"The news of the surrender of Detroit," says the American historian, Brown, "was so unexpected, that it came like a clap of thunder to the ears of the American people. No one would believe the first report. The disastrous event blasted the prospects of the first campaign, and opened the northern and western frontiers of Ohio to savage incursions.
"Previous to the surrender of Detroit, the governors of Ohio and Kentucky, in obedience to the directions of the war department, had detached powerful reinforcements to the aid of General Hull. Had he deferred the capitulation but a few days longer, his army, Detroit, and the Michigan territory, would have been saved.
"The forces advancing to his support consisted of 2,000 militia, under Brigadier-General Payne, and a battalion of mounted riflemen, under Colonel R.M. Johnson, from Kentucky; a brigade of Ohio militia, under the orders of Brigadier-General Tupper;[73] and nearly 1,000 regulars, under the command of General Winchester. They had reached the St. Mary's River when the news of the capture of Detroit was received. But for the well-timed arrival of the above force a wide scene of flight and misery, of blood and desolation, must have ensued. Nearly half of the territory of Ohio must have been depopulated, or its inhabitants fallen victims to the scalping knife."
"The chagrin felt at Washington," observes James in his Military Occurrences, "when news arrived of the total failure of this the first attempt at invasion, was in proportion to the sanguine hopes entertained of its success. To what a pitch of extravagance those hopes had been carried, cannot better appear than in two speeches delivered upon the floor of congress, in the summer of 1812. Dr. Eustis, the secretary at war of the United States, said: 'We can take the Canadas without soldiers; we have only to send officers into the provinces, and the people, disaffected towards their own government, will rally round our standard.' The honorable Henry Clay seconded his friend, thus: 'It is absurd to suppose we shall not succeed in our enterprize against the enemy's provinces. We have the Canadas as much under our command as she (Great Britain) has the ocean; and the way to conquer her on the ocean is to drive her from the land. I am not for stopping at Quebec, or any where else; but I would take the whole continent from them, and ask them no favors. Her fleets cannot then rendezvous at Halifax, as now; and, having no place of resort in the north, cannot infest our coast as they have lately done. It is as easy to conquer them on the land, as their whole navy would conquer ours on the ocean. We must take the continent from them. I wish never to see a peace till we do. God has given us the power and the means: we are to blame if we do not use them. If we get the continent, she must allow us the freedom of the sea.' This is the gentleman who, afterwards, in the character of a commissioner—and it stands as a record of his unblushing apostacy—signed the treaty of peace."
Tecumseh, who was slain the year following, headed a party of his warriors on this occasion, and in the rough sketch already mentioned, Major-General Brock remarked: "Among the Indians whom I found at Amherstburg, and who had arrived from distant parts of the country, there were some extraordinary characters. He who most attracted my attention was a Shawanee chief, Tecumseh, the brother of the prophet, who for the two last years has carried on, contrary to our remonstrances, an active war against the United States. A more sagacious or a more gallant warrior does not, I believe, exist. He was the admiration of every one who conversed with him. From a life of dissipation he has not only become in every respect abstemious, but he has likewise prevailed on all his nation, and many of the other tribes, to follow his example." Previously to crossing over to Detroit, Major-General Brock inquired of Tecumseh what sort of a country he should have to pass through in the event of his proceeding further. Tecumseh, taking a roll of elm bark, and extending it on the ground, drew forth his scalping knife, and with the point presently edged upon the back a plan of the country, its hills, woods, rivers, morasses, and roads—a plan which, if not as neat, was fully as intelligible as if a surveyor had prepared it. Pleased with this unexpected talent in Tecumseh, with his defeat of the Americans near Brownstown, and with his having, by his characteristic boldness, induced the Indians, not of his own tribe, to cross the river prior to the embarkation of the white troops, Major-General Brock, soon after Detroit was surrendered, took off his sash and publicly placed it round the body of the chief. Tecumseh received the honor with evident gratification, but was the next day seen without the sash. The British general, fearing that something had displeased the Indian, sent his interpreter for an explanation. Tecumseh told him, that not wishing to wear such a mark of distinction when an older, and, as he said, an abler warrior than himself was present, he had transferred the sash to the Wyandot chief, Roundhead.[74]
The unfortunate General Hull, on his return to the United States, was tried by a court martial and condemned to death; but the sentence was remitted by the president, in consideration of his age and services during the war of independence.[75] His name was, however, struck off the rolls of the army. His son, and aide-de-camp at Detroit, Captain Hull, was killed in July, 1814, in the hard-fought battle near the Falls of Niagara.
Major-General Brock's services throughout this short campaign, closed by an achievement which his energy and decision crowned with such unqualified success, were highly appreciated by the government at home, and were immediately rewarded with the order of the bath, which was then confined to one degree of knighthood only. He was gazetted to this mark of his country's approbation, so gratifying to the feelings of a soldier, on the 10th of October; but he lived not long enough to learn that he had obtained so honorable a distinction, the knowledge of which would have cheered him in his last moments. Singularly enough his dispatches, accompanied by the colours of the U.S. 4th regiment, reached London early on the morning of the 6th of October, the anniversary of his birth. His brother William, who was residing in the vicinity, was asked by his wife why the park and tower guns were saluting. "For Isaac, of course," he replied; "do you not know that this is his birth-day?" And when he came to town he learnt, with emotions which may be easily conceived, that what he had just said in jest was true in reality; little thinking, however, that all his dreams, all his anticipations of a beloved brother's increasing fame and prosperity would that day week, one short week, be entombed
"Where Niagara stuns with thundering sound."
In one of his letters to his brothers, (page [63],) Major-General Brock said that he had visited Detroit, the neighbourhood of which was a delightful country, far exceeding any thing he had seen on that continent, and a cursory description of it, as it appeared in 1812, may prove interesting.