resources and strength, till each threatens, in time, to swallow up its own hemisphere.
Much has been written of this campaign of Hull, and in the controversy, statistics differ as widely as opinions. He was tried by Court Martial, of which Martin Van Buren was Judge Advocate, acquitted of treason, but found guilty of cowardice and sentenced to be shot. Being pardoned by the President, his life was saved, but he went forth a blighted and ruined man.
On many points there is room for a diversity of judgment, but one thing is certain, General Hull was unfit for the station to which he was assigned. He had been a gallant subordinate officer in the revolution, but a man may be a good major, or even colonel, but a bad commander-in-chief. There are many officers who are fit only to act under orders, whom personal danger never agitates, but who are unnerved by responsibility. Let the latter rest on some other person and they will cheerfully encounter the peril. Hull may have been one of these, at least it seems more rational to attribute a portion of his conduct to some mental defect rather than to cowardice. It is hard to affix such a stain on a man who moved beside Washington in the perilous march on Trenton—stood firmly amid the hottest fire at Princeton—gallantly led his men to the charge at Bemis' Heights, and faced without flinching the fiery sleet that swept the column pressing up the rugged heights of Stony Point. Gray hairs do not make a coward of such a man, though they should render him imbecile.
It is not easy at this remote period to appreciate the difficulties of the position in which Hull eventually found himself. At first he refused to take command of the expedition, but being urged by the government, accepted, though with the express understanding that in case of hostilities, he was to be sustained both by a fleet on Lake Erie, and an army operating on the northern and western frontier of New York. He knew that the conquest of Canadian territory would be of slight importance, if the lake and river communication was controlled by the enemy, for they could pass their troops from one point to another with great rapidity, cut off his supplies and reinforcements, and hem him in till a force sufficient to overwhelm him was concentrated.
On arriving near Malden, he was astounded to hear that the enemy had received notice of the war before him, and hence had time to make more or less preparations. The second blow was the loss of hospital stores, intrenching tools, army baggage, private papers, &c. The third came in the fall of Mackinaw, thus removing the only barrier that kept back the northern hordes. He knew the enemy had possession of the water communication, and were therefore able to threaten his retreat. Dearborn, who ought to have been pressing the British on the Niagara frontier, and thus attracted their forces from Malden, had entered into an armistice with the Governor of Canada, leaving the latter at full liberty to reinforce the troops opposed to Hull, a privilege of which he was not slow to avail himself. There was not a gleam of sunshine in the whole gloomy prospect that spread out before the American commander. His own army diminishing, while that of his adversary was rapidly increasing—behind him a wilderness two hundred miles in extent, his situation was disheartening enough to make a strong man sad. The difficulties in which he found himself environed must always produce one of two effects on every man—either rouse him to tenfold diligence and effort and daring, or sink him in corresponding inactivity and despondency. There can be no middle state. That the latter was the effect produced on General Hull, there can be no doubt. He proved plainly that he was not one of those whom great emergencies develope into an extraordinary character worthy to command and worthy to be obeyed. The very first misfortune unmanned him, and from that hour to the sad close of the campaign, when he acted at all he did nothing but heap blunder on blunder. His mind having once got into a morbid state, his position and his prospects appeared to his diseased imagination ten times more desperate than they really were.
With the failure of General Dearborn to invade Canada from the New York frontier, and more especially with the lakes entirely under the control of the enemy, his campaign, according to all human calculations, must prove a failure. Detroit must fall, and Michigan be given up to the enemy. The only chance by which this catastrophe could have been prevented, was offered by General Brock when he crossed the river to storm Detroit. If Hull had possessed a spark of genius or military knowledge, he would have seen in this rash movement of his enemy, the avenue opened for his release, and the sure precursor of his fortunes. With that broad river cutting off its retreat, the British army would have been overthrown; provisions and arms obtained, and the enemy received a check which in all probability would have enabled Hull to sustain himself till reinforcements arrived. But he had made up his mind to surrender, and thus save Detroit from the cruelties of the savage, and the enemy could not commit a blunder of sufficient magnitude to arouse his hopes and spur him into resistance; and having scarcely heard the report of his guns from first to last, he veiled the banner of his country in the dust.