The situation was complicated, too, by the private interests at stake. Evacuation would mean financial ruin to Kinzie, the trader, and Lee, the farmer. These considerations Heald properly ignored of course. But the danger to the families of the soldiers and of the civilians clustered around the fort was greater and more appalling than to the garrison itself. There could be no thought of abandoning these helpless souls, yet the attempt to convey them away with the garrison would render the retreat exceedingly slow and cumbersome. Kinzie at Chicago and Forsyth at Peoria were well known and esteemed by the resident natives, and many of these were well disposed toward the Americans; the hostile bands might be expected to disperse after a period of unsuccessful siege, and the property of the settlers and the lives of the garrison would be saved.
On the other hand, most of these things were as familiar to Hull as to Heald himself. Practically the only feature of Heald's situation about which Hull's knowledge might be presumed to be deficient was that concerning the number and demeanor of the Indians around Fort Dearborn. But in the provision of his order authorizing Heald to distribute the goods of the factory "to the Friendly Indians who may be desirous of escorting you on to Fort Wayne" was a clear indication of the commanding general's will in case this contingency should be realized. Obedience to orders is the primary duty of a soldier. He may not refrain from executing the order of his superior, however ill advised it may appear to him, unless it is evident that it was issued under a misapprehension of the facts of the situation, and that the commander himself, if aware of these facts, would revoke it. The truth of this proposition is so obvious that it would scarcely be worth while to state it, were it not for the fact that there has been a practically unanimous chorus of condemnation of Captain Heald on the part of those who have hitherto written of the Fort Dearborn massacre because he acted in accordance with it and obeyed his superior's order. Heald's own view of his duty is clear, both from the course he followed and from the narratives of himself and of his detractors. The latter shows that he paid no attention to the protests against the evacuation made by Kinzie and such others as the trader was able to influence; while in his own official report of the massacre Heald does not even discuss the question of holding the fort or of his reason for evacuating it, further than to recite the order received from Hull to do so.
The time until the thirteenth of August was doubtless spent in preparation for the wilderness journey, though actual details are for the most part wanting. Some slight indication of the commander's labors is afforded by an affidavit he made in 1817 in behalf of Kinzie and Forsyth's claims against the government for compensation for the losses sustained by them in the massacre. In this Heald stated that, being ordered to evacuate Fort Dearborn and march the troops to Fort Wayne, he employed sundry horses and mules, with saddles, bridles, and other equipment, the property of Kinzie and Forsyth, to transport provisions and other necessities for the troops.[588] On August 13 Captain Wells arrived from Fort Wayne with his thirty Miami warriors to act as an additional escort for the troops in their retreat. Probably on this day a council was held with the Indians at which Heald announced his intention to distribute the goods among them and evacuate the fort, and stipulated for their protection upon his retreat.[589] On the fourteenth the goods in the factory were delivered to the Indians, together with a considerable quantity of provisions which could not be taken along on the retreat. The stock of liquor was destroyed, however, as were also the surplus arms and ammunition. The one was calculated to fire the red man to deeds of madness, while for the whites to give him the other would have been to furnish him with the means for their own destruction.
[588] Affidavit of December 2, 1817, Draper Collection, Forsyth Papers, Vol. I.
[589] Heald's report does not mention the holding of a council; Helm's narrative represents that Wells held the council with the Indians. This is probably correct as to the main fact that a council was held, but untrue in representing Wells, rather than Heald, as the principal participant in it on the part of the whites. A few months after the massacre the Superintendent of Indian Trade was initiating measures for recovering from the War Department indemnity for the goods of the Chicago factory destroyed at the time of the massacre on the ground that they were delivered by Heald to the Indians "under a kind of treaty" between the two (Indian Office, Letter Book C, Mason to Matthew Irwin, February 9, 1813).
To the resentment kindled among the Indians by the destruction of these stores the immediate cause of the attack and massacre on the following day has often been ascribed. That the disappointment of the red man was keen is self-evident. Yet that but for the destruction of the powder and whisky there would have been no attack on the garrison seems most improbable. Heald stated under oath several years later that prior to the evacuation the Indians had made "much application" to him for ammunition, and expressed the opinion that but for the destruction which took place not a soul among the whites would have escaped the tomahawk.[590]
[590] Affidavit of December 2, 1817, Draper Collection, Forsyth Papers, Vol. I.
All was now ready for the departure, which was to take place on the morning of the fifteenth. At this juncture there came to the commander a belated warning. Black Partridge, a Pottawatomie chief from the Illinois River, came to him with the significant message that "linden birds" had been singing in his ears and they ought to be careful on the march they were about to make. At the same time he surrendered his medal, explaining that the young warriors were bent on mischief and probably could not be restrained.[591]
[591] There are two contemporary versions of this incident; one is contained in Lieutenant Helm's narrative of the massacre, the other in McAfee's History of the Late War, 98. McAfee's informant was Sergeant Griffith of Heald's company. Both of the accounts are very brief. They agree in the main fact that Black Partridge gave the warning to the interpreter, but Helm alone mentions the surrender of the medal.
It was now too late to withdraw from the plan of evacuating the fort, even if the commander had desired to do so. The next morning dawned warm and cloudless. Inside the stockade the last preparations for the toilsome journey had been made. No chronicler was present to preserve a record of the final scenes, but the imagination can find little difficulty in picturing them. With all its rudeness and privation, the Chicago they were leaving was home to the members of the little party—for some the only one they had ever known. Here the Lees had lived for half a dozen years; here their children had been born, and had passed their happy childhood. Here the Kinzies had lived for an even longer time, and had long since attained a relative degree of prosperity. Here the soldiers had hunted and skated and fished, and gone through their monotonous routine duties until they had become second nature to them. Here the talented young Van Voorhis had dreamed dreams and seen visions of the teeming millions that were to compose the busy civilization of this region in the distant future. Hither in the spring of 1811 the commander had brought his beautiful Kentucky bride, the niece of Captain Wells; here, true to her ancestry, she had fallen in love with the wilderness fife; and here, three months before, her life had been darkened by its first great tragedy, the loss of her first-born son, "born dead for the want of a skilful Midwife." We may not know the thoughts or forebodings that filled the mind of each member of the little wilderness caravan, but doubtless home was as dear, and anxiety for the future as keen, to the humbler members of the party as to any of those whose names are better known.