Such must have been the case with Mrs. Needs, the wife of one of the soldiers. Her husband, her child, and herself all survived the massacre, only to die in captivity. The husband died in January, 1813; the brief record left us contains no indication of the cause of his death.[611] Annoyed by the crying which hunger forced from the child, the savages tied it to a tree to perish of starvation or to become the prey of some wild beast. Still later the wretched mother perished from cold and hunger. Another prisoner, William Nelson Hunt, was frozen to death.[612] Hugh Logan, an Irishman, unable to walk because of excessive fatigue, was tomahawked; such, also, was the fate of August Mortt, a German, and for a similar reason.[613]
[611] Niles' Register, June 4 1814.
[612] Niles' Register, June 4, 1814. The name is printed as Nelson; it does not occur in any of the other accounts of the massacre, nor on the muster-roll of Heald's company of May 31, 1812. The latter does contain the name of William Nelson Hunt, however, and he is probably the man designated as Nelson in the newspaper account.
[613] The following letter written by Thomas Forsyth to Nathan Heald, April 10, 1813, suggests a different reason for the killing of Mortt. The letter is reproduced in full for the sake of the information it gives concerning the massacre and the affairs of some of the participants in it. The original manuscript is the property of Mrs. Lillian Heald Richmond, of St. Louis, Mo.
St. Louis 10th April 1813.
Sir: I had the honor to receive from the hand of Gov. Howard, your letter to him of the 24th February last, in answer to his to you respecting Kinzie & Forsyth Claims for losses sustained 1st August at Chicago, in your letter you mention that you gave Mr. Kinzie a quantity of gunpowder for hire of horses to carry provisions, &c. to Detroit, in that case, the gunpowder was from you to us, for hire of horses for public use and of course the gunpowder became our property, after the delivery of the gunpowder to Mr. Kinzie, I understood from him (K-) that either you or the late Captain Wells, and perhaps both, told him, that if he, (K) would destroy all his gunpowder and Whiskey, that he should be paid for his losses by the U. States all of which was certainly destroyed; in your letter to Gov. Howard, you say you seen the Whiskey destroyed and that you have no doubt but the gunpowder was also destroyed; In that case I would thank you if you would forward on to me at this place, a certificate of what you know about the destruction of those articles, also the prices of gunpowder, Whiskey, mules & horses, at Chicago. I have claimed for each horse $60—Mules $90—Whiskey $2 per gallon, gunpowder $2 per lb. this you know was the current price for Whiskey and Gunpowder; I paid myself, this price for Gunpowder bought out of the Factory of that place, as for the horses and Mules they are by no means high; our losses in horn cattle, hogs, merchandise &c. are very great for which we demand nothing for. Depain and Buisson wintered at Chicago last winter with goods from Mackinaw, they have bought of[f] Mrs. Leigh and her younger child, and another woman which I expect is Mrs. Cooper or Burns, Old Mott was a prisoner, and became out of his head last Winter and was killed by the Indians.
Please give my respects to Mrs. Heald.
And Remain your most Obedt Servt
T. Forsyth
With relief we turn from these tragic details to the story of the efforts which were making to restore the captives to civilization. On September 9 Proctor communicated to General Brock the news of the massacre at Fort Dearborn, expressing regret over its occurrence and denying that the British had known anything of the intended attack, or that the superintendent of the Indian Department had any influence over the Indians.[614] At the time of writing this letter Proctor believed that Captain Heald and his wife and Kinzie were the only survivors of the massacre, and no suggestion was made by him of measures for the relief of the captives. Soon, however, Captain and Mrs. Heald and Sergeant Griffith reached Detroit, bringing information that nearly half of the garrison and a number of women and children were captives among the Indians. Detroit and Michigan being in the hands of the British, in the absence of any official representative of the American government Judge Woodward assumed the duty of procuring the initiation of measures for the relief of the prisoners. On the strength of the information furnished by Heald and Griffith he addressed a letter to Proctor, representing that over thirty Americans had been taken by the Indians.[615] He urged that immediate measures be taken for their relief, suggesting the sending a special messenger overland to Chicago, charged with the duty of collecting the captives who still survived and information of those who had perished, and supplied with the means of conveying the former to either Detroit or Mackinac. He further urged that Captain Roberts, the commander at Mackinac, be instructed to co-operate in the efforts to rescue the Americans, and assured Proctor that the funds necessary for the work would be repaid either by the American government or by private individuals.
[614] Michigan Pioneer Collections, XV, 144.
[615] The original draft of this letter is printed in Appendix VII; the statements in the text are based on the letter as actually sent. This differed in some respects from the rough draft.