The Loyalists of America and Their Times Volume II Part 33
"Be not dismayed at the unjustifiable threat of the commander of the enemy's forces, to refuse quarter should an Indian appear in the ranks.
"The brave bands of aborigines which inhabit this colony were, like his Majesty's other subjects, punished for their zeal and fidelity by the loss of their possessions in the late colonies, and rewarded by his Majesty with lands of superior value in this Province.
"The faith of the British Government has never been violated. The Indians feel that the soil they inherit is to them and their posterity protected from the base arts so frequently devised to overreach their simplicity.
"By what principle are they to be prohibited from defending their property? If their warfare, from being different to that of other people, be more terrific to the enemy, let him retrace his steps; they seek him not--and cannot expect to find women and children in an invading army.
"But they are men, and have equal rights with all other men to defend themselves and their property when invaded, more especially when they find in the enemy's camp a ferocious and mortal enemy, using the same warfare which the American commander affects to reprobate.
"This inconsistent and unjustifiable threat of refusing quarter, for such a cause as being found in arms with a brother sufferer, in defence of invaded rights, must be exercised with the certain a.s.surance of retaliation, not only in the limited operations of war in this part of the King's dominions, but in every quarter of the globe; for the national character of Britain is not less distinguished for humanity than strict retributive justice, which will consider the execution of this inhuman threat as deliberate murder, for which every subject of the offending power must make expiation.
(Signed) "ISAAC BROCK, "_Major-General and President_.
"HEADQUARTERS, "Fort George, July 22nd, 1812."
"By order of his Honour the President, (Signed) "J.B. GLEGG, A.D.C., _General_."
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote 194: The following is General Hull's Proclamation:
"PROCLAMATION.
"Headquarters, Sandwich, 12th July, 1812.
"_Inhabitants of Canada_,--
"After thirty years of peace and prosperity, the United States have been driven to arms. The injuries and aggressions, the insults and indignities of Great Britain have once more left them no alternative but manly resistance or unconditional submission. The army under my command has invaded your country. The standard of the Union now waves over the territory of Canada. To the peaceable, unoffending inhabitants it brings neither danger nor difficulty. I come to find enemies, not to make them; I come to protect, not to injure you.
"Separated by an immense ocean and an extensive wilderness from Great Britain, you have no partic.i.p.ation in her councils, nor interest in her conduct. You have felt her tyranny; you have seen her injustice; but I do not ask you to avenge the one, or to redress the other. The United States are sufficiently powerful to afford every security consistent with their and your expectations. I tender you the invaluable blessings of civil, religious, and political liberty, and their necessary result--individual and general prosperity; that liberty which gave decision to our councils and energy to our conduct, in a struggle for independence--which conducted us safely and triumphantly through the stormy period of the revolution--the liberty which has raised us to our elevated rank among the nations of the world, and which afforded us a greater measure of peace and security, of wealth and improvement, than ever fell to the lot of any people.
"In the name of my country and the authority of Government, I promise you protection to your persons, property, and rights. Remain at your homes; pursue your peaceful and customary avocations; raise not your hands against your brethren. Many of your fathers fought for the freedom and independence we now enjoy. Being children, therefore, of the same family with us, and heirs of the same heritage, the arrival of an army of friends must be hailed by you with a cordial welcome. You will be emanc.i.p.ated from tyranny and oppression, and restored to the dignified status of freemen.
"Had I any doubt of eventual success, I might ask your a.s.sistance; but I do not. I come prepared for every contingency--I have a force which will break down all opposition, and that force is but the vanguard of a much greater. If, contrary to your own interest, and the just expectations of my country, you should take part in the approaching contest, you will be considered and treated as enemies, and the horrors and calamities of war will stalk before you.
"If the barbarous and savage policy of Great Britain be pursued, and the savages are let loose to murder our citizens, and butcher our women and children, this war will be a war of extermination. The first stroke of the tomahawk, the first attempt with the scalping knife, will be the signal of one indiscriminate scene of desolation. No white man found fighting by the side of an Indian will be taken prisoner--instant death will be his lot. If the dictates of reason, duty, justice, and humanity, cannot prevent the employment of a force which respects no rights, and knows no wrongs, it will be prevented by a severe and relentless system of retaliation.
"I doubt not your courage and firmness. I will not doubt your attachment to liberty. If you tender your services voluntarily, they will be accepted readily. The United States offer you peace, liberty, and security. Your chance lies between these and war, slavery, and destruction. Choose, then, but choose wisely; and may He who knows the justice of our cause, and who holds in His hands the fate of nations, guide you to a result the most compatible with your rights and interests, your peace and happiness.
"By the General, A.P. HULL."
_Note._--It is a curious commentary on the above proclamation, that within six weeks of its being so pompously put forth, General Hull himself, with all his army, was a prisoner in the hands of the Lieutenant-Governor of Upper Canada, to whom was surrendered nearly 3,000 prisoners, Fort Detroit, an immense quant.i.ty of arms and munitions of war, together with the whole territory of Michigan, and the secured alliance of the numerous Indian tribes to the west and north.]
CHAPTER LII.
GENERAL BROCK PREPARES FOR AN ATTACK ON DETROIT, AND WITH A SMALL FORCE TAKES GENERAL HULL AND HIS ARMY PRISONERS, AND ACQUIRES POSSESSION OF DETROIT AND THE TERRITORY OF MICHIGAN--INCIDENTS PRECEDING AND ATTENDING THE TAKING OF DETROIT--GENERAL BROCK'S PROCLAMATION TO THE INHABITANTS OF THE MICHIGAN TERRITORY--HIS COUNCIL WITH THE INDIANS, AND CONVERSATION WITH THE GREAT CHIEF TEc.u.mSEH, AND ESTIMATE OF HIM--GENERAL BROCK RETURNS TO YORK (TORONTO)--WHAT HE DID IN NINETEEN DAYS.
General Brock did not content himself in replying to General Hull on paper, in defence of the British Government and the people of Canada; he answered him in a more substantial way on the battle-field. General Brock lost no time in collecting the few soldiers in Upper Canada, and the militia volunteers, and proceeding by boats, vessels, and by land, from Niagara to Detroit, to meet face to face the boasting commander of the Grand Army of the West, and, in less than four weeks of his manly reply to Hull's inflated proclamation, he made Hull and all his army prisoners of war, with the surrender of the whole Michigan territory. It was an achievement worthy of perpetual remembrance, that General Brock, with forces hastily collected, "consisting of thirty of the Royal Artillery with three six-pounders, under the command of Lieutenant Troughton, two hundred and fifty of the 41st Regiment, fifty of the Newfoundland Fencibles, and four hundred Canadian militia--in all amounting to seven hundred and thirty, to whom six hundred Indians attached themselves--making an aggregate of one thousand three hundred and thirty;" we say, it is an achievement worthy of all remembrance and honour, that General Brock should, with such motley and slender forces, cross the Detroit river, and, by the skilful arrangement of his handful of soldiers, take, without shedding a drop of blood, a fort strongly protected by--_iron_ ordnance, nine twenty-four-pounders, eight twelve-pounders, five nine-pounders, three six-pounders; _bra.s.s_ ordnance, three six-pounders, two four-pounders, one three-pounder, one eight-inch howitzer, one five and a-half inch howitzer--in all thirty-three pieces of ordnance; and defended by upwards of 2,500 regular soldiers and militia.
But there was this essential difference between the two armies: the little Canadian army had homes, families, and liberties to defend, connection with the mother country to maintain, and the consciousness of right; the great American army, with its fortifications, had the consciousness of long-continued and wide-spread wrongs in depredations against their western Indian neighbours, bloated avarice for conquest, and inveterate hatred of Great Britain.
There are several incidents connected with this remarkable military achievement. Mr. Thompson, in his History of the War of 1812, says: "General Brock having made such arrangements, in the government of the province, as were necessary during his absence from York, proceeded thence to Fort George, and thence to _Long Point, on Lake Erie, where he was joined by two hundred and sixty of the militia, who had, in a few days, and in the very height of their harvest, gallantly volunteered their services to share the dangers of the field in defence of their country_, together with the detachment of the 41st Regiment, who had been previously sent to that quarter." (Thompson's History of the War of 1812, p. 106.)
Among the 260 volunteers from the county of Norfolk--Long Point, Lake Erie--were the elder brother and brother-in-law of the writer of these pages (he being then ten years of age); the one of them was lieutenant and the other captain, who, with a great number of their neighbours, proceeded in a vessel from Port Ryerse to Amherstburg--making the pa.s.sage in forty-eight hours--General Brock marching by land. The vessel with the militia volunteers reached Amherstburg some five days before General Brock, and, under the command of Colonel Proctor and the direction of a skilful engineer, commenced erecting a battery at Windsor, opposite to Detroit, behind a tuft of trees which skirted the river sh.o.r.e. Sentries were stationed at convenient distances along the north sh.o.r.e of the river, to prevent any intercourse with the American side; while the militia, officers and men, worked each night with the utmost quietness, in the erection of the battery, retiring at the approach of day. In four nights the battery was erected and mounted with cannon, when General Brock arrived, approved of what had been done, called a Council of the Indian allies, as well as of his officers, and determined forthwith to cross the river and attack Fort Detroit. The Indians were to cross in the night, which they did some three or four miles below Detroit, and spread themselves in the woods that surrounded the town, which then contained from 6,000 to 8,000 inhabitants. The night-erected battery was unmasked by felling the trees and underwood in front of it, when, to the astonishment and terror of the Americans, they saw a battery fully equipped, and already firing effectually upon their town and fort. Early in the morning of the 15th of August, General Brock, with his little army of 730 men (the militia being accoutred as regular soldiers), crossed the river unopposed about three miles below the fort (which was in the centre of the town), and marched in order of battle, under cover of corn fields, to within half a mile of the fort, from which, not cannon b.a.l.l.s, but a flag of truce was sent out, proposing the surrender to the British commander of the fort, army, town, and territory.[195]
The terrific war-whoop of the dreaded Indians, who seemed to swarm in the woods around the town, filled the people and General Hull with irresistible terror; and at the very moment that General Hull was holding a council of war with his officers in a room within the fort, a sh.e.l.l, thrown from the British battery at Windsor, fell into the council room, killed some officers, and wounded several more. This catastrophe, with the terrible yells of the surrounding Indians, seemed to have decided General Hull and his advisers that _surrender_ "was the better part of valour."
A _second_ incident connected with the surrender of Detroit and the Michigan territory is the council which General Brock held with the Indians the day before the attack upon and surrender of Detroit, and his interview with them the day after, for the account of which I am indebted to Colonel John Clarke's ma.n.u.scripts in the Dominion Library at Ottawa:
"On General Brock's arrival at Sandwich, a council of war was a.s.sembled on the following morning. Along with others were 1,000 Indians, whose equipment generally might be considered very imposing.
"The council was opened by General Brock, who informed the Indians that he was ordered by their great Father, the King, to come to their a.s.sistance, and with them to drive the enemy from Fort Detroit. His speech was highly applauded, and Tec.u.mseh was unanimously called upon to speak in reply. He commenced with expressing his joy that their great Father beyond the Salt Lake (meaning the King of England) had at length awoke from his long sleep, and sent his warriors to the a.s.sistance of his red children, who had roused themselves in their honour, and were now ready to shed the last drop of their blood in their great Father's service.
"Previously to pa.s.sing over to Detroit, General Brock inquired of Tec.u.mseh what kind of country he should have to pa.s.s through, in the event of his proceeding further. Tec.u.mseh, taking a roll of elm bark, and extending it on the ground, drew forth his scalping knife, and presently etched upon the bark a plan of the country; which, if not so neat, was as fully intelligible as if a surveyor had prepared it.
Pleased with this talent in Tec.u.mseh, and with his characteristic boldness, General Brock induced the Indians to cross the river for the attack on Detroit, prior to the embarkation of the white troops.
"Soon after Detroit was surrendered, General Brock took off his sash, and publicly placed it around the body of the chief Tec.u.mseh, who received the honour conferred on him with evident gratification; but was seen the next day without his sash. The British general, fearing that something had displeased the Indian chief, sent his interpreter for an explanation. Tec.u.mseh told him that he did not wish to wear the sash as a mark of distinction, when an older warrior than himself was present; he had transferred the sash to the Wyandot chief, Roundhead.
"In his correspondence, General Brock states that 'of many Indians whom he met at Amherstburg, he who most attracted his notice was the Shawnee chief, Tec.u.mseh, brother of the Prophet--a more gallant or sagacious warrior does not, I believe, exist; he was the admiration of every one, and was as humane as he was brave.'
"General Brock, in General Orders of the 16th of August, 1812, after the capture of Detroit, states that two fortifications had been already captured, Michilimackinac and Detroit, without a drop of blood being shed by the hands of the Indians; the moment the enemy surrendered, his life became sacred.
"On congratulating General Brock, after the capture of Detroit, Tec.u.mseh said to the General, 'We observed you from a distance standing the whole time in an erect position, and when the boats reached the sh.o.r.e, you were the first man on the land; your bold and sudden movements frightened the enemy, and so compelled them to surrender to half their number.'
"General Brock engaged the Indians to throw away the scalping knife--implanting in their hearts the virtue of clemency, and teaching them to feel pleasure and pride in compa.s.sion extended to a vanquished enemy. In return, they revered him as their common Father, and whilst under his control, were guilty of no excesses; and thereby the n.o.ble Tec.u.mseh was humane as well as brave."[196]
Such was the character and results of the first American invasion of Canada.
It may be worth while to notice some events which preceded the taking of Detroit, and which doubtless disappointed and disheartened General Hull.
In the island of St. Joseph, in Lake Huron, there was a fort or block-house, under the command of Captain Roberts, with thirty regulars.
General Brock, in communicating to Captain Roberts the American declaration of war against Great Britain, instructed him to take every precaution for the protection of St. Joseph, and, if possible, to get possession of Michilimackinac, now called Mackinac, and p.r.o.nounced Mackinaw, an island about nine miles in circ.u.mference, commanding the entrance from Lake Huron into Lake Michigan, on which the Americans had a fort with a captain in command, and a garrison of seventy-five men.
Captain Roberts was aided by Mr. Pothier, a gentlemen of the South-west Fur Company, who volunteered his own services, attended by about 160 Canadian voyageurs, and placed the contents of the stores at the disposal of Captain Roberts, who, with his little armament, consisting of thirty regulars, two artillerymen and a sergeant, 160 Canadians, and two iron field-pieces, set out on the 16th of July with his flotilla of boats and canoes, convoyed by the _Caledonia_ brig, belonging to the North-West Company, loaded with stores and provisions. On the ensuing morning he reached Mackinac, a distance of about forty miles, landed without opposition, and immediately summoned the garrison to surrender, which was complied with in a few minutes. Thus was this key of the West taken without the effusion of a drop of blood.
The Americans had carried on a brisk trade in schooners and sailing vessels from Detroit, through Lake Huron, to the head of Lake Michigan, now Chicago. The capture of Mackinac--which was a surprise to the commander, who had not heard of the declaration of war--interrupted this trade, and gave confidence to the Canadian voyageurs and Indians in the British interests employed in the fur trade in these distant countries.
"This achievement, effected by the prompt.i.tude and judicious arrangements of Captain Roberts, not only inspired the people with confidence, and gave a turn to the present campaign fatal to the views of the United States, by enabling us to maintain our influence among the Indians of the West, which otherwise must have been lost, but it essentially contributed to the successful struggle afterwards maintained against the American arms in Upper Canada. General Hull, after the capture of his army and the fall of Detroit, in his official despatch relative to these events, attributes his disasters to the fall of Mackinac; after the surrender of which, almost every tribe and nation of Indians, except a part of the Miamis and Delawares, north from beyond Lake Superior, west from beyond the Mississippi, south from Ohio and the Wabash, and east from every part of Upper Canada, and from all the intermediate country, joined in open hostility against the army he commanded."[197]
"General Hull remained some time inactive, under pretext of making preparation to prosecute the campaign with vigour; but it was the fallacious hope of an early insurrection in his favour that lulled him into a supineness fatal to the safety of his army. Amherstburg lay about eighteen miles below him, and the mud and picketed fortifications of that post was not in a condition to make resistance against a regular siege. The Americans, confident of an easy conquest, had not as yet a single cannon or mortar mounted, and to endeavour to take it at the point of the bayonet he thought inexpedient. During this delay his situation became more and more precarious; three detachments from his army were, on three successive days, beaten back by a handful of the 41st Regiment and a few Indians, from a bridge over the River Canard, three miles from Amherstburg, which they endeavoured to seize, in order to open the route to that port. Another detachment, in attempting to ford the river (Canard) higher up, was put to flight by a small party of eighteen or twenty Indians who lay concealed in the gra.s.s. The enemy, panic-struck at their sudden and hideous yell, fled with precipitancy, leaving their arms, accoutrements, and haversacks. The British sloop of war _Queen Charlotte_, carrying eighteen twenty-four pounders, lay in the Detroit river, opposite the mouth of the River Canard, so that it was impossible for the Americans to convey by water to Amherstburg any artillery, of which, after much labour, they had at last mounted two twenty-four-pounders. Lieutenant Rolette, commanding the armed brig _Hunter_, had on the 3rd of July, at about ten o'clock in the forenoon, by a bold attempt in his barge, with only six men, succeeded in capturing the _Cayahaga_ packet, bound from Miami river to Detroit with troops, and loaded with baggage, and the hospital stores of the American army, the loss of which was now severely felt. Mackinac, in his rear, had been taken since the commencement of the invasion, while the Indians from that quarter were flocking to the British standard. Our naval force being superior on the lake, Colonel Proctor pushed over to Brownstown, a village nearly opposite to Amherstburg, twenty miles below Detroit, with a small detachment of the 41st Regiment, under the command of Captain Tallon, with a few Indians, who on the 5th of August surprised and routed a party of 200 Americans under Major Vanhorne, on their way from Detroit to River Raisin, to meet a detachment of volunteers from Ohio, under Captain Brush, with a convoy of provisions for the army. In this affair a quant.i.ty of booty, and General Hull's despatches to the Secretary at War, fell into the hands of the victors, whereby the deplorable state of the American army was disclosed." * *
"In the interim, the American general received a despatch from General Hull, on the Niagara frontier, intimating that he could not expect co-operation in that quarter, which would have created a diversion in his favour. Such was the hopeless state of things when the American general began to be sensible of his danger. His army hemmed in on every side, cut off from its resources, and hourly wasting away with defeat, death, sickness, and fatigue, unsupported by an expected insurrection of Canadians in his favour, and unaided by any co-operating army, and, above all, dismayed at the report of General Brock's resolution to advance against him; his schemes of conquest vanquished, and in the sinking state of his affairs, he saw no other alternative than to retreat back to Detroit, under pretence of concentrating his main army, and after re-opening his communications with the Rivers Raisin and Miami, through which he received his whole supplies, to resume offensive operations against Upper Canada. Accordingly, on the evening of the 7th and the morning of the 8th of August, the whole of his army, except a garrison of 250 men and a few artillery left in charge of a small fortress they had thrown up on the British side, a little below Detroit, _recrossed the river_.
"General Hull now detached a body of 600 men, under Lieutenant-Colonel Miller, to dislodge the British from Brownstown, and open the communication with the Rivers Raisin and Miami, upon which the existence of the army depended. On the 9th, this detachment was met by the British and Indians under Major Muir at Magnogo, between Brownstown and Detroit, which, after a desperate battle, in which the Americans lost seventy-five men, was obliged to retreat with inconsiderable loss compared with that of the Americans.
"On the 7th, Lieutenant Rolette, with the boats of the _Queen Charlotte_ and _Hunter_, under cover of the guns of the latter, attacked and captured a convoy of eleven batteaux and boats, having on board fifty-six of their wounded, and two English prisoners, on their way from Magnogo to Detroit, escorted by 250 American troops on sh.o.r.e.
"Amidst these reverses of fortune, the American general was startled at the summons to surrender the fort of Detroit, by General Brock, who, after having closed the public business at York, and prorogued Parliament, and collecting a few regulars and militia with incredible exertion, had reached Amherstburg by the 13th of August. So resolute a demand struck the American commander with dismay, who, at the most, had never contemplated a pursuit into his own territory by the British. He still, however, maintained sufficient presence of mind to return a prompt and positive refusal, upon receipt of which, the British, who now occupied the ground so lately in possession of the enemy, in front of Detroit, where they had thrown up a battery (erected by night) under the direction of Captain Dixon, of the Royal Engineers, commenced, on the afternoon of the 15th, a brisk cannonade on Detroit, from two five-and-a-half-inch mortars, and two twelve-pounders, under the management of Captain Hall, of the Provincial Navy, with a party of sailors, which was continued for upwards of an hour with great effect.