MOVEMENTS ON THE NIAGARA FRONTIER. 857 XXV. port opposite Sackett's Harbor, and some twenty miles CHAPTER north of it, the Frontenac of the old French wars, by this time a considerable town, and, like York (now To- 1812. ronto), at the opposite end of the lake, a British naval station, far exceeding in population and resources any town on the American side. The American ships followed the British into Kingston harbor, nor did they retire without a vigorous contest with the batteries and the garrison. While thus employed, Chauncey had sent Lieutenant Elliot to Buffalo, with a party of seamen, to make arrangements for a force on the upper lakes. Elliot, soon after his arrival, succeeded in cutting out from under the guns of Fort Erie, nearly opposite Buffalo, two British vessels just arrived from Detroit. One, the late Adams, which the British had armed and equipped, grounded, and it became necessary to destroy her. The other, the Caledonia, of two guns, was brought off, and became the nucleus of the naval force of Lake Erie. Elliot also purchased several small schooners lying in the Niagara River; but they, as well as the Caledonia, lay blockaded at Black Rock, the passage into the lake being commanded by the guns of Fort Erie. Oct. 9. The troops along the Niagara frontier, highly excited by Elliot's exploit, demanded to be led against the enemy; and, under the idea that the British village of Queenstown, at the foot of the falls, might furnish comfortable winter quarters for a part of his troops, Van Rensselaer resolved to attack it. The first attempt to cross failed, through some blunder about the boats; nor were those provided for the second attempt able to carry Oct. 13. more than half the advanced party at once. That party consisted of 600 men, half regulars and half militia. Colonel Van Rensselaer, a kinsman of the general's, who CHAPTER commanded the militia, getting separated from his men, XXV. crossed with the regulars. The boat of Colonel Christie, 1812. who commanded the regulars, failed, in the first instance, owing to the current, to make the opposite shore. The two or three hundred men who effected a landing were soon discovered, and exposed to a sharp fire from a battery of the enemy on the bank above, which also swept the river and the American shore. Rensselaer soon fell, severely wounded; but, under his orders, Captains Ogilvie and Wool stormed the battery, and drove its defenders into a neighboring stone house. In attempting a sally from this house, the British general, Brock, who had come up on the first alarm, was slain; but the house still remained in the enemy's possession, and annoyed with its musketry those who attempted to land. During the next six hours not more than five or six hundred men were got over, along with a single piece of artillery; nor, for want of tools, was any thing done in the way of intrenchments. A body of Indians, of whom there were several villages on the Grand River (emigrants from New York during the Revolutionary war), issued from a neighboring wood, and drove before them a straggling body of the militia, whose flight at first produced a serious panic; but the Indians were charged and repelled by Lieutenant-colonel Scott, who had crossed as a volunteer, and who put himself, for that purpose, at the head of a party of regulars. The sight of the wounded brought across the river had a good deal damped the ardor of the militia, and had contributed, along with the fewness of the boats, and the want of system and arrangement, to retard their embarkation. When at length the musketry was heard of General Sheafe, advancing from Fort George, near the shore of the lake, five miles below, quite overcome at the prospect of this new danger, the militia fell MILITARY MUSTER IN KENTUCKY. 359 XXV. back on their constitutional rights, denying the general's CHAPTER authority to march them into Canada, and resisting all efforts to induce them to embark, for which, indeed, the 1812. boats were entirely insufficient. Those on the Canada shore, though nearly as numerous as Sheafe's force, in attempting to fall back to the water side, were thrown into confusion, and obliged to surrender. The total loss in killed, wounded, and prisoners, mostly the latter, was upward of 1000. The British loss was about 100. Mortified to the highest degree, Van Rensselaer resigned in disgust, and the command passed to Smythe, the inspector general, who was forbidden to make any attempt at crossing with less than 3000 men, and boats sufficient to take that number at once. In consequence of Hull's alarming dispatches, a force to support him had been organized at Georgetown, in Kentucky, consisting of a regiment of regulars, all that could be raised in that very warlike state, and of three regiments of militia volunteers, speedily filled up under the stimulus of Clay's eloquence, and his assurances that Malden, and all Upper Canada along with it, must already have fallen into Hull's hands. But before these troops had crossed the Ohio, news arrived of the fall of Detroit. The dash, not long afterward, of an Indian party southward, and the murder or capture of several families on the southernmost waters of the White River, served to aggravate the alarm. Harrison, under authority from Washington, had already called for the remainder of the Kentucky quota of militia, for the defense of Indiana. Governor Scott ordered out other troops on his own authority. Kentucky became a complete scene of military parade and enthusiasm, and in a short time some ten thousand men were hastening to the scene of hostilities. The Kentuckians had great confidence in Harrison's XXV. CHAPTER military abilities. The troops, on their march for Detroit, insisted on him as a commander; and, with little regard 1812. to the law, which limited commands in the militia to resident citizens, he was made a Kentucky major general by brevet. The Governor of Ohio, on hearing of the fall of Detroit, pushed forward General Tupper, with 2000 men, the remainder of the Ohio quota, as far as Urbana. When the news reached Washington, still other detachments were ordered from Western Virginia and Pennsylvania. In ignorance of the arrangements Aug. 22. in Kentucky, Winchester was assigned to the chief command, while Harrison was to undertake the defense of Indiana and Illinois, with the rank of brigadier general, the same rank being also conferred upon Boyd, the Sept. 6. other joint hero of Tippecanoe. Having reached Piqua with the Kentucky troops, Harrison sent forward a detachment to relieve Fort Wayne. The attempt of the Indians against Fort Harrison, on the Wabash, first by stratagem and then by force, had been already foiled by the sagacity and courage of Captain Taylor, the fu ture major general and president. Harrison's column having moved on to Fort Wayne, Winchester overtook it there, and assumed the command. He, like Hull, had been a Revolutionary officer, but was now old; nor, as a stranger, did he possess the confi dence of the troops. While he advanced slowly and cau tiously toward Fort Defiance, Harrison, without accepting his new appointment as brigadier, returned to Piqua, in hopes to organize a volunteer mounted force for a dash upon Detroit by the inland route of the St. Joseph's-a romantic scheme, cut short by his appointment, in consequence of representations sent from Kentucky, to the chief command of the Western army. That army, including the 3500 militia ordered from the East, but not OPERATIONS IN THE WEST. 361 XXV. yet arrived, was estimated at 10,000 men. Some 4000 CHAPTER mounted Kentucky militia, not included in this estimate, commanded by General Hopkins, another old Revolu- 1812. tionary officer, had assembled at Vincennes, in consequence of the late Indian alarm. Marching thence to Oct. 1 Fort Harrison, but not finding the Indians there, they crossed the Wabash, with a view of attacking the Kickapoo villages on the eastern tributaries of the Illinois. These villages were supposed to be within eighty miles, but were, in fact, near twice as distant. The intervening country was a great prairie; and, after four days' march through it, falling short of provisions, suspecting treachery in the guides, and frightened by the fires which the Indians had kindled, this army of Kentucky horsemen, seized with a sudden panic, in spite of the orders and entreaties of their general, turned about, and retired to Vincennes. The honors of the campaign were thus left to Edwards, governor of the Illinois Territory, who had advanced up the Illinois River with some 400 men, to co-operate with Hopkins, and who succeeded in destroying several Indian villages above Peoria. Harrison, meanwhile, being vested with discretionary authority as to expense, was busily employed in pushing forward provisions to Fort Defiance, Fort M'Arthur, and Upper Sandusky, whence his troops were to march for concentration at the falls of the Maumee, where another depôt was to be established. The swampy character of that wild country, an evil aggravated by the autumn rains, and the incapable sort of people who alone could be had to act as drivers for the pack-horses, involved immense losses, and, finally, proved insurmountable obstacles. The troops, also, became discontented and mutinous. Repeated orders given to Tupper's division, then at Fort M'Arthur, to advance to the Maumee Rapids, |