On May 1 Francis Keneaum, a British subject who lived at Maiden, reached Chicago attended by two Chippewa Indians, en route for Green Bay.[574] The party was arrested on suspicion that Keneaum was a British emissary, and he subsequently made an affidavit showing that he had been engaged by the brother-in-law of Matthew Elliot, the British Indian agent, to go on a secret mission to Robert Dickson, the most active and influential British emissary among the tribes west of Lake Michigan. The Indians had taken the precaution to conceal the letters intrusted to them in their moccasins and to bury them.[575] After their release from detention they proceeded on their way and delivered them to Dickson, who was passing the winter at the Fox-Wisconsin Portage. The message which Captain Heald thus failed to intercept was from no less a person than General Brock, who was seeking to establish communication with Dickson; and it was due to the communication thus established that Dickson led his northwestern bands to St. Joseph's to co-operate in the attack on Mackinac, and in that descent upon Detroit which had such a fatal effect upon Hull's campaign.[576]
[574] Edwards, Life of Ninian Edwards, 324.
[575] Edwards, Life of Ninian Edwards, 333.
[576] This conclusion is based on the letters, in addition to those already cited, of Captain Glegg to Dickson printed in Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 180-82, 193-95, and the communications between Glegg and Dickson printed in Wisconsin Historical Collections, XII, 139-40.
We have seen already[577] how that campaign progressed to its disastrous close, and that on its issue hung the fate of Fort Dearborn and the Northwest. With so much of importance in the immediate vicinity of Detroit to demand his attention, Hull had little time or thought to devote to the remote posts at Mackinac and Chicago. News of the declaration of war was received at Fort Dearborn toward the middle of July.[578] The tradition was current at Chicago long afterward that the news was brought by Pierre Le Claire, a half-breed who figured in the negotiations for the surrender of the garrison on the day of the massacre, who walked from the mouth of the St. Joseph River to Fort Dearborn, a distance of ninety miles, in a single day.[579]
[577] Supra, chap. ix.
[578] Lieutenant Helm's narrative of the massacre says July 10.
[579] Hubbard, Life, 126-27.
On July 14 Hull wrote to Eustis, the Secretary of War, that he would cause the brig, "Adams," which had been launched ten days before, to be completed and armed as soon as possible for the purpose of supplying the posts of Mackinac and Fort Dearborn with the necessary stores and provisions, if they could be obtained at Detroit.[580] Exactly two weeks later, however, two Chippewa Indians reached Hull's camp at Sandwich bringing news of the surrender of Mackinac. The report seemed so improbable that at first Hull refused to believe it, but close questioning brought forth so many circumstantial details as to remove his doubt. On the same day, July 29, he wrote to the Secretary of War, "I shall immediately send an express to Fort Dearborn with orders to evacuate that post and retreat to this place or Fort Wayne, provided it can be effected with a greater prospect of safety than to remain. Captain Heald is a judicious officer, and I shall confide much to his discretion."[581]
[580] Drennan Papers, Hull to Eustis, July 14 and 19, 1812.