[562] Ibid., Hull to Eustis, June 24 and 26, 1812.
[563] Adams, United States, VI, 298-99; Drennan Papers, Hull to Eustis, June 26, 1812.
On July 5 Hull reached Detroit, and four days later received word from Washington to begin the invasion of Canada.[564] His reply expressed confidence in his ability to drive the British from the opposite bank of the river, but he did not believe he could take Maiden. A week later he crossed the river and occupied Sandwich, the British retiring before him without a blow. From Sandwich a proclamation was issued to the Canadians, designed to secure their acquiescence in the American conquest.[565] To some extent this hope was realized, and numbers of the Canadian militia deserted to the Americans. Instead, however, of pressing the attack on Maiden at once, from this time Hull delayed until, with the enemy growing stronger and his own position more precarious, he lost all hope of success and retreated to Detroit. The factors responsible for this decision were the news of the capture of Mackinac with the prospect of the approach of a large number of traders and Indians upon Detroit in his rear, and the attacks by Tecumseh's Indians upon his line of communications with Ohio.
[564] Adams, op. cit., VI, 302.
[565] Ibid., VI, 303-4.
While Hull had thus been conducting affairs at Detroit, Dearborn, who had command of the army in New York, was dallying at Boston and Albany, doing nothing to engage the British by pushing the attack upon Canada from New York, a measure which was essential to Hull's success. On August 9 he even entered into an armistice with the British which bound him to act only on the defensive until the government at Washington should decide upon the effect of the repeal of the obnoxious orders. This inactivity in the East left Brock, the British commander in Upper Canada, entirely free to direct his attention to Hull; and the attack upon Niagara on which Hull on July 19 had declared all his own success would depend was not made. Moving with a vigor and daring conspicuously wanting in the American generals. Brock transferred all of his available forces from the Niagara frontier to Maiden. On arriving there he quickly determined to cross the river and assail Hull in Detroit. Although Hull's force was the larger, the audacity of Brock, combined with the senility displayed by Hull, rendered the movement a complete success. Without awaiting the assault, Hull surrendered his entire army, together with Detroit and Michigan Territory, to the British.
CHAPTER X
THE BATTLE AND DEFEAT
On the issue of Hull's campaign hung the fate of Fort Dearborn. With the Indian, war was a passion, at once his greatest pleasure and his chief business in life. He could not remain an idle spectator of such a war as had now been joined between the white races, but must be a participant on one side or the other. The exhortations of the Americans that the red man hold aloof from the war, which did not concern him, and let the whites fight out their own quarrel, would be heeded only on one condition. The Americans must manifest such a decided superiority over the British as to convince him that theirs was the successful cause. Both disposition and self-interest urged the Indian to take his stand on the winning side. As long as appearances led him to believe that this was the American, he would hold aloof from the war, since the United States did not desire his assistance. In the contrary event both inclination and self-interest would lead him to side with the British.
There were exceptions, of course, to these generalizations. Tecumseh's hostility to the Americans was independent of any such adventitious circumstances. But with Hull triumphant at Maiden the tribes to the west of Lake Michigan would have possessed neither the courage nor the inclination to rise against the Americans; with the British flag waving over Detroit the whole Northwest as far as the Maumee River and the settlements of southern Indiana and Illinois would, as Hull pointed out to the government before the war began, pass under British control.[566]
[566] Drennan Papers, Hull to Eustis, March 6, 1812.