[The roll concludes with a table of recapitulation, a certificate as to its correctness, signed by Heald and Van Voorhis, and a certificate by Heald, dated Louisville, December 3, 1812, that the foregoing is a true copy of the original muster-roll.]
APPENDIX IX
THE FATED COMPANY: A DISCUSSION OF THE NAMES AND FATE OF THE WHITES INVOLVED IN THE FORT DEARBORN MASSACRE
No comprehensive record of the names and fate of those who composed the company which marched out of Fort Dearborn under Captain Heald on the morning of August 15, 1812, has ever been made. Here for the first time, a hundred years after the massacre, an effort is made to supply such a record. Such success as has been achieved is due to a study, in addition to the sources of information which have been used by previous workers in the local historical field, of several new sources unknown to or unused by students hitherto. The most important of these is the Fort Dearborn muster-roll for May 31, 1812. This, together with the list of survivors given by Lieutenant Helm, the data left by Captain Heald,[969] and the letter of Judge Woodward to Colonel Proctor constitutes the basis of the present study.
[969] Aside from the Fort Dearborn muster-roll for May 31, 1812, the papers left by Heald which are of chief importance for our subject are the following: the official report of the evacuation (Appendix IV); Heald's Journal (Appendix III); the Fort Dearborn quarterly returns for the quarter ending June 30, 1812; the monthly return for June, 1812; a tabular statement concerning the troops engaged in the massacre and their fate; a summary statement concerning the women, and concerning the men who perished in captivity. With the exception of the official report all of these papers are in the Draper Collection.
At the outset of the effort to name and account for the members of the fatal company, a difficulty is encountered concerning the precise number of regular soldiers in Heald's company. In his official Report, Heald stated that his force of regulars numbered fifty-four. Whether he intended to include himself in this number is not clear. The tabular statement, preserved among his papers, of the composition of his force and its fate, which gives the total strength of his company as fifty-four, exactly one-half of whom were slain, would seem to indicate that he did. Yet the latter document disagrees with the Report in the number of slain, which the Report gives as twenty-six. Turning to Heald's Journal we find the number of soldiers slain in the battle placed at twenty-six, and the number of survivors at twenty-seven, which would give a total strength of fifty-three. There is reason for believing that the number of regulars slain in the battle was in fact twenty-six, but it is manifestly impracticable to determine certainly, from the accounts left by Heald, the exact strength of his company on the morning of the massacre. Heald had, to the end of his life, the garrison muster-roll for May 31, 1812, and other contemporary records, and these are still preserved. An examination of them suggests an explanation of the reason for his conflicting statements. The garrison muster-roll for May 31 and the monthly return for June each show a strength of fifty-five men, while the quarterly return of June 30 and the inspection return of the same date show a strength of fifty-four. The first two agree in showing four officers and fifty-one non-commissioned officers, musicians, and privates present; the third shows three officers and fifty-one of lesser rank present, and the fourth four officers and fifty of lesser rank. There is disagreement, then, between the contemporary returns over the number of the garrison at the end of June; yet it is evident that its nominal strength at that time was four officers and fifty-one men of lesser rank, although one of the fifty-five may possibly have been absent. There is no reason to suppose that there was any alteration in this number between the end of June and the fifteenth of August. Without venturing to say that there is any unquestionable preponderance of evidence that the strength of Heald's company, including himself, on the latter date was fifty-five rather than fifty-four, from a consideration of all the factors involved I incline to believe that it was. In the calculations and statements that follow, therefore, it is to be understood that the total number of regular soldiers involved in the massacre is reckoned as fifty-five.
Including the commander, then, ninety-six persons comprised the doomed company which evacuated the fort on the morning of the fifteenth of August. These fall logically into several groups, varying greatly as to size: John Kinzie, a neutral and non-combatant; Wells, the leader of the Miamis; the nine women and eighteen children of the company; the twelve Chicago residents composing Heald's "militia" company; and finally the fifty-five regulars. The first two of these require but little consideration here, as the fortune of each has been discussed elsewhere. Wells was slain, while Kinzie passed unscathed even through the carnage around the wagons where not another white man escaped with his life.
There is no uncertainty respecting the fate of the women of the company. The subject has already been discussed at length and only a brief recapitulation need be given here.
No. Name Fate
1 Cicely, Mrs. Heald's negro slave Killed in battle
2 Mrs. Fielding Corbin Killed in battle
3 Mrs. Heald Returned to civilization
4 Mrs. Helm Returned to civilization
5 Mrs. Lee Returned to civilization
(Ransomed by Depain and
Buisson at Chicago)
6 Mrs. Holt Returned to civilization
(Possibly the woman ransomed
along with Mrs. Lee)
7 Mrs. Burns Returned to civilization
8 Mrs. Simmons Returned to civilization
9 Mrs. Needs Died in captivity of exposure
and hardship
Of the eighteen children in the massacre only a very incomplete record can be made from the sources that have come to light thus far. Neither Mrs. Heald nor Mrs. Helm had children; each of the remaining seven women, with the possible exception of Mrs. Corbin, had one or more. Mrs. Burns had several, some of whom bore her former name of Cooper; probably several belonged to Mrs. Lee. Black Cicely had one child, and Mrs. Simmons two. One child each at least, and perhaps more, belonged to Mrs. Needs and Mrs. Holt. Twelve of the children perished in the massacre, most of them in one wagon at the hands of a single fiend, and six survived it. One of these, the Needs child, met perhaps the saddest fate of all the company, being tied to a tree by the savages and left behind to die. The other five returned with their mothers to civilization. Two of them belonged to Mrs. Burns, and one each to Mrs. Simmons, Mrs. Holt, and Mrs. Lee.