XXV. tained, and a force provided of at least 3000 good troops. CHAPTER Nothing, however, was done toward a naval force, not even so much as fitting out the Adams, a small public 1812. armed vessel, which lay at Detroit, and Hull was told that he must be content with 2000 men. Arriving at Dayton, some three weeks before the dec- May 25. laration of war, he found assembled there three regiments of raw Ohio volunteers, about 1200 men in all, imperfectly organized, and scantily equipped. Marching to Urbana, he added to his force the fourth regiment of regular infantry, some three hundred strong, lately engaged, under Boyd, in the Tippecanoe expedition, and now commanded by Colonel James Miller. From Ur bana to Detroit were two hundred miles of forest, through which the army had to cut a road, and to estab lish a series of posts, to keep open the communication, liable to interruption by the hostile Indians. While marching on this road, Hull received a letter from Wash- June 26. ington, forwarded by express from Cleveland, where the post-route then terminated. It was dated the day before the declaration of war, but made no mention of it, only bidding him hasten his march. A letter of the next day, with information that war was declared, sent to Cleveland by mail, and forwarded thence by such chance conveyance as offered, did not reach him till eight days later, July 2. after he had arrived at the Maumee, and had there embarked his baggage, intrenching tools, and hospital stores, to be forwarded by water to Detroit. The British officer in command at Malden had received notice of the declaration of war two days before (under an envelope, as it oddly enough happened, franked, as far as Cleveland, by the Secretary of the Treasury); and as the vessel with Hull's stores on board passed Fort Amherstburg, she was overhauled and made a prize of. July 5 CHAPTER A day or two after this misadventure, Hull's army reached Detroit, which contained at that time only some 1812. eight hundred inhabitants. The neighboring villages on the strait had about twice as many; the whole Terri tory of Michigan not much above five thousand, most of them of French origin. Surrounded by hostile Indians, and separated from the Ohio settlements by two hundred miles of wilderness, Lake Erie commanded by the British, and even the road by land which followed the shore of the strait passing almost under the guns of Amherstburg, this was a most extraordinary point from which to commence a hostile invasion. In the fort at Detroit, a place of some strength, there was a garrison of fifty regulars. The militia of the Territory raised Hull's force to about 1800 men. Shortly after his ar July 9. rival, having received orders from the War Department to invade Canada, to take Malden if he could, and to exJuly 12. tend his conquests as circumstances permitted, he crossed to Sandwich, boasting, in a proclamation, of a force adequate to all the purposes of protection or punishment; offering to all who desired it emancipation from the tyranny of the British rule, and to all who chose to remain quiet protection and safety; but should savages, by the barbarous policy of Great Britain, be let loose to murder women and children, threatening an exterminating retaliation, in fact, instant death, to every white man taken fighting side by side with Indians. The Canadian settlements on the strait were still feebler than those of Michigan. Sandwich was a village smaller than Detroit; the fort of Amherstburg, or Malden, was a weak erection of earth and pallisades, held by a garrison of a hundred regulars, and some four hundred militia and Indians. Hull's troops were eager for action, and, had Amherstburg been at once attacked, per HULL'S INVASION OF, CANADA. 339 XXV. haps it might have been taken. But ignorant of the CHAPTER weakness of the enemy, though fully conscious of his own, and discouraged by the capture of his baggage, and 1812. his isolation from means of succor, Hull wished to fortify his camp, to get his battering cannon mounted, and to give his proclamation time to operate. Meanwhile, before he was ready to move, he heard of the loss of Michilimackinac, which post alone held the Indians of the upper lakes in check. The inadequate garrison of only sixty men had received their first intimation of the declaration of war from a British flotilla which appeared before the place, convoyed by a brig belonging to the British Fur Company, and with a force on board drawn from the neighboring British post of Fort William, of July 17, two hundred regulars and Canadians, besides a body of Indians, to which they precipitately surrendered. The news of this loss was soon followed by information of General Proctor's arrival at Amherstburg with reenforcements, brought by water from below, and of ef forts made by the British Fur Company's agents at Fort William above, to imbody their servants and to excite the Indians. Soon after Proctor's arrival, Tecumseh, who had entered into the British service, crossed the strait to block up the road from Ohio to Detroit, and had stopped at the River Raisin a convoy of flour and cattle. Hull sent a detachment of two hundred men to open the road; but they fell into an ambush of some seventy war. Aug. 5, riors, from which they only escaped back to the camp with a loss of thirty killed and wounded, and seventy missing, the mail, also forwarded under their care, falling into the enemy's hands. Hull's arrangements for marching were now complete, but, alarmed at this interception of his supplies, and by information from the officer in command on the Niagara XXV. CHAPTER River that the British forces in that quarter were moving westward, and that he was not able to make any di 1812. version, he concluded to give over offensive operations, Aug. to retire to Detroit, and to devote his first efforts to reestablish his own communications. Proctor, encouraged by the desponding tone of the dispatches and correspond. ence captured by Tecumseh, had crossed over to join that chief with almost his entire force, and as it happened, just in time to encounter Colonel Miller, sent with his regiment and a body of militia, about 600 in all, to open the road. Miller found the British and Indians posted at Maguago, about fourteen miles from Detroit, behind a breast-work of logs, one flank on the river, the other covered by a swamp; and in forcing this position, which was obstinately defended, especially by the Indians, he lost eighteen killed and sixty wounded. The men, from having dropped and lost their knapsacks during the fight, fell short of provisions; the sending back the wounded occasioned a delay; indeed, the boats which conveyed them came very near falling into the hands of the enemy. Miller was taken sick; a storm of rain added to the disorganization of the troops; and, finally, the expedition was abandoned. As a substitute for it, M'Arthur and Cass, two of the Ohio colonels, were sent, with 350 men, to open, by an inland route, a communication with the convoy at the River Raisin; but, Aug. 14. after marching some twenty-four miles, they entangled themselves in a swamp, and having consumed all their provisions, they turned about for Detroit. Meanwhile, General Brock, governor of Lower Canada. hastening from Little York (now Toronto), the capital Aug. 13. of his province, had reached Malden by water, with a few of the embodied militia. Having recalled Proctor, Aug. 15. and held a council with Tecumseh, he advanced to Sand HULL'S SURRENDER. 341 XXV. 1812. Aug. 16. wich, and summoned Hull to surrender, intimating that, CHAPTER should an assault be necessary, it would be quite beyond his power to restrain his Indian allies. Upon Hull's returning a firm refusal, the British vessels and batteries opened a fire, under cover of which Brock landed. His force, besides some 600 Indians, amounted to 730 regulars and militia, with five small pieces of cannon. Hull's effective force, in the absence of M'Arthur's detachment, was about 800 men, stationed partly in the fort, partly in the town, and partly behind an advanced battery of two twenty-four pounders. These guns were just ready to open on Brock's column, which advanced steadily to the assault, when Hull, to the infinite surprise of his men, called a parley, and offered to capitulate. The terms, as arranged, included the surrender of M'Arthur's detachment, and of the convoy at the River Raisin, in fact, of the whole Territory of Michigan, the territorial militia to be dismissed on parole, the regulars and volunteers to become prisoners of war. M'Arthur's detachment, already near the Fort, upon information of the surrender, fell back a little; but, having been for three days without provisions, except a few potatoes and green pumpkins, they were obliged to send in a flag and to give up their arms. The day before Hull's surrender, the garrison at Fort Dearborn, at the head of Lake Michigan, where now stands the flourishing city of Chicago, then a solitary post in the midst of the wilderness, had evacuated that post, in consequence of orders despatched by Hull, as soon as he had heard of the fall of Michilimackinac. Aug. 15. The retreating column consisted of seventy men, besides women and children, the rear being covered by some Miami Indians, who professed to be friendly. Several hundred Indians, of various tribes, were collected in the |