Turning to Jordan's letter, even a casual inspection compels the adoption of the latter position. Waiving the question whether such a person as Walter Jordan ever in fact existed, the complete silence of all other sources as to his presence in Wells's party and at the Chicago massacre is enough to rouse grave suspicion concerning the truth of his story. His misstatements concerning the expedition of Wells and the massacre itself change this suspicion into certainty. Neither lapse of time nor second-hand information can be urged in extenuation of his false statements about the number of Wells's followers and of Heald's party. Aside from this consideration, the misstatements as to the time of Wells's trip, the tribe to which his followers belonged, and the distance from Fort Wayne to Chicago can hardly be explained on any other hypothesis than that of deliberate fabrication. Surely "a non-commissioned officer of the Regulars at Fort Wayne" would not substitute for the Miamis a purely imaginary tribe of Indians, having no existence outside the pages of his letter. A more Falstaffian tale than that of Jordan's miraculous escape from death, or a more improbable one than that detailing the circumstances attending the death of Wells would be difficult to imagine. Further refutation of the narrative is unnecessary, nor would it deserve the space that has already been devoted to it but for the fact that some have been misled into a belief in its reliability.
The correspondence of Judge Woodward of Detroit with General Proctor relative to the survivors of the massacre constitutes a source of information of the highest quality.[954]' With the massacre itself, however, it deals only incidentally, being limited to a consideration of the survivors and the means of rescuing them from captivity. Woodward was perhaps the most prominent citizen of Detroit and Michigan Territory, noted for his eccentricity and his ability. On the arrival of Captain Heald and his wife and Sergeant Griffith at Detroit early in October, Woodward set himself the task of gaining all the information they could give him concerning the losses in the battle and the survivors of the massacre, and this information he incorporated a few days later in a vigorous letter to Proctor, the British commander at Detroit, appealing to him to take all the measures in his power to recover the unfortunate captives. It is probable that Heald and Griffith could not speak with entire accuracy concerning the losses sustained and the number of these survivors, but they were of course able to give Woodward valuable information on the subject; and his letter to Proctor constitutes one of our most valuable sources of information concerning it.
[954] For Woodward's letter to Proctor, October 7, 1812, see [Appendix VII].
An account of the massacre drawn in large part from the same source as Woodward's information, but written a few years later, is contained in McAfee's History of the Late War, published in 1816. McAfee was a Kentuckian and himself a soldier in the war, having served as an officer in the regiment of Colonel Richard M. Johnson. Because of this, and because his information was largely gathered from participants in the events described, his history possesses much of the flavor of a first-hand narrative. McAfee gives a short account of the destruction of Fort Dearborn, based on information received from Sergeant Griffith, who was also a member of Johnson's regiment. The narrative, being thus second-hand, is open to criticism in certain respects, but the chief occasion for regret is that McAfee's purpose was satisfied with so brief an account; for the source of his information, the early date of the history, and the character of McAfee as a historian all tend to the belief that had it suited his purpose to enter more fully into the account of Fort Dearborn, a narrative of great value would have been produced.
We come, after these contemporary accounts, to the recollections and reminiscences told in old age by participants, or relatives or friends of participants, in the massacre. Some of these have proved to be of considerable value for the reconstruction of our story, but in most sources of this character the traces of time and of failing memory are plainly to be seen. Moreover, some of them are affected by the narrator's personal friendships or antipathies, and given in support or contradiction of some partisan account. Few of them are or pretend to be more than fragmentary accounts of the battle. Among such sources may be mentioned the testimony of Black Hawk,[955] of Shabbona,[956] of Joseph Bourassa,[957] and of Paul De Garmo.[958]
[955] Black Hawk, Life, 42.
[956] Wisconsin Historical Collections, VII, 416-18.
[957] Draper Collection, S, XXIII, 165 ff.
[958] De Garmo's story is contained in a letter of Charles A. Lamb, August 24, 1803, MS in the Chicago Historical Society library.
Logically belonging in the same class as the foregoing, but requiring in each case more extended consideration, are the narratives of Alexander Robinson, of Moses Morgan, and of Susan Simmons Winans. Robinson was one of the chiefs in the massacre who was friendly to the whites and did what he might to save them. He it was who piloted the Healds and Sergeant Griffith in their three-hundred-mile canoe voyage from the St. Joseph River to Mackinac. He was one of the last survivors of the massacre, living in the immediate vicinity of Chicago until 1872, and well known to the generation of Chicagoans before the great fire. For some reason the first generation of writers upon early Chicago history did not take the trouble to secure from Robinson his version of the massacre. A manuscript which purports to contain his story of the affair is, however, in the possession of the Chicago Historical Society. The information contained in it purports to have been secured by Carl A. Dilg in a series of interviews with the daughter of Robinson some time after the chief's death. Dilg considered it of great importance, but a careful study of it compels the conclusion that it possesses practically no historical value. It was not put in writing until three-quarters of a century had elapsed; more important, Robinson himself was illiterate, and the story, third-hand at best, was elicited from his daughter in a series of interviews extending over several years, by a man whose prejudices were so violent and methods of work so unscientific as to render confidence in its reliability impossible.